In its May 24, 2011 edition, Inside Higher Ed addresses the issues raised in Academically Adrift. We are told:
- 45 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during the first two years of college.
- 36 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” over four years of college.
In an age tenacious about applying corporate measures to higher education, these statistics are a death-knell. If students aren’t learning (improving their critical thinking and writing ability), then why are families going in to debt to get them a college degree? Let me suggest that families are getting exactly what they pay for: a degree.
For years now, the public has has commonly held a statistically supported perception that those with college degrees get better jobs and earn more over their lifetimes. If this is still true, does the knowledge matter? I, of course, would argue it does, but then I didn’t earn three college degrees in order to earn more money (I knew work in the corporate sector would pay off much more if that was my goal). I earned three college degrees to improve my quality of life and because I am a lifelong learner who can’t resist the next question, the next puzzle, the next controversial insight. Ultimately, this is what I try to provide for my students: a love of learning and a lifelong commitment to it. Don’t get me wrong; I aim to have them increase their thinking skills and their ability to find an answer when needed and we should measure student achievement on such criteria. But I have many bright, qualified, somewhat driven students who hold fast to their goal to simply get a degree and good job. Learning, application, and joy are not on their agenda.
Now, if I am an exceptional teacher, my students will have that “ah-ha” moment in my classroom and get hooked on learning. They will come to care less about the grade and the credit and more about the next question, the next problem, the next discovery. When a student can say the C they earned in my class taught them more than the A they earned in another, I know I am on the right track.
As the profession awards teachers, it affirms the value of learning, loving to learn, and embracing a life of the mind that engages with a life of the spirit and the body. Teaching awards, then, are a means to announce when and how we get it right. Every teaching award nomination I facilitate includes a requirement for letters from students. Every time I have requested such a letter, I have recieved an enthusiastic “yes.” Once exposed to exceptional teaching, students are changed forever and they know it. They can list specific ways that a teacher made learning matter, often in a course that was required and that they expected to simply have to endure. The profession may bicker about the measures we should use in the classroom to evaluate teachers, but successful students know what worked for them. Perhaps we could begin to continue our own lifelong learning by listening to them.
To nominate the professor who changed your life for the better for a teaching award, consider the following:
