This post is dedicated to Bitchie Lou, a student from a few years ago whose babyish behavior, constant whining, and terrible manners have earned her the title of “Worst Student I’ve Ever Had, So Far.” This is not a title I want to ever have to bestow again, so don’t get any ideas, students dear.
Post is written from Bitchie Lou’s own point of view, which everyone in the class came to know well because she ranted about it every Tuesday night that semester. Seriously, every one of us knew her ways so well, we could have ordered for her in any restaurant, and while I do, on occasion, take my students to a restaurant, I didn’t dare for this group lestone of us poison her food just to shut her up.
I swear, Bitchie Lou was some kind of agent for NCLB, because her philosophies sure sounded a lot like some of the babbling idiocrities philosophies that came regularly from my old public school administration.
Bitchie Lou is enshrined in my memory not merely because she was such a whining hag, but also because I was able to witness the greatest incident of peer pressure-to-the-rescue in my entire career. Thanks again, “that class,” for rising to the occasion and letting Bitchie Lou know, in no uncertain and in many awesome terms, that you didn’t have any intention of putting up with her crap. I still smile when I think about her expression when you all rose up and told her off. Sometimes, when I think of it, I still laugh out loud.
I couldn’t have done it, but my class had no such restrictions.
Peer pressure: it ain’t all bad.
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Why Is There So Much Discussion In A College Classroom?
I did not come here for discussion.
I came here to be taught what the textbook has in it.
The opinions and input of other students can’t possibly be of any importance to me.
What could they know that I don’t already know?
I resent the time taken up by discussion.
I want facts.
Facts.
There won’t be 100% agreement in any discussion.
It’s a waste of my time.
I really don’t care what my classmates have to say.
I want facts.
What if we don’t finish the textbook?
What if all this discussion means we don’t have the time to finish the book?
I don’t think I can deal with that possibility.
I want facts. I want closure.
Every class, so far, has had far too much discussion.
I don’t like it.
It makes me nervous.
I feel as though we’re wasting time.
MY time.
My valuable, expensive time.
Learning to listen to what other people have to say is not important to me.
Only facts, and saving time and money, are important.
Aren’t they what makes the world go around?
Other people’s thoughts make me angry.
Sometimes, what somebody else says makes me question my own values. 
This must not happen!
I was taught that MY values are the important values.
College is for FACTS!
My classmates are trying to make me turn from my values!
The professor is wasting my time.
Sometimes, she joins in with her own opinions.
Why would she do this,
Unless it was to try to change me?
It’s almost as though the professor was trying to get people to talk ON PURPOSE!
I know, though, that she’s just wasting everybody’s time
With nonsense.
All my life, I’ve been made to listen to other people.
They talk about things I’m not interested in.
In a college classroom, shouldn’t there be some respite from that?
I don’t want to talk in here, either.
I just want to plow through the textbook and do worksheets.
Isn’t that what we’re all here for?
I don’t CARE what my classmates THINK about anything.
Sure, the textbooks at this level seem to point us toward discussion.
Sometimes, the topic almost BEGS discussion.
That doesn’t mean we should discuss it.
It’s just the way the examples and sentences are put together.
I do not believe this book really wants us to discuss points that are on almost every page.
They’re just trying to make a dull subject more interesting for us.
I’m interested in the subject matter, not discussion.
I paid for subject matter, not discussion.
I wish everyone would just shut up.
SHUT UP, classmates!
Let me plod through our book and learn from it.
You’re distracting me.
My already-made-up-mind resents your discussion.
I don’t like distractions.
I don’t like your opinions.
I don’t care about your thoughts.
I only care about myself, and MY opinions.
My opinion is
That all of you should be quiet
And let the professor guide us through our very expensive textbook
Without any discussion
Without any opinions
Without any talking
Because I, personally, don’t like it.
I DON’T LIKE IT.
It’s almost as though you all were trying to. . . .
Make me think.
And that’s just too hard.
I’d rather be led.
I was very lucky. Starting in high school, I had teachers who were excellent at guided discussion. They would step in with a comment or question, moving the discussion along and pushing us to really think about the material.
One of my first college classes (accounting) I had an instructor who lectured from the time class started until the end. There was little question time. The subject was difficult enough for me, but without some free discussion, I was totally at sea. I did all my homework, pushing myself to the best of my ability. The teacher allowed those of us who had done all the homework to skip the final and take one grade lower than we had so far attained. I skipped the final, and settled for a B. I knew that I would do poorly on the final. I never took another accounting class.
Recently, I went back to school, attending community college online. Most of the courses I took were for my paralegal certificate. Online courses require a lot of writing and forum discussion and those who couldn’t cut it were weeded out quickly. But then I started my general education courses. Several times a week, I found myself wanting to reach through the cable connection and smack some students upside the head. We did end up losing a lot of students, but not quite all. Frankly, it reinforced exactly why I have never wanted to be a teacher.
I was very lucky. Starting in high school, I had teachers who were excellent at guided discussion. They would step in with a comment or question, moving the discussion along and pushing us to really think about the material.
One of my first college classes (accounting) I had an instructor who lectured from the time class started until the end. There was little question time. The subject was difficult enough for me, but without some free discussion, I was totally at sea. I did all my homework, pushing myself to the best of my ability. The teacher allowed those of us who had done all the homework to skip the final and take one grade lower than we had so far attained. I skipped the final, and settled for a B. I knew that I would do poorly on the final. I never took another accounting class.
Recently, I went back to school, attending community college online. Most of the courses I took were for my paralegal certificate. Online courses require a lot of writing and forum discussion and those who couldn’t cut it were weeded out quickly. But then I started my general education courses. Several times a week, I found myself wanting to reach through the cable connection and smack some students upside the head. We did end up losing a lot of students, but not quite all. Frankly, it reinforced exactly why I have never wanted to be a teacher.
Angela, those teachers sounded like rotten discussion leaders. Students should be able to discuss without too much nudging, but it is needed from time to time, and certainly needs to be started well. A teacher should give you a good direction to go with your discussion. The same holds for small group discussions as well: they should either build up to a large discussion, or at the very least have your teacher walking about to listen in on what you all are talking about.
If the teacher has low expectations and does not nudge students to discuss well, then discussion are horrible. When done well, however, discussions can teach you to learn in ways you never could. Many of my graduate school courses were discussion dominated, and required more in depth papers than I have written anywhere else. However, they were nudged in the right direction by good professors, allowing me to learn more (and be more confident about my learning) than a pure lecture ever would.
I know you see the value of it for some things, but I think your experience that too much discussion is bad seems to be derived more from bad teaching than actual discussion.
Mamacita, the closest student I had to yours like this was not willing to be loud about it. Instead, she would complain in one on one conversations about how work we were doing was too hard, and how research was too hard, etc. (I should note she was trying to research the glass ceiling, and still thought things were too hard when I helped her find a search term that yielded 50-100 results… I still can’t tell if she wanted me to read for her, or what was so hard at that point). She wasn’t too ashamed, however, to complain about my “terrible” teaching to my department head at the end of the semester (I was too hard, is basically what her complaints boiled down to). That’s a whole other kind of rudeness, right there.
Angela, those teachers sounded like rotten discussion leaders. Students should be able to discuss without too much nudging, but it is needed from time to time, and certainly needs to be started well. A teacher should give you a good direction to go with your discussion. The same holds for small group discussions as well: they should either build up to a large discussion, or at the very least have your teacher walking about to listen in on what you all are talking about.
If the teacher has low expectations and does not nudge students to discuss well, then discussion are horrible. When done well, however, discussions can teach you to learn in ways you never could. Many of my graduate school courses were discussion dominated, and required more in depth papers than I have written anywhere else. However, they were nudged in the right direction by good professors, allowing me to learn more (and be more confident about my learning) than a pure lecture ever would.
I know you see the value of it for some things, but I think your experience that too much discussion is bad seems to be derived more from bad teaching than actual discussion.
Mamacita, the closest student I had to yours like this was not willing to be loud about it. Instead, she would complain in one on one conversations about how work we were doing was too hard, and how research was too hard, etc. (I should note she was trying to research the glass ceiling, and still thought things were too hard when I helped her find a search term that yielded 50-100 results… I still can’t tell if she wanted me to read for her, or what was so hard at that point). She wasn’t too ashamed, however, to complain about my “terrible” teaching to my department head at the end of the semester (I was too hard, is basically what her complaints boiled down to). That’s a whole other kind of rudeness, right there.
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Ugh. I read your poem to my colleagues this afternoon; I think that you’re spot on with this.
The thing is, Angela, students complain about lecture, too. “It’s BORING!” they complain, and they don’t feel any connection to the material. Discussion requires of them several things – they have to KNOW the material (ie, do the reading), they have to have thought enough about it to have something to say, they have to be able to express that thinking in a way that makes sense to others, and they have to be willing to support that thinking in the face of challenges. I use class discussion ALL THE TIME in my classes, and it’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I already know this material. Could I tell them what *I* think it means? Sure. Will that teach them anything? Will that make them care about the material? Nope; they have to come up with that on their own.
