Lloyd, I read your post with sadness. I too teach in that same environment. I too am disparaged as to my classes and the apparent lack of commitment to the standards you and I would have embraced those many years ago. It is harder and harder to get up the energy, year after year, to face the often impenetrable wall of student malaise. There are, as you point out, many committed, excited, inquisitive young minds each year. But fewer and fewer. Or at least fewer and fewer immediately apparent. It is exhausting, frustrating and infuriating. So I too may hang up the teaching spurs this year. Which I will hate to do. I love teaching. But as one of your students said, perhaps I just don't understand the new post- Covid, post reading, post writing, post drawing, post in-person attendance, post respect, post enthusiasm ..... student (and often faculty). If this is the case, perhaps they can be better served by someone of a generation that "gets it", in a way I never will .... and never wish to.
Ouch. I haven't taught in the classroom since COVID changed everything. However, I am aware of the realities you describe. I have seen them building up well before the 2020 inflection point. Universities have had to adapt to students as clients for many years. It is difficult to anticipate how the situation will resolve but we are certainly at a critical turning point. Will a renewed desire emerge for meaningful learning and mentorship? It's so easy to feel despondent with all the factors squeezing our post-secondary education system: politics, isolationism, social media, the simple cost--and commodification--of education are but a few topic. You aren't revealing your age here, but simply operating within a dysfunctional period that will yield to something anew. I hope that what emerges will bring us together because the alternative feels really dystopian.
I retired last year after teaching high school math in large public schools in Colorado. I also have a 19-year old daughter and a 21-year old son, both of whom are attending university and now law school for my son in New Zealand (they’re dual citizens). My colleagues and I have definitely noticed an increased apathy and an increased negative parent involvement in our area. We are in a small conservative town (Rep. Lauren Boebert’s district and avid Trump supporters) but at a school that was intended to be more innovative with its structure and curricula. Probably needless to say, but the school has been pressured by loud parents and some district staff to conform to more traditional models and has lost much of what made the school unique, so I feel that has played some role in our student apathy. If they hear mom complaining about the “weird math” program at home, the kids are probably less apt to be engaged. We’ve also had an uptick in absenteeism, more for mental health than physical probably.
As a mother of the same age group, I struggle in this issue because I was seeing both sides. My son graduated high school in 2021 and struggle immensely during Covid shut downs. He talked to me frequently during his first year of Uni about his fear for the future for his generation - financial, environmental and political and didn’t feel like it was worth bothering to get a degree. His fear at times was almost paralyzing. And I was hearing that from other parents and educators. I convinced him and my daughter, both of whom are intelligent and thoughtful kids who had done well academically, to try university for a year, not because I wasn’t open to them pursuing a non-degree career but because they wanted to live overseas where they didn’t know anyone their own age yet. So I used the first year dorm as an incentive to get an education. While I know my son isn’t necessarily representative of his entire generation, he ended up loving Uni and finished his bachelors and is now in law school. But even he will admit that his fellow law students (some who are only 18 because NZ law programs can start as a bachelors track) seem apathetic and ask what he considers to be stupid questions regarding assignment instructions, etc
So I guess I feel your pain and can see that at least some of our students are truly struggling with health and fear because their world is, in some ways, very different from ours. Yes, their attention spans are trash but then I can’t tell you how many times I was in a staff meeting with other teachers or spending time with my Boomer parents and everyone around me was in their phones instead of listening to others. Now that I’m self-employed and work different hours, I also see Facebook posts and other garbage going up in the middle of the work day for people I know are supposed to be working for someone else. So the apathy isn’t restricted to Gen Z.
I just recently found your Substack through Laura Fenton and I really appreciate your thoughts on our future with climate change. So thanks for keeping up the good fight! As someone who already left the teaching profession (to pursue helping people declutter and live more sustainably), I certainly can’t counsel anyone to stay in teaching. But it sounds like you are making a difference to many and probably even to many of those who aren’t attending.
