I am browsing the internet at the front of the class while my very stressed out and nervous students do their best to make up for a semester of slacking off in one final exam. Smells like desperation and Teen Spirit. Or is that Axe b.s. and the faint odour of crushed dreams.
In any case, what has really bothered me this semester is that students are so afraid of failure that they are unable to enjoy learning. The good, diligent, promising students especially. Instead of exploring the mind of Plato with curious abandon they are paralyzed by the torpedo fish of expectations. Students not having fun learning are not fun to teach.
So how do I make philosophy fun for students trained for the last twelve years to focus on the letter grade at the bottom of the paper, to the exclusion of all other concerns? I am looking out over a class of students furiously writing...not one of them has a smile on their face. They have been given anopportunity to pontificate upon the meaning of life, the existence of god, the illusion of freedom; the great wonders of the history of thought. Not a one of them approching the opportunity with joy. Not a single one of them seeing this as anything other than an evil chore, a hoop to be jumped through on the way to a white picket fence and stable pension.
Should you fear failure? Rather you should fear not learning from it....
Labouring through four years of college without enjoying the world of ideas is the deepest failure.
This is a strange thing to read immediately after finishing said exam... Hmm In the future I will try to laugh through my finals.
ReplyDeleteI heartily agree with you. I teach them at a much earlier age, and even now they focus almost exclusively on the "reward" of a good grade. None of them realize the greater universe will not care if they failed topic five in grade seven science. And yet when you ask them to freely ask you a question, ANY question, (with the needed parameter of middle school appropriateness,) even at an age when their minds should be filled with wonder and imagination I generally get blank stares and the inevitable question "is this for marks?"
ReplyDeletePart of it I think is over-eager parents filled with the zeal of riding vicariously on a successful child's coattails. I also tutor a child with Asperger's Syndrome. A great percentage of these children never live independently, and all Mom is concerned with is seeing that he goes from a C average to at least a B+. He does not go out. He has no friends. He is making no memories. His life is study and homeschooling. It is terribly sad.
I had this long drawn out comment!
ReplyDeletebut You have to set your settings so people can post anonymously! That's when and how you get the trolls out.
Have you tried wearing a clown nose?
ReplyDeleteI am sure there are many students who enjoy your class and growing their brains from all the learning. I imagine they only smile on the inside and keep quiet, lest they be singled out by their soul crushed zombie peers for their intellectually delicious plump brains.
Clown nose? No. Medieval monk cassock. Pie-in-the-face Viking. Pants-less ancient greek toga. Mini-skirt and go-go boots. But no clown nose.
ReplyDelete