Students often approach me in the hallway or just after class with the phrases “quick question” or “gotta quick question forya.” I almost always jokingly reply with, “There are no quick questions.” What do I mean by this? Questions fit into two categories: asked and unasked. The rate at which they are asked is irrelevant. These students are asking for my time, and believe you me, if a student comes to me with a question, I have time. There are far too many unasked questions. I suspect that there is also far too little questioning going on in the first place among some students due to a lack of curiosity. Unasked questions and lacking inquiry represent two very important distinct challenges for the educator.
Why would a student leave questions unasked? I can think of a few reasons, though I am sure there are many others that I am not aware of. First, the student may not feel comfortable asking questions, which could be because he/she is shy, reserved, afraid of the professor, et cetera. In my experience, when I suspect this is occurring, if I try to make that student more comfortable, I often make them less so. Perhaps it is best to back off in hope that these students will eventually feel comfortable enough to ask questions. Second, now and then there are students who have become cynical, and perhaps they do not ask questions because they are tired of doing so or angry at the process or at me. In my opinion, it is also important to back away and let these students come to me because they are already cynical and do not want to be pushed. Such students are missing an opportunity because if they have the critical thinking skills to become cynical, then with a shift in mindset they could become better students (even if they are already good students).
Another reason is that some students do not think it is important to ask questions because they believe that courses should offer all of the information that they need. Oh how I wish this was possible! But here’s why it is not. Education passes through the medium of humanity, professors. And, as a result, teaching is a flawed process. I regularly botch communication of concepts, ideas, facts, and other materials. Without dialogue from questioning students, I would have no barometer for determining whether or not I am getting my points across. The only real difference between students and professors is level of experience; we have more practice with the information. We have accumulated more knowledge and have honed our skills for longer. Without student questions, we cannot know if they are benefiting from our experience.
The other major reason for unasked questions is that there is simply too little questioning going on, and this is a different matter altogether—a crisis of curiosity. For this, society is to blame. We have turned the opportunity of “seeking an education” into the “right to have a degree.” These are two very different things; the first requires curiosity, the second requires cash (or credit), a bit of time, and proficiency for placing checkmarks next to boxes. Clearly, there must be time limits on how long a student can meander through the system (e.g., the State of Texas is appropriately concerned about time to graduation). But, a college education is not simply a period of time with a degree as an endpoint. If we hope to have mindful graduates who can settle the critical issues of the 21st century, we must challenge them with a much broader college experience.
To conclude, there are no quick questions, but there is “the long and short of it.” As citizens of a free society with the right to seek an education, we must ask ourselves: what do we want education to be? Is college a place for discovery? Or is it a place to purchase a degree? There can be no doubt; we face this choice today, now. If we choose the latter, we will have many frustrated people pursuing careers that bore them. If we choose the former, we will have more people in careers that fascinate them.
You have mentioned in several posts of yours about a Crisis of Curiosity, which people are not questioning enough. I firmly disagree. In my experience with school and other...people do share an interest in learning, it’s the passion we’re running low on. We’re low on passion because of all the variables you have presented:
ReplyDeleteEducation as a means to get a degree and not satisfy knowledge, power points, unstructured programs, too much emphasis on research and not teaching, et cetea.
Being a student of Geography, I would like to share my experience with it. I personally have trouble “asking questions” in many of my classes because I am too busy (as are my peers) asking bigger questions of: Why does this matter to Geography? What IS Geography? What is our degree preparing us for? Is this what is right for me?
Now, I may be out on a limb here however, I believe that the Geography Degree I am a part of could much better be described as an “Earth Science” Degree with a few “other” classes involved. It geared for an extremely “practical” end (GIS). Is this wrong? No. Geography is as big as you would like it to be (scale). What is wrong is that we should be more honest about what ends the degree is serving and how we get there. The effects of this identity crisis are a significantly diminished passion because how are we supposed to be passionate about Geography when frankly; our classes don’t teach us what it is.
I do not mean this to be a cop-out. There is much responsibility on students to trust the professors to give them a good education and to obediently complete their coursework. I am sure that you don’t think there is a crisis of curiosity simply because of our program and even smaller my experience with it so I apologize for that rant.
There is no shortage of interest in learning as much as there is an overdraft of excitement! As proof, I bring up your 3190 class. Was it balls hard? Yes. Did you intentionally make it difficult? Yes! But you had a passion for it that you passed along to more people than you’d like to know. Rarely do I find people who did not like your class at the end of it. To this day, I get a little excited about the central limit theorem, and on occasion I can share it with someone else. The classes I have worked hardest for are when my professor is excited to teach. Looking back, I find very few who are, does this mean I question less? I’d like to think not, it means that I question elsewhere.
Ah yes! But my perspective comes not only as a professor but as a recent student who took undergraduate through graduate level classes (here) during the last five years. Not long ago I was sitting next to your peers, actively engaging with them, what anthropologists call 'participant observation.' These posts are "just my opinion," and I believe there is a crisis of curiosity on most fronts... Imagine the most dull, uninspired, confusing teacher possible for a class that was not required; then imagine a student who figured out the material anyway. In my opinion, that's passion for learning and curiosity!
ReplyDeleteAlways a pleasure, DSP