Hi Lloyd, it was nice to meet you in Auckland last year. I was reading this post and it seemed that you were describing exactly what was going on in my classes last year. It is sad to see that university life is like this nowadays, I think students are missing out on so much, not just the academic side but also all the socialisation that used to happen at uni. I had about 20% of students attending last year, and I used to get so disappointed after spending a lot of time preparing things for them. The worst case was when I organised a walking tour to see examples of adaptive reuse, and nobody showed up!
However, we managed to make some changes to class schedule and this year I have around 90% attendance now. We moved my classes to be after their studio course, and now they all come as they are already at uni. If this is something you can explore with your faculty, I highly recommend combining more classes into one day. Basically, they wouldn’t commute to uni just for one class, and especially if the lectures were recorded. I hope you find a solution and don’t lose hope, as I’m sure you are teaching some great content!
I also feel your pain, from teaching Architecture (part-time) here in the North West of the UK... but it's also important to note that the Universities themselves don't seem to even care, TEACHING seems to be low down in their priorities!! Teaching staff get very little proper support from these huge institutions.
One wonders when the school system will stop blaming COVID. Yes, that also happens in the elementary and high school level also.
As a retired teacher and an active substitute teacher, I can see the difference between when I started teaching, and today. And it all boils down to, the schools have become a daycare for the school year. As you do your best to gather their attention so that you might teach them, they become disengaged after about five minutes.
They are taught to use computers starting in first grade, but they are not taught to type properly ever. Telephones are their world, and if they're taken away from them during class because the student would rather be on their phone rather than do whatever assignment is do, not only does the teacher (me) get called into the principal's office to be told that we (the teacher) are not allowed to confiscate property, even though the student was given several warnings, we were told to F-off, threatened bodily harm, and verbally abused; we (the teacher) will probably have to face the wrath of angry parents because we "forced" their angels to pay attention in class.
Grades and testing are considered harmful, so the kids are not challenged nor do they know how to test (unless it's just a multiple guess type in the computer). Critical thinking is not allowed, and emphasis is not placed on learning but rather placating the student.
In otherwords a daycare conveyer belt to get the kids out of the system when their 18.
And, when they're 18, it's not the schools probelm anylonger.
The reasons the kids are like this are few, but, COVID is not one of them.
And yes there are exceptions, there always are, and those exceptions make the job worthwhile.
I will add to the comments: I have taught engineering and architecture students at the university level (and a highly rated one!) for about 25 years. I also have notice here has been a noticeable shift in the average class engagement, and although this has likely been massively impacted by Covid, the trend was there already. As you noted, your concern (complaint?) does not apply to all students, and there are many great ones who do engage, attend, ask questions, etc. But the change is palpable.
As someone who also has taught studio, I can say that this is a technique (too expensive for public education unless you get significant extra funds like in architecture) that helps reduce the problem, but the trend is still there. If I had classes of 15 students I could greatly limit the issues, and perhaps develop the culture of learning and hard work that was previously more common. In classroom teaching, it has been helpful to add numerous pop quizzes, and grades for in-class exercises, to encourage attendance. Alas, these eat into precious classroom team (if we added an hour a week to the class schedule, then it would be fine).
I also love teaching, and get enough rewards from the many exceptional students that it makes up on balance for those who appear to be disinterested, focused on grades, and looking for the easiest path. Frankly I think I am lucky to be at a school that has a high proportion of excellent and exceptional students. But the rising number on the other side of the ledger is depressing, and also makes me consider retiring.
This is such an important topic, and we need more conversation in schools, from high-school to post-graduate, about how to address this.
If there are students who attend a class taught by Prof. Straube and are looking at their phone instead of paying attention, they are missing an incredible mash-up of superbly assembled lectures that are clear and practical, and a fairly high level of stand-up comedy. If I am attending a multi-track conference and John is speaking, no matter that I have heard him on the same topic previously, I always choose to hear what he has to teach me, because I always learn something fascinating and new to me. Students who don't appreciate this are just in the wrong field!
Interesting article Lloyd. My experience of teaching in a school of architecture in the UK is that there is a world of difference between lecturing and studio teaching. Lectures are difficult. Attendance is often poor, and engagement equally so. But it does feel that disseminating information using essentially the same techniques as Socrates is increasingly outdated - we use the lecture theatres because they are there, and we always have, and not because it is the best way to teach students of architecture. Studio teaching - in tutorial format, either individually or in small groups is completely different. Attendance is virtually 100%, engagement is excellent, students are creative, ideas can be exchanged and built upon (and questioned) rather than delivered as gospel. But for the university, it is undoubtedly more expensive in terms of staff to student ratios. For me personally, the biggest question is what we should be teaching the students to prepare them for what they are likely to need to confront within the lifespan of their careers. Interesting times indeed...
This dovetails with my experience. (See my comment above. I was differentiating between teaching at a liberal arts school vs a design school, but I think it correlates with architecture school lectures vs studio.) The question is how to deliver non-creative content - what we would normally have in a lecture/presentation - in a way that engages. Does teaching need to change or do students?
An aside: I do recall frequently falling asleep in college lectures (even, gasp, Vincent Scully's) or when just reading assignments decades ago. I blamed myself for being 'lazy' for years and only recently discovered it was indeed mild ADHD hobbling me long before the diagnosis existed. A little med assist before a lecture or even a play or movie has made a world of difference. So I do have some empathy with today's students. But there's more going on than just this.
There's a bunch of reasons for this but this student takes the cake (mud cake, that is):
"...People in higher education need to understand how much the world has changed, particularly since 2020, and adapt instead of holding students to expectations that no longer apply."
Seriously? Your other quote covers some of the Why:
"...most don’t seem to care that they do not know what it is assumed they should or would know. They are blissfully happy in their ignorance.”...
Indeed. They REALLY don't know what they don't know. However, I would exchange the word "blissfully" with "militant". Seriously, the world has changed that much since 4 years ago? Four SHORT years ago? This guy has no sense of historical context - nor does he care that his entire lifetime isn't even a miniscule splat on Time's windshield. Not only is this unserious person, and others like him, are oblivious what is coming at them as they enter the industrial workforce.
I taught technical computer classes both in industry (deployment of new software) and as an adjunct covering various principles in the field (e.g., software engineering and design). The former (with a few notable exceptions LEARNed what was necessary - I gave their bosses what to expect from them before the class so the students had the motivation to learn as if their jobs depended on it (as they did).
With academic classes, I told them that I was going to push them harder than they ever had been before, not because I was a b***buster but because I expected excellence from them - and that if they didn't, industry would spit them out. I treated them as if they were my reports. I treated them with the expectations they could do the work.
It worked - one year, the class valedictorian was in my class and I received the highest praise I think I could get: "You worked us harder than anyone ever has before - more than any of the rest of our classes before. But the result is that I knew that I was learning something new every day".
Of course, the flip side was what one of my evening classes, a Professor did in a Networking 101 class (when X25, DECnet, and SNA were "things"). In 10 seconds he went from "my name is" to multi-variate calculus mixed with high level statistics on packet routing and control. At the 1.5 hour mark, he called for a break. To be honest, I barely kept up and was wondering "what HAVE I gotten myself into?".
Half the class didn't return after that break.
He smiled broadly and said "Good, you all are the students I want to work with. I just got rid of the unenthused, unmotivated, and those WAY over their heads and didn't want to put in the work."
He demanded excellence and made his students realize just that.
IMHO, it doesn't matter what the "new fangled technology" is that the above self-absorbed one was blithering about; it is still about a consensual bidirectional push of information in amusing and instructional manners ("keep'm laughing, folks!) and a willingness to drink from the "oh, this is making sense" informational firehouse.
And yes, keep them laughing - I've always found that if people are laughing, they are paying attention - CLOSE attention.
Just my 2 cents...
"Now, let's get back to reasonable." I learned more in that class...
However, outside of the really motivated students that are a joy to have and watch them thrive, too many, to the detriment of their future, have been ill served in the "self-esteem" and "participation trophy" generations that were praised to the max for not doing much at all.
If they aren't called out during their educations, industry will spit them out. I've read the biz sites and seen such results when the underlings try telling their Mgt how to run their businesses. At one legal firm, when the summer interns petitioned that the entire firm not "dress to the nines", the whole lot of them were fired.
Standards were kept regardless of "popular opinion".
And look at what happened at the New York Times a bit ago when the Mgt caved.
Unfortunately, while those edu-phrases have mostly disappeared, what has disappeared is the needful sense of rigor and heightened expectations as students are working their way up the grades. Sure, some teachers are trying but as Jack noted, it's the Administration that is furthering this dumbing down by taking it out on the teachers who expect more than the Administration does.
Which should lead back to the evergreen question: what specific set of metrics is driving those coercive (and educationally corrosive) behaviors BY "Administrations"? And does anyone have the courage (and chutzpah) to wage that battle?
If one doesn't set the expectation of excellence and remind these often poorly raised students all the time what that is, you won't get it. And then once out in industry, remember who they will blame when they get fired...
...not themselves. Because they've been trained otherwise.
Educating is not for the faint of heart anymore - I get that and most folks here have said just that.
So Lloyd (and you knew this was coming), what would be your Principles to rewind this educational ennui that has been growing for at least 4 decades, and do the reform that is required?
I went back to school in 2016 to finish my degree after an autoimmune diagnosis initially forced me to drop out for a few years. I was frankly shocked at what passed for a college student and that was now almost a decade ago. I was considered some sort of prodigy and all I did was complete my assignments and write competently. I remember during that time editing a document with some friends for a group I ran as a hobby. One of them was working on her master’s at an Ivy League school. She was suggesting edits that were totally grammatically incorrect, and me and the other girl (who was a journalist) were tongue tied because we didn’t know how to tell her that her suggestions were flat wrong. At some point institutions will need to separate the wheat from the chaff, because it is a disservice to society to allow these students to believe that they’re academically competent.
Oh this rings so true. I’ve been teaching architecture off and on since 1990. The changes to both students and curriculum are stark. Now I teach grad students, who are more committed to their education and the huge financial investment in their future. But those same challenges exist — especially when it comes to reading, writing, and drawing by hand. The most motivated students are first-generation students, many of whom are immigrants.
I’ve been battling with this for several years, starting well before COVID. In part, I think it depends on what type of school you are teaching at. My own education was at liberal arts schools (including architecture grad school). But teaching at design schools, as I primarily do now, can be different. Lectures and readings are seen as old fashioned and even irrelevant. (I know one instructor who assigns only videos, no readings.) Can anyone tell me: is it different at top liberal arts schools?
And that’s in combination with the much-mentioned diminishing of attention spans – my own included – that are a result of the digital world, manifesting in the growing number of people with ADHD and taking medications for it.
Plus, there’s malaise mixed with fear of what is coming, which surely affects students. But I want to put that aside for the moment.
I’ve been told that I should not lecture for more than 20 minutes! And that I need ‘activities’ to be a heavy part of my class sessions. This is college, mind you, not grade school. I try to accommodate that but find it nearly impossible to cover the content that my courses need to include, and that the activities (many coming from other instructors) feel – to me, I should emphasize – like playtime, merely a way to wake up the students. In response to my worry about content, I’m sometimes told that it isn’t necessary to cover the entire topic. But how do you gain, say, ecoliteracy without talking about all or at least most of its aspects? How do you do that without instructor presentations? In 20 minutes?
