August 24, 2006
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Topic: musings on college
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/education/23FACE.html?ex=1156564800&en=c8fbc3838ed7fd5a&ei=5087%0A
This link is to an article about an anthropology professor who wanted to better understand her students. What is it like to be a student in college today, what sorts of things do they do, and think? To find out, she went undercover as a college freshman. What she found out is stirring my brain…
“My Freshman Year is also having
impact on a larger scale. The president of NAU has made it required
reading for all administrators; Small’s findings are resonating with
leaders at educational institutions around the country and the
world—she has been able to accommodate only a fraction of the
invitations she’s received to speak at universities and national
conferences. The international media, including major outlets in
England, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, have run stories
on the book with an eye to understanding their own students. Now in its
fourth printing, the book has gotten students’ attention as well. One
recent student review of her book began by thanking the author for
writing it, for unveiling truths about the college experience. And
Small is working with experts who would like to use her research to
make institutional policy changes that better reflect and accommodate
current college culture.”It’s stirring my brain because I’m 25 and three years removed from college, seven years removed from my freshman year. What I observed when I was still in college, is what this professor wanted to observe at age 52.
What I now believe is true about the college experience, is that it is a completely individiual and unique experience for every person, despite the large similarities in students’ experiences. For example, although many students will fill out surveys in similar ways that describe their social and study habits, and student quotes countrywide will on average sound the same, the reality is each student is an individual.
However, just yesturday, I was asked to give my elevator speech about college, and here’s what I came up with, “What we have today is a ‘rat race’ college culture, that puts an emphasis on ‘getting by’ in school versus serious intellectual growth, and this has a detrimental impact on people’s futures psychologicaly and financially, as well as a detrimental effect on society at large.”
I actually don’t love that summary, as it criticizes college, but I’ve now come to believe that a solution is all but impossible.
One reason I believe this impossible stems from the myth that certain kinds of education are utopian. There is a belief that certain country’s are smarter than others, and that this has to do with their culture or their schools. My experiences tell me this is no true. While in Israel, I found people to have a range of knowledge about politics in their area, and while in the UK, I found a range of people to be ‘witty’ and ‘intelligent.’
As for types of school, even ‘utopian student-centered real world hands on experiential socially aware’ schools, are limited in what they are.
Being in grad school has also taught me a few things, or rather, the things I have come to believe are playing themselves out as I predicted. My grad school experience has been positive in that I am in a community of people, something I loved about my undergrad experience. Like any community, there is a wide range of people, and some people are making lots of friends and having fun with the community, while others are either ostracized for who they are, or not as interested in the community. Student attitudes range from those who are highly motivated and positive, to those who constantly complain about the content, teaching, and work.
In a way, I feel like a reporter in some ways, being a student but also researching the experience I’m going through. My situation is unique in that I am trying to be the motivated student because my success as a teacher may hinge on some things that I learn in class, although as I’m not too surprised to have discovered, most of what I’m learning in class applies more to my interest in education as a research and theoretical idea, than to real world practice.