Ugh. I read your poem to my colleagues this afternoon; I think that you’re spot on with this.
The thing is, Angela, students complain about lecture, too. “It’s BORING!” they complain, and they don’t feel any connection to the material. Discussion requires of them several things – they have to KNOW the material (ie, do the reading), they have to have thought enough about it to have something to say, they have to be able to express that thinking in a way that makes sense to others, and they have to be willing to support that thinking in the face of challenges. I use class discussion ALL THE TIME in my classes, and it’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I already know this material. Could I tell them what *I* think it means? Sure. Will that teach them anything? Will that make them care about the material? Nope; they have to come up with that on their own.
Hmm. I can actually relate to Ms. Lou. I remember being very frustrated in college by the professors who would give massive amounts of time for us to talk to one another about the topics at hand. Whole-class discussions were sometimes okay, but grossly overused by some professors. It felt like a lazy move on the part of some; they didn’t want to teach so they prepared a ten minute lecture and then handed it over to us to figure it out on our own under the guise of ‘discussion’. Small group stuff was the worst. Someone would dominate the conversation, ramble, and say basically nothing, or within 5 seconds we’d be totally off-topic and talking about plans for the weekend because the topic we were supposed to discuss was pointless or obvious or made us feel silly.
I felt that the professor was the expert and I wanted to learn from him or her, not the idiot next to me who I heard throwing up in the bathroom sink at 2 a.m. the night before. I wanted knowledge from the world’s foremost experts, not opinions from random 19-year-olds.
Typically, I skipped the classes of professors who insisted on teaching with more than 40% discussion because, like Ms. Lou, I felt they were wasting my time. But my GPA in undergrad was a 3.5, if I remember correctly, because I worked hard. I learned from studying the textbook on my own, and wrote well-thought-out papers and essays. I was a good student and knew the material; I just hated having to sit through those types of classes.
My graduate school professors were (for the most part) pretty skilled in facilitating discussion and I didn’t mind participating. The fact that the graduate students and I were already classroom teachers and therefore had intelligent ideas and experiences to share probably helped (don’t think any of them were barfing at 2 a.m.) and I actually learned a lot from talking together.
I’m sure the discussions in your classroom are about relevant, engaging topics and you guide things in a way that makes it useful for students, but I hope my experience has shed a little bit of light on Ms. Lou’s situation. The fact that she was a total brat about it is inexcusable, but I kinda get where she was coming from.
Thoughts?
Hmm. I can actually relate to Ms. Lou. I remember being very frustrated in college by the professors who would give massive amounts of time for us to talk to one another about the topics at hand. Whole-class discussions were sometimes okay, but grossly overused by some professors. It felt like a lazy move on the part of some; they didn’t want to teach so they prepared a ten minute lecture and then handed it over to us to figure it out on our own under the guise of ‘discussion’. Small group stuff was the worst. Someone would dominate the conversation, ramble, and say basically nothing, or within 5 seconds we’d be totally off-topic and talking about plans for the weekend because the topic we were supposed to discuss was pointless or obvious or made us feel silly.
I felt that the professor was the expert and I wanted to learn from him or her, not the idiot next to me who I heard throwing up in the bathroom sink at 2 a.m. the night before. I wanted knowledge from the world’s foremost experts, not opinions from random 19-year-olds.
Typically, I skipped the classes of professors who insisted on teaching with more than 40% discussion because, like Ms. Lou, I felt they were wasting my time. But my GPA in undergrad was a 3.5, if I remember correctly, because I worked hard. I learned from studying the textbook on my own, and wrote well-thought-out papers and essays. I was a good student and knew the material; I just hated having to sit through those types of classes.
My graduate school professors were (for the most part) pretty skilled in facilitating discussion and I didn’t mind participating. The fact that the graduate students and I were already classroom teachers and therefore had intelligent ideas and experiences to share probably helped (don’t think any of them were barfing at 2 a.m.) and I actually learned a lot from talking together.
I’m sure the discussions in your classroom are about relevant, engaging topics and you guide things in a way that makes it useful for students, but I hope my experience has shed a little bit of light on Ms. Lou’s situation. The fact that she was a total brat about it is inexcusable, but I kinda get where she was coming from.
Thoughts?