I have recently been inspired by a Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts (RSA) video sketching a speech by Sir Ken Robinson, a global leader in addressing problems in Western education (link to Sir Ken Robinson sketch). The video is inspiring because it does not assign blame to teachers or students regarding the failings of education. Robinson challenges the very foundation of modern education, pulling it out to its roots, examining its structure, and calling for an about-face in the new information age.
To summarize, his position is that we saturate young minds with all kinds of entertaining media for decades of their lives, and then we expect them to be fascinated by the relatively boring materials we present in college classes using education models structured by the enlightenment and by the industrial age. He indicates that, yes, we do need to maintain and raise standards, but that we have standardized ourselves into an educational prison. The application of our educational models in this new age of multitasking with information through diverse media has created such chaos that we often anesthetize our youth (using prescription drugs) so that they can focus upon schoolwork. To be aesthetic, Robinson reminds us, is to be fully alive; to anesthetize is to deaden one's senses. The conundrum is that students (on average) no longer feel enlivened by scholarship.
To the professor, this ‘boring stuff’ is the stuff of life; we live for curiosity and exploration of knowledge, whether it be inspiration in knowing literature from the past and present, creativity in the form of artistic expression, or discovery in science through hypothesis-testing of empirical relationships. How utterly shocking it continues to be that curiosity for its own sake appears to be ill, dying, or perhaps dead!
As with many other examples of inspiration that influence my teaching, that from Robinson has evolved in the middle of the semester, well into the routine of classes. I am teaching a large introductory freshman survey course for the first time in five years, and things have changed. When I last taught at this level, students usually bombed the first exam, I gave them some tools and a kick in the behind, and they gradually improved. This semester nothing has worked, and I know that students are trying. I have pondered the range of possible reasons: have I lost touch? Is this a bad crop of students? Am I teaching poorly? Is the course so much different than other entry level courses? I think it is none of these, after much deliberation.
My impression is that Sir Ken Robinson is correct; my (our) model of education no longer fits the entering college population. We are selling a boring product in a market that requires entertainment. There all kinds of signs, such as generally poor attendance. However, I think the most telling sign is that students no longer have the ability to solve ill-structured problems, which are those that are open-ended, requiring use of multitudes of information to build arguments (see Poorly Structured Problems post). This is very evident in the kinds of multiple-choice questions that students succeed at answering in my Earth Science class. Difficulty of these questions is three-tiered: the least difficult questions use one concept in the question that relates directly to recognizing one response among possible answers. Difficulty increases when multiple concepts are used in the question, directionality of processes are inferred, and more than one outcome might be included in the correct response.
Poor performance on the difficult questions in not simply a matter of poor study effort. I have students who laboriously wade through the material day after day; many of them simply do not have the skills to think integratively, what Robinson calls ‘divergent thinking’ or the ability to assess multiple possibilities and envision many outcomes. Why? Because they have been trained to problem-solve only in terms of linear thinking through years of 'teaching to the test' and standardization.
The Age of Multitasking has led to single-minded, linear, short-term thinking. However, most of the problems of globalization are ill-structured, requiring dedicated focus and Robinson’s divergent thinking. We must reward focused mastery of 'the boring stuff' to escape this quandary. Unfortunately, the university degree is no longer the reward it once was. In areas of the world in which education is on the rise, the college degree is a mighty socioeconomic reward. The choices in America are no longer “labor 12 hours per day in the grueling heat of a factory” or “get a college degree and a better job.” The impetus for focusing on education as one of life’s rewards has changed, as the desire for accessible entertainment has risen. Here are three perspectives that might promote focus away from entertaining distractions.
First, a curious mind is a relevant mind. There are real problems in the world at multiple geo-spatial scales involving complex interactions of beneficial and nefarious social, environmental, economic, political and other processes. In America we do not experience the repercussions of impacts to the same degree that people do in many other parts of the world; ignoring this fact does not lessen its validity. The world needs divergent problem solvers; thus, the act of being curious is an applied perspective.
Second, problem solving is satisfying. Being a divergent thinker who can assemble the puzzle pieces of modern global (or local) problems may be much better for the soul (mind, heart, whatever one calls it) than the short-term addictive pulse of instant gratification. Problem solving is inherently giving, and instant gratification is inherently taking. Giving is simply more satisfying.
Third, we may have no choice. Even doubters of the veracity of the current environmental crisis (e.g., global warming) who have curious minds for problem solving are coming to see that global society must find new ways to live (science by skeptics supports global warming). Caution does not require complete knowledge, just curiosity about potential outcomes.
So the challenge these days is no longer teaching one class, such as Earth Science, or another. It is providing the reason to be there in the first place and teaching the skills of divergent thinking and problem solving in a world saturated with information from constant media exposure. Only time will tell if academia can adapt and survive in the Age of Multitasking.
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