I once completed a 3 credit college course in 1 weekend and they had to change the online rules because of me. I'm quite proud of that actually. You guys are lightweights and I laugh at some of the pompous attitudes presented, not necessarily yours Wade.
Originally Posted by: DakotaT
I remember when I went to college, I was told to expect a
minimum of 2-3 hours of work outside of class for every hour of credit I took. Math, language courses, others that assigned specific daily homework exercises, I was told, usually meant more. Science courses with labs (which was all of them, then, unlike now) -- well, expect the labs to take as long as it took, and some of them (intro bio, intro chem) were notorious for "going 3-4 hours or more with great regularity. My French 1 class was entirely in French (including every word in the textbook) -- it was about a third of the way through the term when I finally got the courage to go to the profs office and found out she actually spoke English (and was from southern california).
This gradually evolved. About ten years ago, "minimum of 2-3 hours per..." became "up to 2-3 hours".
Now? Well, based on what students self-report on their course evaluations (of profs, not of us), about half of students spend less than
2-3 hours per week.
A big part of this, of course, is due to the mistaken belief that everyone has to have a college degree. And so we have what the statistical types call a "bi-modal" distribution of students. About half have come out of the top third of their high schools -- these are the same sort of people who went to college straight from high school for the fifties, sixties, seventies, and part of the eighties.
The other half? Mostly from the next third, with extra weight on the people at the bottom of that range, between the 30th and the 50th percentile.
Personally, I don't think most of the people going to college today should be in college. Not because they are too "dumb", though, but because they are not ready for college level work, they have better things to do with their early adulthood, or both. But put that aside -- it's a free country and if they think a college education is what is needed, then they should be free to make as many dunderheaded and expensive and life-wasting decisions as I and others have made as adults.
But effectively teaching a bi-modal group is next to impossible the way the education system is set up. At least I have found it so.
When I abandoned my first career and went back to graduate school, it was because I wanted to teach. But I did not want to teach high schoolers -- my memories as one of the bookish in high school are mostly unpleasant, and I wanted to be in a place where students were there because they wanted to be there and because they, more or less, liked the kind of thinking/activity that used books/libraries/classrooms/etc., people who liked the idea of hanging out with and talking with professor/teacher types.
Oh, I realize that college was never this kind of ideal -- my late brother was a frat boy from whom I learned to expect a college town to have something like Water Street in Eau Claire (where he went) or State Street in Madison (where my sister went). Partying, sports, sex -- these are and were a big part of the life, too.
But what is different is this: in my day, in my brother's, everyone accepted that "the academics" were a full time job that came lots of overtime and weekend work. That when push comes to shove, and something has to give, it is the other stuff that must give. You want to do the Greek thing like John Belushi in Animal House? Well, you might be able to do it, but you ain't going to graduate. You want/need to work full time? Well, then you're going to have to give up your weekends and work into the wee hours on your books. You want to get involved in a cause or political campaign? Well, you better go part time or take a semester off? You want to keep getting the A's you got in high school, well, expect to work most weekends and still be disappointed because the kids here are a lot tougher competition than they were in high school?
Well, that world is gone. They aren't called "extra-curricular" activities any more. They're called "co-curricular" activities, and the academic part is the less important part.
Be clear here: the real problem is not that we emphasize sports and similar extra/co-curricular activities too much (though personally, I think we do). The real problem is not that the professorial types are ivory tower types with little understanding of the "real world" (though, IMO, we are).
No, the real problem is that acquiring the real skills that colleges and universities at their best have been about is bloody hard work, stuff that takes as much work and practice and time as any professional job.
I don't mean the skills of the 3 R's -- while, of necessity we find ourselves having to spend a lot of time on these, those are skills that students should have before starting college.
I mean the next-order skills that one builds on a foundation of those 3 R's, life experience, and habits of careful thinking and observation. Skills of synthesizing information from a variety of sources. Skills of being to assess and evaluate that information. Skills of collaborating with people with different interests and motivations. Skills of being able to do all these things without supervision and detailed instructions. Skills of knowing when to lead and when to follow. Skills of knowing when to draw an analogy and when not to. Skills of listening. Skills of logic and empirics and observation. Skills of learning how to deal with assholes and the unfairness of life that go beyond pointing fingers of blame and running home to mommy, daddy, and Big Brother.
We can debate whether going off to college is the best way for a 20-year-old to acquire and develop these next-order skills. I personally think we need to find a way to return to the older master/apprentice model.
But the reality is that before we can find the best way, we must first understand and accept that whatever way we choose will demand full-time attention (or more) from the student/apprentice/learner/whatever. And they -- and we, as the society who allows them the time to give that attention -- must accept that demand. The student/apprentice must accept the reality that adults -- even learning adults -- don't get the choice of "both" anywhere as often as the spoiled child does. Those of us who would have our young adults do this learning must accept the reality that they're going to have to be supported. Those of us who would have those learners do other things, whether they are sports, frats, jobs, music groups, political action, or anything else, must recognize that we are going to be relegated to second place or third place or fourth place.
And we need to understand that we're not talking about finding ways to do all these things for an elite 5-10% of the young adult like the old days. We have to find ways of doing all these things for 50-70% of that population,
Until we do that, until we come to grips with what those potential learners of skills must be doing with *the great majority of their waking hours,* all the ideas and the government funding and the task groups and the yammering about the problems of higher education are going.
Because Kevin is absolutely correct. It's not about giving those young adults anything. It's not about serving them. It's not about centering ourselves on their needs. It's about what they can (l)earn. It's about the time they put into it, and how they put the time in.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)