Teaching – Page 6 – College Ready Writing 1.0

Rhetorical Analysis Essays and Following Directions

I have just corrected the first batch of my students’ rhetorical analysis essays. They were…not as strong as I would have hoped. One of the most frustrating elements was the students’ inability to follow simple directions. They were limited to using the textbook and the piece of rhetoric they had chosen to analyze and needed to be approximately five pages long, double-spaced.

For students, and even for some professors and instructors, the requirements of assignments often seem arbitrary; why the textbook and not online sources, if it’s the same information? And why five pages? What if we can do it in two? And why a rhetorical analysis?

Seemingly arbitrary assignments that ask students to fulfill certain requirements are not, in fact, arbitrary and actually teaches them practical skills like knowledge transfer and good, old-fashioned following directions. Placing limits on the students’ resources was meant to focus their attention on the task instead of research. The page count was framed to let the students know that the depth of analysis required will take about five pages. The one piece of rhetoric was, again, selected to allow students to focus, read and re-read, as well try and accomplish the proper amount of depth in their analysis. And finally, why a rhetorical analysis? Considering the amount of rhetoric students are exposed to, it seems like a worthwhile exercise to get them to think more critically and deeply about it.

Some of my students ignored the page count. Others, the resource limitations. And still others seemed not to bother with the analysis part of the assignment. These are all elements that we discussed at length in class, which they had been reading about for homework, worked on in small group discussions, and went through in the guided peer review and self-assessment. I prepared them as much as I could to fulfill at least the minimum requirements of the assignment. And yet.

They will probably never have to do another rhetorical analysis essay in their lives, although they will use rhetoric, whether they intend to or not. But they will have to follow directions, deal with seemingly arbitrary limitations, and produce quality work in less than ideal with even less guidance than I provided. Job applications, reports, presentations, bureaucratic paperwork, emails, and everything in between all have their own set of rules and directions to follow which can change in mid-stream. Plus, it’s not a poor grade that the student will have to deal with, but the very real possibility that they won’t get the job, promotion, sale, or even lose their job.

But students also need to be able to think critically and independently, because often they won’t receive direction but a set of parameters and expectations that they need to meet. The only advice that they will get is to figure it out. While I don’t expect my Freshmen and Sophomores to do their assignments with so little guidance, I do expect them to begin to actively work in order to eventually get there. It’s not just about the grade; it’s about their employment future.

So while I am fulling the student learning outcomes set forth by our university, I am also trying to get students prepared for life after college. Follow directions and meet parameters. There is nothing arbitrary about it.

If You Won’t Be A Disruptive Influence in Class, Then I Will

Nothing like shaking the intellectual foundations that students hold to be self-evident to get them out of their apparent stupor. Suggest that education could and does serve a purpose beyond financial gain? Heresy, and they let me know it.

One particular student, before class, was loudly complaining about the quality of the readings on education that they had to do for homework; she sits in the front and timed her comment just as I was walking by. Duly noted. As the class progressed, she clearly indicated that she thought that the ideas about education being put forth in the essays were completely impractical and not at all useful, and thus a waste of her time.

What were these essays about? “Ancient” ideas about what education is for: shaping better human beings (although in the essays, they say and mean men). Education for the purpose of profit or making money was frowned upon, if not outright dismissed as being the dirty work of the sophists. It wasn’t all just Ancient Greece, either; we read essays on education from Ancient China and the Ancient Islamic world. But all three shared a few important commonalities: education for the general greater good, education involves hard study, and education to better the human soul.

These ideas are, of course, completely foreign and almost inconceivable for my students. They all agreed that they were in college to get their degrees and get a job and no other purpose, except perhaps to party and move out of their house. This idea that education could be useful and good for reasons other than economic is a provocation, a disruption. And I just. Kept. Pushing.

