For a few
semesters now, I’ve taught a course known as College Success, a class that
equips students with the skills and information they need to achieve their
academic goals. Our catalog describes it this way: “A course
designed to empower students to reach their educational, career and life goals.
This class introduces students to a wide range of strategies, techniques and
self-management tools commonly recognized to lead to success.”
This semester, we
started by reviewing a wide range of study skills: test-taking strategies;
memorization methods; time management skills; reading comprehension and
retention; note-taking practices; and even classroom civility, which involves
effective communication.
One day I brought
a plastic apple to class, and the students and I played catch with it for a few
minutes. While tossing it around, we discussed the two primary roles in any
communication exchange: the sender, who conveys information, and the
receiver who, well, receives it. Then I made what's probably an obvious
comparison:
“Communication is
like our game of catch: The one tossing is the sender, the apple is the information, and the student catching it is the receiver."
"Sometimes,
a student tosses the apple, and it's the teacher's task to catch it.
Other times, students are the ones catching the apple. And during
class, the apple is the subject matter being covered."
We then talked
about the many kinds of “apples” students encounter during their college courses,
and the variety of ways in which the apples will be "tossed" — in the
form of assignments, lectures, videos, classroom discussions, and handouts, to
name a few.
Depending on a
student’s preferred learning style, some information is easier to
“catch” than others. A visual learner watching a video, for example,
often engages instinctively with that method of delivery, while an auditory
learner may prefer a lecture.
What happens,
though, when the apple is tossed in a way that makes it a little more difficult to
catch? What happens when the instructor’s
delivery, or perhaps the medium in which the subject matter is conveyed (like
via a reading assignment, or through a Power Point lecture) doesn’t align with
the student’s preferred learning style?
In other words,
if the apple is tossed in a way that makes it a little tougher for a student to
catch, what then?
Our education
system has done a less-than-admirable job of equipping students with the skills
they need to catch the more challenging "tosses" they will encounter
in the classroom.
In fact, many of
today’s students seem to feel that if the apple is tossed in a way they don’t
prefer, or if it’s a little difficult to catch, the teacher — not the student —
needs to adjust. And it's our educational system that has reinforced this
response.
I'll be the first
to say that educators should present subject matter using strategies that can
connect with a variety of learning styles. When we “send” information, we
need to consider our methods carefully and take our students into account.
And just about everyone agrees: it’s a great feeling
when the toss makes it easy for students to grasp the
information being conveyed. Teachers
like it, students love it, and the world of education calls it “effective student engagement.”
But what about
when the delivery is on the challenging side?
What if the apple is tossed in a fashion that makes it a little tougher
to catch? The world of education often
views this kind of experience as “ineffective.” And what's the remedy? The teacher is urged
to toss the apple in a way that makes it easier for students to catch.
This is problematic in at least a few ways.
First, when we
demand that teachers always make the toss easier for students to catch, we are
leading students to believe that the only information worth knowing is the kind that
is easily understood. And we're cultivating their expectation that their employers — not to mention everyone else in their lives — will
accommodate their preferred learning styles.
This sounds to me
like we’re telling our students a lie about the world, not to mention setting them up for disappointment and frustration at best, and maybe even outright failure.
What’s more
important, though, is this:
When we teach our
students to expect the information apple to be tossed in a way that is easy for
them to catch, we're telling them that it's not really important for them to learn how to learn.
We're also sending the clear message that students just aren’t capable of doing the hard
work required to make different kinds of catches.
We aren't just lying to our students about what to expect from the world.
We're lying to them about the importance of learning.
What troubles me the most, though, is this:
We are lying to students about what they can expect from themselves.
Ideally, every
student’s goal should be this: to learn to do whatever it takes to get
hold of the apple.
Students don’t
always like to hear this.
Neither do some parents.
It complicates the world of education in significant ways.
But it's worth it. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll listen to Google's Laszlo Bock, who's quoted in a recent issue of New York Times as saying this: when Google considers potential employees, "the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it's not IQ. . . . It's the ability to process on the fly. It's the ability to pull together disparate bits of information."
In short, "It's learning ability."
In the end, a good education isn't one that settles for tossing the apple of information in ways students prefer. A truly valuable education is one that teaches students how to catch all kinds of tosses.
Learning this
skill makes everyone uncomfortable sometimes.
It requires what a colleague of mine refers to as “productive struggle.”
More on that soon.
