Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Too much education, too little learning
Black economist Walter Williams hits the nail on the head again:
Citing the research of AEI scholar Charles Murray's 2008 book "Real Education," Vedder says: "The number going to college exceeds the number capable of mastering higher levels of intellectual inquiry. This leads colleges to alter their mission, watering down the intellectual content of what they do." In other words, colleges dumb down courses so that the students they admit can pass them
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I've been hearing this load of crap since I was in grade school. Colleges don't dumb down content, they lower the bar for teaching ability. If I had a buck for every instructor I've observed who didn't give a rip whether or not he/she lit the fire of passion for a subject, I could put a down payment on a Mercedes. Colleges measure the "printed" evidence of teaching and hide from outcomes measurement . . . most of the breathers in the seats around me could absolutely "get" the material if it was illuminated by an artist.
ReplyDeleteRidgway: Thanks for the comment. Too many places would rather hire a Ph.D. with no teaching ability or motivation than someone with a Master's degree and high motivation. I've known lots of Ph.D's who couldn't care less about undergraduate learning and career preparation. Many of them are Dept. Chairs, Deans and VP's. They then hire their friends who share their disdain for teaching. Also consider that perhaps the instructors don't give a rip about their teaching because they perceive that no one really cares about learning. See this article on the "low-low contract."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/winship/low_low.pdf
Thanks again!
This is a topic that deserves more discussion. To a certain extent, the future of the Republic is implicated by the preparation of the next generation. I would hope some college students chime in. Excerpts for the low-low article are below. (I agree with most everything on the article and find it consistent with my nearly 40 years as a consumer and provider of higher education)
ReplyDeleteThe Faculty-Student Low-Low Contract (excerpts)
By Christopher Winship
Society, vol. 48, pp. 232-35 (2011)
“In too many college courses, faculty and students appear to engage in what I term a “low-low contract.” Students have low expectations of faculty with respect to teaching and faculty has low expectations of students with respect to studying. To put it colloquially, “faculty pretend to teach, students pretend to study, and as long as parents and others paying the bills are oblivious, everyone is happy.”
Evidence for the “low-low contract” is manifest in the sharp reductions in recent years in the amount of time and effort faculty devote to teaching and the amount of time and effort students put into studying. I argue that the problem with teaching is that because teaching quality is difficult to measure, there is no market for star teachers, as there is for star researchers, with the result that there are little or no incentives to teach well. With respect to studying, the most likely culprit is grade inflation.
The shift in faculty priorities from teaching to research has been well documented and commented on by many. Arum, and Roksa discuss recent research findings by the economists Babcock (UC-Santa Barbara) and Marks (UC-Riverside) that show that in the last four decades the amount of time that students spend studying has fallen by 50% and that currently 35% of students spend five or fewer hours a week studying along. The number one suspect is grade inflation.
Grade inflation may also be a function of how institutional structures have affected faculty behavior. In recent decades, colleges and universities have put increasing effort into evaluating courses and professors’ teaching using student questionnaires. In general, these evaluations do not focus on how much students learn, but rather with student satisfaction. Perhaps this is an outgrowth of the constant pressure to think of students as customers Thus, it is student (customer) satisfaction, not student learning, that has become the measure of faculty teaching. “
Full document available at
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/winship/low_low.pdf
I think there is something to be said regarding the "dumbing down" of content.
ReplyDeleteIn the past five years, I've seen a very steep and consistent pattern of textbooks being diluted into nothing more than glorified outlines of generic course material. The idea seems to be, "Well, the kids don't want to read a big book, so let's give them a smaller, 'pop-up' version." Publishers add pretty pictures and use short paragraphs so that students can just glance over the text, instead of studying it. Not that the publishers are complaining ... smaller, magazine-style books are cheaper for them to produce and provide generous revenue opportunities due to the fact that these 'magazines' have less resale value, and can be easily updated every year, or even every semester.