How many of you have really ever thought about the reasons you decided to come to college? I mean, really thought about it? I asked them what they thought about school, and why, then, does school seem so opposed to what education might or could be about? Eyes rolled and I heard what these Ancients were proposing for education was both impractical and inefficient. And the system we have today is efficient and practical? Why is it that we abandoned these ancient ideas of education at the same historical moment we started educating everyone?

I pushed and I pushed. How is our blind adherence to what our teachers and professors say any different than a bling adherence to what a preacher says? Each is accepted unquestioningly by you, the learner and listener. Do you do anything during your time here in university other than listen to the teacher, takes notes, and cram for the exams? Do you actually take the time to think and to really learn?

I admitted that, at the end of the day, we’re all here for similar reasons: the money. I try to encourage their enthusiasm for the course by pointing out all of the ways that what we are doing will help them be successful in and after college. I know the rules of the game, and I am a product of it. But from now until the end of the semester, I’m going to do my best to be a disruptive influence on their (and my own) education.

Creativity, Disruptive Behavior, and Higher Education

My kids are playing with play clay while I type this. It’s amazing how a simple thing can keep my almost-four-year-old and barely-two-year-old entertained for, well, an hour, tops. But the different things they can come up with to do with or imagine the play clay as being is amazing. It’s a wonder to watch; my mind can’t get around how they can keep themselves occupied with a pile of mushy stuff.

And therein lies the problem. I’ve always considered myself a bit of a child at heart, but my children have taught me that there is a big difference between being a child and being childish or even immature. My kids are open, honest, imaginative, and inquisitive. Having fun, for my kids, is serious business, and they can concentrate quite hard and find great pleasure in a task as seemingly mundane as putting a cap on a marker or rolling out a piece of play clay.

This, of course, is nothing new nor revolutionary. No less than The Chronicle have featured academics who are looking to save childhood and play. But it is interesting to me to see where my kids may end up in 15 years. Rather, it terrifies me.

I teach college freshman and sophomores. With my 200-level students, we talk about education and education reform. To kick things off, we watch Sir Ken Robinson’s animated video “Changing Education Paradigms.” He talks about, among other things, divergent thinking and how it is a skill that we lose the older (and more educated) we get. He asked the questions: How many uses can you think of for a paper clip? At this point in the video, I pause it and ask the students to offer their answers. The looks I get range from bored to mildly exasperated to outright hostility; the students are being asked a question with no direct application nor clear right answer. It is both unfamiliar and wholly unexpected. We’re lucky, as a class, if we come up with 15.

All save for one student last semester. He kept yelling out uses, even after we had moved on to watching the video again. This was a student who was constantly pushing and provoking me, either by saying outrageous things or asking what he thought were awkward questions. I welcomed his prodding as long as it didn’t become disruptive which is never did. He was a smart kid hiding behind a smart-ass attitude and a heavy Southern accent. Every single one of his suggestions was a way he had used a paper clip to disrupt his high school classroom, drive his teacher insane, and mostly kill time and try to assuage boredom.

I now use him as an example; what do you think, I ask my students, the reaction of his teachers were? He is disruptive, he is a nuisance, he is a trouble-maker, he is not school material. In other words, dumb. But this is obviously a smart and industrious kid who was bored out of his mind and found a way to make the time more enjoyable. Imagine, I tell my students, if a teacher had found a way to harness that creative and restless energy in a more productive way? Make something, as Sir Ken Robinson would say, that has value. What if he had listened to his teachers who told him that he didn’t fit?

I equate it to George and Fred Weasley from the Harry Potter books; their pranks and tricks were ultimately useful and effective at fooling the Death Eaters. But they had to drop out of school in order to really achieve their goals. They really excelled at divergent thinking, but it was seen as disruptive behavior. I enjoy my disruptive students because they push me, they make the class lively, and they always make me smile; they approach learning with the abandon and enthusiasm of a child.

