Earning a Degree but Not Learning?

Research lends evidence to the claim that college students are not learning. Are you?

The book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa critiques higher education institutions based upon a sample of 2,300 students from 24 unidentified schools; the students at these schools do not show substantial progress on a standardized test as a result of instruction during their first two years of college. The test is designed to measure writing, complex reasoning, and critical thinking, and the students’ performance demonstrates that they are not only not acquiring these skills but also that they are not reading and writing in substantial amounts for courses.

Given the importance that we place on having a college degree, the claim made by these authors that our students are not learning much in college deserves some examination. One condition of participation in this study was that universities who participated could remain anonymous. Therefore, we know nothing about the schools though we are told that this sample is "representative." Furthermore, we must keep in mind that the standardized test measures how well students perform on the standardized test, and therefore, it may not be a reflection of whether the students are learning.

However, while "researchers are still learning how to measure learning," it is notable that college students may not be doing enough reading and writing and thinking to have the practice needed to develop these skills. In our knowledge economy, it is less important that students memorize facts and more important that they can think critically, communicate well, and collaborate with others. However, these abilities do not develop magically. As students shared on the first day of class, the degree is important, but the experience of being in college should prepare them for success in their given careers in such a way that is engaging and practical.

While discouraging, the results are not surprising. Learning, at its best, results in personal and systemic change. However, instead of embracing change that results from a spirit of critical inquiry, educational systems prioritize the stagnation of tenure, the rigidity of standardized test questions, and the deference to the authority of the teacher figure. These mentalities are creating a crisis from kindergarten to college as students and teachers are forcibly locked into mindsets and patterns of behavior that do little to promote the real value in education. The questioning and creation of ideas as free-thinking humans is critical to self-actualization and a removal of the bars that irrelevant curricula are welding.

For institutions of higher education, the battle is, perhaps, more difficult as students must overcome at least thirteen years of indoctrination in classrooms that have often not begun with the students’ needs or tapped into the students’ passions. Undergraduate students suffer particularly because they are often silenced by higher education structures that reward research by professors and graduate students but do little to empower undergraduate students to think critically and creatively. Certainly, there are many outstanding professors, instructors, and teaching assistants who have managed to blend research with teaching in a way that is engaging and meaningful for the students. However, many undergraduate students at research-based universities are faced with out-dated lessons that are far removed from the realities of life. It is a status quo of imprisonment.

Locally, we are working to cultivate and retain college graduates. The Memphis Talent Dividend Project is designed to increase the number of college graduates in our community from 23.7% to 24.7% (or 8,002 graduates)--an increase that could generate $1 billion in economic development. These numbers are appealing, but if there is not an equal emphasis on the quality of the knowledge or skills learned that will be useful to the students as they enter the workforce, I am unconvinced that we as local and national participants in a knowledge economy will have any advantage.

What is the alternative to selling our students a degree with no accompanying knowledge or practical skills? How do institutions of higher education respond to the need for critical thought that sparks revolution in an era of unquestioned messages and malaise? As costs for higher education rise at faster rates than the perceived value of these degrees by both students and employers, what can be done to ensure that students and communities are able to capitalize on the value of learning and thinking that leads to acting? How do you learn? What do you want to learn?

You might also be interested in Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do About It.

Telling or Banning the Truth

“But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” ~John Stuart Mill

Do not believe everything you think. A wise friend of mine shared with me that his Life List includes changing his beliefs on something that he always held as the truth. This idea sparked reflection about my own truths. Which thoughts are worthy of belief and which ones should be questioned? I have been conditioned on what to think not necessarily on how to think even though the ability to think is essential to humanity. Consequently, many of the messages in my head are not my own. I suspect that I am not alone in holding truths that are created by others’ messages (language) that have become ingrained into my thoughts without any questioning of these beliefs. Fortunately, as human beings, we have the intellectual prowess to think critically and re-examine our truths and the truths of others.

Truth and the freedom to express truth are central to Banned Books Week celebrated from September 26th until September 30^th. During this week, we honor the privilege to think, read, and write. According to the American Library Association, the week is important for raising awareness of “intellectual freedom — the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.” With this freedom, we have a responsibility to challenge ourselves and each other to discover the truth, if there is just one.

Whether for vulgar language or sexual or violent content, the banned and challenged books cause offense because they violate another person’s idea of the truth. Yet, is censorship the most productive way of handling truths that contradict our own? Have not our greatest inventions and social changes come from individuals who have the courage to take action on ideas and truths that may seem crazy or unpopular?

The challenging and banning of books recognized in Banned Books Week are just an example of how the truth is told or suppressed. This course will allow us to explore what constitutes the truth and whose truth is the truth. Do words put in motion, whether floating in our heads, on paper, or in the air, create the truth? Does the truth change? If so, what role does language play in the process of change as we research, analyze, question, and dialogue about ideas that may or may not be true?

NBC Nightly News asks "Is college still worth it?"

Your thoughts?

Remembering to Change

We remember a time when we were more invincible and less vulnerable. A world in which the lexicon of “terror alerts”, “axis of evil”, “ground zero”, and “extremism” did not possess the same connotations for our national psyche. Nostalgically, we lower ourselves into a pre-9/11 past with the flags at half-mast asking and answering the question: “Where were you when…?”

