What you give is what you get
My education is important to me, and it is, or should be, to all students – not just because it’s a huge investment of money and time, or because it’s an extreme source of stress. It matters because I need a good-paying, stimulating job, and because I want to have a degree at the end of my title. My education is most important to me because it is what I am relying on to achieve my dream.
To get where I want to be in my life, I need this education. So do you. Among the many issues we have with the way university is run, whether it be the state of our athletic facilities or who is chosen to be the next Vice President (and those things certainly are important), what should matter the most is the quality of the education we seek. Frankly, it is something I am growing concerned with.
Increasingly, it seems as if the objective of the courses we are mandated to take do not to teach or enlighten us, but they “weed” us out, “trick” us, or purposely lead us to failure. Now, before you start protesting this stance and arguing about all the slackers and the invalidity of the whole “our youth should never feel like failures” controversy, hear me out.
I do not think that we should make passing easy, or that we all deserve a ribbon just for participation. It frustrates me to think that it is virtually impossible for an elementary teacher to fail a student, or that high school pupils have many opportunities to be coddled until all other options have been exhausted. But there is a significant gap between making passing easy and taking every effort to ensure that failure is likely. Allow me to explain.
In a particular course of mine, the tutorial questions are worded in such a way that it deliberately confuses the students. The wording is misleading and vague, and that is a problem because these questions are supplements that are supposed to be helping students grasp difficult concepts that are still new. Now, the role of examinations is to evaluate the student’s understanding and application of the concept taught. That is exactly their purpose. But the teaching is not intended to be equivalent to the testing.
It is impossible for students to apply concepts when the information they’ve been given isn’t easy to understand. The teaching-learning stage is the most critical stage of any education, because without full understanding, application of concepts simply cannot happen. I honestly cannot understand why an educator would actively seek to confuse students when they could instead reach out to be thorough, and provide examples and questions that allow students to use new knowledge, make connections, and confirm their understanding.
Basically, it all comes down to this: why are we trying to trick our students? Is it because our professors are uncomfortable with taking the effort to ensure their lectures are of good quality? Do they find great pleasure in deliberately making irrelevant evaluations and thus deterring many from pursuing the subject further? Are they afraid to infuse the bright minds of today with the knowledge and power to progress such knowledge even further in the future? I certainly hope not, because that would defeat the very purpose of higher-level education. Sadly, however, I think that is the case with some.
Not all of my generation is the technology-obsessed, egocentric, unmotivated bunch we are perceived to be. Though many are, those of us who seek deeper fulfillment and achievement possess an unprecedented drive to do more for the world. We can’t do that without the help of our educators, the ones we rely on to deliver to us the information and comprehension needed for progression and change. Our education isn’t just what we make it; it’s what our educators offer to us. What we do with it is up to us – but please, give us something to work with.
Knowledge is power. Professors, you have the ability to provide us with both.