My classes this semester could use with a little more disruptive behavior. And I struggle with how to encourage divergent thinking in my own children without them being labeled as trouble-makers or disruptive influences in class. I want to support and help guide disruptive behavior because I don’t want my kids to be staring at their writing prof like my students stare at me. I want my kids to remember that there is more than one use for a paper clip.

When a Failing Grade is the Only Motivation that Works

I’ve written about it before, but I’ve got carrots and I’ve got sticks. It is up to my students to figure out which one works best for their motivation in my class. Today, in my developmental writing class, we started the peer review process. They were supposed to have brought a full draft of their narrative essays to class; not even half did. The ones who did, after I spent 10 minutes trying to get them to discuss the purpose behind peer review (more feedback from many people is always better, they need to learn how to do this on their own, and I am trying to get them to practice), half of the class that did bring their draft sat there doing nothing even as I said, “now exchange your papers and start giving and getting feedback!”

I acknowledged their lack of confidence; you’re all in the same boat, and you are all here to help each other learn, I said. I provided questions that they should answer that provide guidance as to what they should be looking for in a “good” narrative essay (I tried to get them to come up with it, but after five minutes of dead air, I gave up). I basically provided every incentive and justification I could come up with (the carrots) to get them to take some initiative and take this process seriously. I’m not necessarily proud of this, but let me frustration with them show; the student who sat there for half the class not doing anything because no one either told him who to exchange his paper with or came up to him personally to ask him to make the switch sent me over the edge. Take some initiative and responsibility for your learning, I hollered.

Today, I reached the limit of my mother-hen approach to teaching; some of my students expect Mamma to do it for them. While I am there for advice, guidance, and support, I am not there to mash their food for them and spoon it into their mouthes. I think that’s an apt metaphor for the educational experience many of these students have had: pre-chewed, easy-to-digest education that is bland and tasteless, doing the bare minimum to nourish their minds (if that). When I think of it that way, I do have some sympathy for them. But at the same time, I’ve given them all the tools they need to do it themselves, and yet they still sit there passively waiting for…what, I don’t know.

Thankfully, I am old-school insofar as I give grades. And, for many of these students, that is the only thing that will get their attention: a poor or failing grade. This is a last-chance situation for all of them because if they don’t pass my developmental writing class this semester, they will be kicked out of school. They all have the potential to do well in my class, but they have to be willing to put the work in. A big E (we don’t have F’s) can force even the most apathetic student to grow up and at least attempt to fly on their own in a hurry.

My best students are the ones who had me last semester and didn’t pass; they know that they need to be there, do the work, and take it seriously. Maybe I need to have them speak to the class without me in there. Because for the other kids in my class, the lesson will otherwise come a semester too late.

Teaching While Female Confession: I’m a Mother-Hen

My recent post on how hard it is for me to cancel my classes because I care quite deeply about “my” kids/students generated quite a lot of discussion and a lot of reassurance, which I found both surprising and deeply comforting. Surprising because of the general academic discourse that takes place about power relationships between professor and students and issues of being labeled unserious as a female academic because you nurture, but deeply comforting because it reinforces the almost instinctive approach I’ve taken to teaching my entire life. As far back as I can remember, if I’ve been teaching or coaching, they’ve been “my” kids.

I started coaching swimming when was 16, but even before that, I was one of the people the coaches could count on to help with the little kids. I loved swimming, and somehow I knew that nurturing young swimmers was the best way to give back to the sport I loved so much. I took my role personally; I was constantly reprimanded for being too emotional at swim meets, punctuated by panicky outbursts when I thought I had let my swimmers down somehow. Now I’ll admit to being a little over-dramatic in my late teen, but many of my co-workers treated lifeguarding as “just” a summer job and their only interest was to keep it. Looking back, I (either wisely or foolishly) didn’t care what my supervisors thought of my work; all I cared about was whether or not my kids were a) learning to swim and b) having fun. Looking back, I must have been an absolute nightmare to have on staff.