Another factor here, is the presence of remedial courses. These courses bridge the gap between the student's current ability and an entry-level college course. Don't get me wrong ... if a serious student is ready for college in most areas, and just needs a little help getting up to speed in math, these classes are great.
However, when you have remedial courses that prepare a student for the next remedial course, which THEN prepares them for the ACTUAL course, the result is a student who has been in college for a year before actually taking a college-level course. Oftentimes, this leads to students who now have either run out of financial aid, can no longer afford paying for college on their own, or who are simply burned out. All before really being exposed to "higher" education. Yet, these courses remain in place because they keep the system going.
Who cares if students drop out early? Well, the state likes to show how much it's contributing to education through financial aid and government funding, and the schools like the monetary infusion. But if students drop out, the schools can lose that money ... so schools are financially motivated to meet students where they are at, as opposed to where they should be.
And that leads us to the real problem, in my opinion. A large portion of students are not prepared for college coming out of high school. Whereas the emphasis in middle school and high school used to be on building a platform for higher education, it is now focused on being able to pass a standardized test. It's academic bulimia ... swallow the answers, hold them until test time, then throw them up.
I don't believe college should be accessible to anyone. I believe it should be accessible to anyone whose willing to work for it. I've had great teachers before, and I've had lousy teachers as well. Sure, a great teacher can make education fun, and can probably reach students that other teachers cannot reach. But in the long run, knowledge is out there, ready to be absorbed if you know how to find it.
Students need to "learn how to learn." They need to be able to identify what they don't know, why it's important to them, research to find the information, and then understand how to apply that information. If students are prepared to do this when they enter college, teachers will be able to guide them toward knowledge as opposed to spoon feeding it to them.
So yes, I believe colleges are reaching down to students who are not ready for higher education. This results in students who are frustrated with classes that aren't providing academic stimulus -- as well as teachers frustrated with students who are there because they can be, not because they truly WANT to be.
Had to take a break and split this into two comments. First, in spite of my negativity, every day I also see lots of excellent teachers who sincerely care about student learning and career preparation. Perhaps the difference is between teachers for whom teaching is a "calling" and those for whom it is just a job. Being a "job," human nature compels many to do as little as possible for the paycheck and give their priority to their hobbies, part-time jobs, etc. They take advantage of the low-low contract and "let's pretend" game. I consider teaching a "calling." Unfortunately, for too many students, such teachers seem unduly demanding and picky. For many with administrative duties, such teachers interfere with the goals of making sure that even the least-motivated students are recruited, retained and graduate.
ReplyDelete"Excellence" is bad word for these folks. They are mired in mediocrity.
12 Gage: Thanks for the long comment. I agree re textbooks and know that you have seen lots over the years. I think we basically agree on many things. Too many students, esp. at many non-selective universities, are unprepared academically and maturationally. This requires remedial classes and dumbing everything down to keep good recruitment, retention and graduation rates. With regard to remedial classes, their widespread existence and use suggests that public authorities have essentially given up using H.S. to prepare folks for college. H.S. has been dumbed down and turned into an exam preparation exercise. Open (or nearly open) college admission policies mean that these folks, rather than being properly educated and prepared, are socially promoted into college. College should not be available for students until they are prepared for it by H.S. If they can't pass the entrance exams they should be sent back to H.S., not admitted to a univ. Of course, by the time reach H.S. it is too late. Many have realized that public education is largely a joke and have inadequate self-discipline skills and habits. Remedial classes also siphon off resources for qualified students. Public education has largely become a "let's pretend." It enough people pretend then it becomes, for many, their alternative version of "reality."
ReplyDeleteUnmentioned in this string is the "Power Trip" that can be found in teaching . . . the tenured prof who decides to use humiliation to motivate or wash out. I remember an episode as a nontraditional student where a "legendary" figure (who was forcibly retired a few years later) disrespected a large roomful of students after setting them up --- there were no further tirades after we chatted about it. An unhealthy ego can be devastating to enlightenment.
ReplyDelete