I had just begun my undergraduate studies at The University of Memphis and was in my ACAD class when the first tower was hit. Even though a decade has passed, I still do not have any explanations for the deadly actions of a very small group of individuals. Some reasons point to hate, and other reasons to fear. Perhaps, too, the individuals who chose to commit the horrors of 9/11 were standing behind their own personal truths and ideals, and if that situation was the case, what did we, as a nation, do to heighten their defenses? What I do know now is that our world is different because of the events of 9/11, or is it?

It is important to acknowledge the lives lost and the families left with raw wounds where their loved ones once were. Yet, other than leaving my liquids behind at the airport security gates and existing with increased government surveillance much of which I am probably unaware, my life is not radically different because of the events of September 11^th. Your lives, as freshmen, may, in fact, be very similar to my life as a freshman. I am, and perhaps you are too, separated from the front lines of the war on terror wherever they happen to be drawn.

In fact, we hear much about continuing to live, not giving into feelings of fear which only serve to satisfy our enemies. With time, we become passive…passive to the point of not knowing anymore, if we ever did, who our enemies are. Not only passive but also tolerant. Yet, we have some real enemies that are basking in our tolerance much more than a handful of individuals are basking in our fear.

We are too tolerant that we tolerate a 23.1% poverty rate and the unnecessary death of an infant every 43 hours in our Memphis community. We tolerate a growing hatred for our Muslim brothers and sisters in the interests of national security. We tolerate hunger, environmental degradation, illiteracy, failing educational institutions, domestic violence, genocide… The list goes on.

I am included in the “we”. Therefore, what if we began to focus not so much on the development of attitudes of tolerance but on actions that would embody a more powerful respect for individuals whose lives are different from our own privileged existences? What ideals will we stand behind on this anniversary of 9/11 so that the history books are written depicting positive changes in some of these appalling statistics that represent human lives interconnected to our own?

This day of remembrance gives us an important opportunity to substitute the delusion that we are unconquerable with the reality that we are not superior and have much to learn from others about conquering those injustices which really could lead to our destruction. Where am I now? Where are we now? What will you, as students in this English composition course and in your first years at the university, point to as the most important events that will change the world for the better? What role will we play in making these changes?

Ranking What Matters

With an increasing emphasis on raising the national college graduation rate as more students flood colleges and universities, it is worth asking how we determine which colleges and universities are the best so as not only to help students select schools but also to channel public resources to the schools that are producing the most meaningful results. In other words, what can schools do for students and the greater society, and how can we measure the value they add?

The U.S. News and World Report has historically published rankings of colleges and universities, but now, The Washington Monthly is arguing that we must begin to emphasize factors like social mobility, research, and public service as the indicators of good schools rather than factors like alumni donations, professor salaries, and class sizes--factors that clearly put Ivy League and other private schools at the top of the charts. Under this alternative ranking system, the creators aim to reveal and hold universities accountable for how much learning is occurring and how big the return on investment is not just from tuition dollars but also from public subsidies.

1. Social Mobility: This factor tells us not just whether a university can attract the economically elite but whether a university can take lower-to-middle income students and actually move them up the socioeconomic ladder once they have graduated.

2. Research: The Washington Monthly scale also is founded on the idea that universities should be able to graduate students who will go on to obtain PhDs with the ultimate goal of fueling economic growth via that research.

3. Service: Finally, the alternative ranking system is based on the premise that more engaged students are not only more academically successful but also that they are giving back to society.

"We all benefit when colleges produce groundbreaking research that drives economic growth, when they offer students from low-income families the path to a better life, and when they shape the character of future leaders," the editors argue.

You shared on the first day of class that education should be practical, engaging, challenging, informative, and relevant. What would your ranking system for universities look like? Would it be more similar to the system of The U.S. News and World Report or to that of The Washington Monthly? How would we determine if you, the students, were really getting the most bang for your buck and work to increase that value?

Saying the Self

If we are to spend the semester discussing "voice", it would be useful for us to understand the meaning of the word. Mary Pipher offers this insight:

"Voice is everything we are, all that we have observed, the emotional chords that are uniquely ours--all our flaws and all of our strengths, expressed in the words that best reflect us."

Certainly, in this course, we will be expressing ourselves most frequently in words--words to be spoken and heard and words to be written and read. However, we will also learn that voice is made audible not only in words but in our life work. In fact, voice is the core of who we are as human beings, and when we raise our voices we are able to self-actualize by acknowledging the potential and passion that make us authentic. As Frederick Buechner notes, it is even better when we can use "our greatest passion to meet the world's greatest needs."

Were you born to be a pirate? Practice medicine? Love a family? Dance on Broadway? What are you doing when you feel most alive? We must begin to think bigger about who we are as individuals because we are more than our grades, our majors, our careers, and our material possessions or paychecks. All too often, though, our dreams are discounted by systems that reward memorization instead of discovery, obedience instead of freedom, and acceptance instead of expression. Over time, we begin to doubt that we are more than we think we are and can do more than we think we can.

No matter how many hard knocks you have had in life, your essence is still present, and it is our task this semester to discover, re-discover, and affirm YOU. After all, the purpose of education, from the Latin word educare, is to draw out that which is within. Until you know who you are, you do not know what only you can say.