This continued on well past when I had left coaching and had begun teaching. When I was just starting my MA, I taught at English Second Language summer “camp” (the director hated that). The kids were with us for three weeks of intense language immersion. I taught a formal class and supervised their newspaper project. My second summer teaching there, one girl was going through a rough period, and one night, she had a nervous breakdown. I knew that there were issues at home and before the break happened I told her, in French, that if she ever needed to talk, she should come to me.

I was the one, then, who held her hand and talked her down that day as we went from hospital to hospital trying to figure out what was wrong. Once her father arrived and we were dismissed from our duties, the director admitted that if it hadn’t been for me, the day probably would not have gone as (relatively) smoothly as it did. He didn’t know that I had gone through a similar event with a close friend a few years earlier, but it also just came naturally; as with my close friend, I was the one in bed with her while she cried as my other friends tried to find someone to call for real help. Someone needed to take care of them, and I was that person, whether it be for a close friend or student I barely knew.

This has continued on as I have taught and coached; I was the one nagging the college swimmers about their health, their eating, and often the one they confided in. It’s a lot harder now because I have more and bigger classes. There is also a distance that is implied in higher education a lot of the times between professor and student. But whenever and however I can, I get to know my students and find ways to let them know that I take their education seriously. It’s one of the reasons moving around so much has been so difficult for me; once I get to know, really know, a group of students, I’m gone. I’ve told my students, even if I’m not teaching here anymore, track me down and email me if you ever need anything.

I am a mother-hen, for better or for worse, and I always have been. It’s who I am as a teacher and a person. For me, it’s a strength that I use along with my expertise and experience. No one taught me how to care about “my” students; it just came naturally. You can be sure, though, because I care, I’ve worked really hard on everything else. Because that’s what good teachers do.

“Pump Up The Volume”: Lessons about Social Media, Education, and Change

In an interesting coincidence, my post for the University of Venus about why people in higher education should blog (agency and action, people!) came out on the same day that the now-former president of Egypt finally stepped down, a product of a revolution fueled by social media. So while I read comments (ok, one comment) on the post about how futile it was to write about our anger and dissatisfaction, a dictator was brought down by that same seemingly futile anger and dissatisfaction.

But the comment does bring up a good question: who is really listening? I would argue that if your feelings and perspective are shared by others, then you are speaking to while simultaneously creating a community, and leaving an archive that can be found and read by those who might not even know that such a community even exists. But really, at the end of the day, there is something, as I wrote, really empowering about finding your voice and finally using it honestly and authentically, even if your audience is potentially non-existent. Because you never know what could happen.

The movie Pump Up The Volume came out when I was 12 or 13 years old. It starred Christian Slater, who, at that time, was my super-dreamy dreamboat. And in this movie, more so than say Heathers, he pulled off being both rebellious and insecure, which is like candy to a 13-year-old’s fantasy life (that metaphor made no sense). Slater plays quiet, insecure Mark Hunter, a new student at a large high Arizona high school. But at night, he becomes Hard Harry, broadcasting an illegal radio show using the ham radio his parents bought him so he could theoretically talk to his old friends back on the East Coast. As Hard Harry, he behaves outrageously and says outrageous (but truthful) things, things that “the man” doesn’t want to hear (and plays awesome music; this movie was my introduction to Leonard Cohen). Mark doesn’t have an audience; he broadcasts his show for no one but himself and a theoretical audience of his peers.

It should be noted that the movie opens with a Billy Idol wanna-be being thrown out of school, along with a couple of other rough looking teens and Hispanics. That same Billy Idol wanna-be is sitting in a field at night and happens to come across the Hard Harry Show. The news of the illicit show and shock jock (Howard Stern wasn’t yet in syndication, so I don’t even know if the term existed yet) spread like wildfire across the school (the term now would be “going viral”), with students passing around tapes of the show they made themselves. It was bedlam at the school, and soon he was Public Enemy Number One, especially after Hard Harry didn’t dissuade a student from committing suicide.

