Once I asked students: "why are you here?"
"to get a degree to get a better job" replied one student.
"to transfer to a 4y college" said another student.
"so that I don't have to move out of my parents house," another student.
"I don't know!" said another student.
I have asked that same question many times, to many different students, and I have never heard " I am here because I want to learn!"
What happened to wanting to know things? What happened to curiosity? Remember when we were kids and everything was "why?" But why? why? Parents got tired of answering the "why" questions, or simply ran out of "because" answers. However, once we got older we no longer ask "why." We no longer wonder why things are the way they are.
We forgot somehow that the more information we gain the more power we will have. Now, I am not talking about physical power, I am talking about the power of making wise, rational choices. The power of learning from past mistakes, yours or others. The power to make your own decisions and the power to live through the consequences. But most importantly the power to know who you are and what you can do with all this power.
Where did our curiosity go?
I don't think it's really a mystery. Formal education kills our curiosity and creativity by making learning a chore. I wish I could say higher ed is different, but far too often, it's not. A colleague, who recently attended CCCC in St. Louis, reported back on a session that focussed on the importance of play in the classroom. Just because we're all adults doesn't mean we can't learn through play. I have brought Play-Doh to class to help my students learn about adjectives and description. I've forced my students off the computers (despite my typically heavy use of technology in the classroom)and asked them to physcially cut and paste their essays with scissors and glue. We watch music videos to learn how to analyze. We watch movies to learn about the art and skill of argument. We make jokes and act silly. But all the while we are learning--learning and having fun. I attribute my high retention rates to my use of play in the classroom because play spawns creativity and curiosity. It's certainly not a fail safe plan, but I've certainly had more success with it than any other teaching strategy I've tried or lived through in my own experiences as a student.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct! We do see education as a chore, that learning and going to school is horrible, but we must do it no matter what.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to read how much you do with your classes. I also act silly, and make jokes and we laugh a lot and learn a lot.
Yes, learning through play is extremelly important, however the sad part is that even in Kindergarten play time is diminishing.
So, here we are... how do we get our students to want to go to school to learn because they want to know the answers to the "why" questions?
That's the hard part. I work so hard at making every class period as fun as possible and expressing and maintaining my own enthusiasm without taking away the academic rigor, but some students remain unaffected. I think at that point, it's up to them. One can make learning fun, but one can't make another want to learn. I think we see this in gen ed classes so much because students don't often want to take the classes. They view them as obstacles, hoops they must jump through in the bureaucratic machine. In this case, fun isn't enough. They need to see real and tangible value to their daily lives and future success. I try to incorporate this almost daily as well, but even that doesn't reach them all. I think the US needs a major overhaul to the approach of our entire education system, one that focuses on inquiry, exploration, and creativity instead of rote memorization and drills. Curiosity is natural, but school kills it. What if education celebrated it instead? What if we were allowed (even encouraged) to fail as we chased after new ideas? What if it were ok to be wrong? But our education punishes wrong answers and failure as if they were not a natural part of learning, a necessary part of learning, the only path to right answers, to new answers.
ReplyDeleteSchool is expensive, it's an investment which people want to see a return on. A better job to feel like their money wasn't wasted. I like to learn too, but I can't stray too far from the path and learn what I really want lest I have $1,000s in debt. I'd love to study foreign languages
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