Tuesday, 9/7/04 - 21:36
The American university system does its students a disservice by encouraging them to forget each book or quarter as soon as it's past. A humanities or social science class generally teaches within the class everything you'll be held responsible for knowing in that class, and any outside material you want to bring in will require lengthy explanations and then probably be ignored anyway. At least, that's what I blame for my general forgetfulness -- it takes a lot of grad school to unlearn the habits I've had since grade school. When I T.A. for classes that have open research paper assignments, I try to ameliorate the situation by encouraging students in search of a thesis to choose a theory from a previous class and make an argument about what that theory shows about the material at hand or what the material at hand shows about that theory. As long as the student picks a theorist s/he understands, it usually results in a good paper. Really, though, there needs to be a stronger system of core classes in most undergraduate programs, and students should be held systematically responsible for retaining at least some knowledge from their hum and soc classes, just as they might in a math class. I've heard it argued that the information we're supposedly trying to teach doesn't matter, since the students will forget it anyway, but that if we teach them how to think, they somehow won't forget that. But I say that if it's true that they don't forget how to think, that's only because they're held accountable for similar thinking skills in class after class.
Long live Diaryland!
The five most recent entries:
More Naval Gazing - Saturday, 8/13/05
Anniversary Diving - Friday, 8/12/05
Academic Tip of the Week - Tuesday, May. 17, 2005
How to tell a Midwesterner - Sunday, 4/24/05
Academic Feelings - Thursday, 4/21/05
Ted's most recent entry:
Monday, May 12