The movie ends with the FCC coming in and shutting down the “illegal” broadcasts (he didn’t have a license; which is as laughable as the EPA being the reason that the Ghostbusters were shut down). But before that happens, a sympathetic teacher, informed by questions Hard Harry was asking, uncovers the corruption and fraud going on in the high school; those students who were expelled in the opening scenes were removed because of their low tests scores but the school was still drawing state money for them. It should also be noted that Hard Harry’s father was a big-wig working for the school district who was also completely ignorant of the fraud going on under his watch. It was, in fact, the angry and lonely rants of a young teen boy that brought down the system that was failing the students. After we fade to black, we hear a tentative female voice asking, “Is anyone out there listening?” and she is joined by a number of other young voices, broadcasting themselves, inspired by Hard Harry and the impact he had on his community.

Now, we have blogs, YouTube, Twitter, facebook, and any number of other means of adding our voice, creating community, and affecting change. And, twenty (gulp, really, this movie is 20 years old) years later, many of the issues the movie addresses, albeit sometimes subtly, have been exploded: focus on test scores, unequal educational opportunities based on race, general fiscal corruption, and the dangers of a powerful and misguided bureaucracy. What goes viral nowadays has more to do with gross-out humor (which Hard Harry did a lot of) and pop culture. But, as we see in Egypt, there is the great potential for ordinary people using their voices for real change. I think Pump Up The Volume can teach us, ahem, volumes about the power of individuals using their voice to create change, especially in education.

To co-opt the expression from Hard Harry: Blog Hard, everyone, Blog Hard.

Setting Priorities: Choosing Between “My” Two Sets of Kids

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I canceled class today. Both my kids are sick (one has an ear infection, the other has…trouble keeping food down), my husband is out of town at a conference, and I am a sleep-deprived mess. The kids’ preschool was closed yesterday as well, and while I found childcare, I almost passed out while I was teaching. The thought of trying to lecture with little to no sleep while my kids were at home, miserable, was too much for me, but it took me forever to finally send out the email to my students officially informing them that class would be canceled.

Part of my hesitancy is because of where we are in the semester: in the early stages of writing the first major essay. I am trying to treat the whole exercise as a process with lots of different steps, focusing especially on how you can set yourself for success early in said process. I am particularly worried about my Freshman Writing students; most of them are in my class because they were in developmental writing last semester or they failed the class in the fall. I want to help these students be successful; I care about their success and take my role in helping them succeed very seriously.

My title alludes to how I see my students as “my” kids, although many of them are the same age as I am or older. There was a post on Hook and Eye (it was subsequently removed; I think the author hit post instead of save and I just happened to be looking in my blog feed at the right moment) that talked about the power structure inherent in calling them “my” students, as well as the possible gendered implications as a female instructor. For me, calling them “my” students or kids is not an effort on my part to reduce their position and increase my power and authority, but instead a reflection of how personally I take my role as their teacher. I want them to see me as their teacher, belonging to them, not just now but as long as they need me. Our roles, in my mind, will always be teacher/student; it will evolve, but they can count on me as their teacher and I will always do my best for them because they are my students. It makes canceling class that much more difficult.

But, as I tell my students all the time, family has to come first. I wouldn’t have done them any good coming to class sleep-deprived with my mind elsewhere, worrying about my two small, sick children. And once I pressed send on the announcement that class was, indeed, canceled, I felt like a weight had been lifted; I was no longer worried about two very sick children and fifty very scared writers, just the two sick kids. Taking a day to focus on one challenge will allow me to refocus next week on those very scared writers. And get some sleep. That’ll benefit all of us in the end.

Key to College Success: Be Prepared for the Worst

I just finished a class lecture/discussion on being a successful college student with my developmental writers. So much of what I do with those students is related to providing them with the reading, writing, research, and critical thinking skills that they will need to get their degrees. But I know, having been an undergraduate student and an instructor for ten years, it is often the things that happen to us outside of the classroom that derail our best efforts.

And I’m not just talking about the simpler choices we make, like going to a party instead of studying. I’m talking about when you have no money and no food. Or if you or someone you care about gets really sick, hurt or depressed. Or if you find yourself with a stalker. Or your professor just isn’t really all that helpful and you can’t understand your math homework. Sometimes fate steps in and hands you challenges that are stressful, distracting, and can really negatively impact your studies. I assigned my students for homework to make themselves up a list of university, community, and virtual resources to have on hand in case the worst does happen.

Academically, there are any number of resources out there now to help you study and understand your work when you’re stuck. I’d like my students to come to me or to use the tutoring service provided by the college, but I also know that at 3 AM, when they finally get around to their work, I’m not available. Go online, find the sites that you think might help, and bookmark them in advance. Some suggestions include StudyBlue.com, Quick and Dirty Tips, and even Khan Academy on YouTube. Why wait until your panicked and stressed to Google for help; when you get your schedule, take an hour and do some quick research to find websites that might help you at 3 AM when no one else is around.

Socially, it’s a trickier matter. There are almost always support or activity groups for whatever you might need or be interested in. And if there isn’t one, you can always start it yourself. I always find that if students have a good support group around them and des-tress in more healthy ways, they will be better students. Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding new and different friends, which can be hard. Knowing what is going on at the university and in the community you are in (obviously easier to do in a big city) can be a lifesaver. Read the student and local community newspaper; you’ll thank me.

Have the number and address for the on- and off-campus medical facilities. Know what services your school offers and don’t be afraid to use them. Also, don’t be afraid to get help for a friend. Nothing will ruin a semester more quickly than illness that goes untreated or a depression that goes unrecognized. Ask around; if students consistently complain about the services on-campus, head to the local hospital or clinic. If you don’t have health insurance, don’t let that stop you. But, plan ahead and see if you qualify for “free” healthcare. Know where their are free support groups run by community organizations or churches. Students are often too afraid, too ashamed, or too broke to get the mental and physical help they need. This can be devastating.

Finally, don’t go hungry. Find the local food back or church that does charity work. If you feel dishonest taking food from a food back, make a vow to pay them back when you have money or volunteer for them as thanks. It’s really hard to study and do well academically while you are hungry. But also find ways to make your dollar go further. Get all of the coupons you can and always ask if there is a discount for students. Find the “happy hour” when food can be up to half price. Find the sales at the local grocery stores. And learn to cook; once you can make your own food, the costs go down significantly.

I know about all of these issues because I’ve lived them. I almost failed French because I didn’t get the help I needed. I watched one friend struggle with bi-polar disorder and another with severe depression, both ended up dropping out of school. Our social group did poorly those semesters, too, because we were worried and trying to help take care of them. I ate a jumbo box of instant rice for the last half of another semester that a friend gave me because I was broke. I also know that joining the school paper and getting involved in student government saved me from different stresses because I had a great group of people surrounding and supporting me. If not, I would have left school because of another student stalking me.

I learned all of this as I went along and thankfully it didn’t derail my studies in any significant way. I know that so many of my students, especially those who are in my developmental classes, are already behind the 8-ball, so to speak, when it comes to the probability of getting their college degree. For me, it’s not just about the practical academic skills that will help them graduate; it’s about equipping them for anything life at university may throw at them, inside or outside of the classroom.

My Terrible Shortcoming as a Teacher

I am, according to many measurements, a really good teacher in the classroom. I didn’t receive ONE negative evaluation this past semester, which has never actually happened to me (there is always one who I don’t connect with and they let me know). My teaching evaluations have always been very strong, as have my peer evaluations. As many of my students’ wrote, I clearly care about them and their education. My heart melted when one of my students (who is studying to be a teacher) that I was now her professional role model.

But.

I have one very large shortcoming. I can’t learn students’ names. After fifteen weeks of handing assignments back, class discussions, emails, and meetings, I might know half of the students’ names. And it’s usually the ones who have either dropped or about to fail. When I hand back their assignments and I have the name in front of me, by about the middle of the semester I can usually remember the face. The same goes for emails. But without the name in front of me, when I look at the face, I can remember everything about the student (whatever details they’ve shared about themselves, their last free write response, what they’ve missed, their major, their career aspirations) except their name.

Learning the students’ names is the first thing they teach you in courses or seminars designed to improve your pedagogical skill and classroom presence; in fact my chair, in our new faculty orientation, said exactly that. If you want to make a meaningful connection with your students’, learn their names. If you want the students’ to be engaged with you, learn their names. The way other professors or facilitators talk about it, knowing you’re students’ name is the single most important thing you can do; everything else is gravy.

This has been a problem for me since, well, forever. I would forget my new teammates’ names for the first three months of the swimming season. When I started teaching swimming lessons, I couldn’t remember the names of the six kids in my class; worse, I would think that their name was something that it wasn’t, and then that’s the name that would stick in my brain. Word to the wise, don’t call a 6 year-old by the wrong name; they really, really don’t like it. I’ve tried everything: looking at pictures, having name tags for them, taking pictures with their name tags, memory games based on associations, everything. And every semester, I do no better than about 50%. Worse, by the beginning of the next semester, I’ve forgotten half of the half.

I admit this shortcoming to my students early and often in the semester, and it becomes a sort of running joke. Some days they’ll decide not to raise their hands when I call their name to pass a piece of writing back, just to see if I’ve finally learned who they are. The thing that they realize very quickly, however, is that I really do know who they are: I remember any and every other detail they’ve shared with me inside and outside of the classroom the moment I see their faces. They also know that I will remember those details for a long, long time. Names are only one small way we can know someone, really.

Knowing their name is important, no doubt, but it’s only one small way to know my students. I learn everything else instead. Doesn’t mean I don’t still try; just means that I make sure that my strengths far outweigh one of my more glaring weaknesses.

Wasting Time? Try being a little more active

One of the first things I talk to my students about at any level is active reading. They’ve all had the experience where they’ve gotten to the bottom of a page of reading and realized that they have no idea what they’ve just read. And then they keep trying to re-read without any change in the situation. So they go through the motions of looking at the words on the page, feeling good about having technically done their homework, but showing up to class with little to no ability to participate in the class discussion.

Why not read more actively, I suggest. Take notes, do some research, even just write questions in the margins, anything to make the readings more meaningful. But, they protest, active reading takes so much time. Really? How much time do you spend simply going through the motions over and over again? And how much time do you spend at the end of the semester not sleeping, cramming for your final exam or paper, trying to complete all of the reading you didn’t have “time” to do properly during the semester? How much learning do you end up doing when you spend a week living off of energy drinks and little sleep in order to do everything you didn’t do during the previous 15 week semester?

My students can be a little more active in all of their course-related work. One of the biggest complaints about homework is that it is a waste of their time. And while I don’t claim that all homework ever assigned during a student’s academic career is meaningful, the student should at least try view homework as a positive learning activity that, if taken seriously and done well, can help you learn. Same thing with in-class activities.

I tell my students that every exercise in class or at home is an opportunity for them. If they choose to see it as a waste of time, then it will be. And thus it is the student, not me, who is wasting their time. I can only set up the conditions for the students to learn and be successful. It is up to them to take advantage of those conditions. I can entice them with promises of a more meaningful education experience, and I can threaten them with a failing grade. But I try to get my students to come to understand that the choice is ultimately theirs if they are going to actively engage in their education.

I care about my students and I care about their success inside and outside of my class. I know my students care about their grades, but I wonder about their commitment to their education. If they don’t get more active in their learning, then we will all have been just wasting our time.