On the positive side, I’ve had students come up to me and say this was their best class, precisely because it wasn’t juvenile. But they are a minority.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, a product of an earlier idea of education. I hope not, because I fear that the idea of teaching and learning is fading, that younger people feel they can get nearly everything online. I try to focus on the concept of constant learning (and learning how to learn) and exploration, questioning and researching – how to think - and that Google and AI can’t do that for you.
I don’t know what the resolution of this is. I’m trying to adapt my teaching style and trying not to resent it. (“In my days,” spoken with a warbly voice, “we had real lectures and classes.”) And more importantly, trying to figure out how to make it work, how to help produce a generation that can think independently and innovatively. I worry about that.
Same. Presentations are recommended to not be longer than 20 minutes. (This is for first year students.) So I think I'm supposed to intersperse with other types of activities. Presumably, it's OK to have several 20 minute presentations in a class session.
I'm not a teacher but have 3 kids who each have a different approach to education.
From my sample size of 3, boys are different to girls. Oldest son, 23, completed a BSc in Maths and Physics. Watched 90% of the lectures on line. Studied 9-5 most days. That was enough. C's get degrees but he did way better. He also skied 30 days last winter, joined the rocket club and drone club, and the coffee club. In holidays he headed to the coast and did no Uni work. He's now studying to be a Science teacher. He'll be great.
Daughter, soon 21, completed a Bachelor of Design Innovation. She, and a fellow student, jointly won a student Urban Design competition!!! She loves art and graphic design. She went to all lectures and studios(except during covid lockdown). Did fantastic work and now has moved overseas to explore.
Daughter soon to be 18. Has a limited idea what she wants to do at Uni. Studious. Maybe she'll do engineering, like me, 😂.
Their mother died 6 years ago 😭.
Everyone is different. You don't know what's going on in their lives. University is often a time for exploration and learning about oneself as much as the course. Students need passionate teachers/lecturers who love their topic and see value in the topic. Try not to let your ego get the better of you!
It's hard to ignore the fact that once upon a time places like the University of Toronto, where I spent 16 years in different fields of study, had a lot of government funding and a commitment to upholding its well established reputation, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The financial picture is very different now, for those on either side of the lectern. Should it surprise anyone that, with the multiple systems collapse scenarios we're now experiencing and reacting to every day, there's a generation for whom a lot of delayed gratification and self-directed focus training to insure future "achievement" has no appeal? Especially if their parents are paying the bulk of their tuition fees?
Boy I hate to be another one, but I’ve noticed this change as well. COVID was a real turning point. I only teach one class adjunct at the community college on home energy but it has been noticeable.
My wife teaches middle school and has also seen significant change in student behavior. We’ve boiled it down the word ‘apathy’. It just seems like an increased percentage of kids just don’t care. Not all, as you’ve said here, but it’s as though it’s shifting from a majority care to a majority don’t care.
Lloyd, I read your post with sadness. I too teach in that same environment. I too am disparaged as to my classes and the apparent lack of commitment to the standards you and I would have embraced those many years ago. It is harder and harder to get up the energy, year after year, to face the often impenetrable wall of student malaise. There are, as you point out, many committed, excited, inquisitive young minds each year. But fewer and fewer. Or at least fewer and fewer immediately apparent. It is exhausting, frustrating and infuriating. So I too may hang up the teaching spurs this year. Which I will hate to do. I love teaching. But as one of your students said, perhaps I just don't understand the new post- Covid, post reading, post writing, post drawing, post in-person attendance, post respect, post enthusiasm ..... student (and often faculty). If this is the case, perhaps they can be better served by someone of a generation that "gets it", in a way I never will .... and never wish to.
Ouch. I haven't taught in the classroom since COVID changed everything. However, I am aware of the realities you describe. I have seen them building up well before the 2020 inflection point. Universities have had to adapt to students as clients for many years. It is difficult to anticipate how the situation will resolve but we are certainly at a critical turning point. Will a renewed desire emerge for meaningful learning and mentorship? It's so easy to feel despondent with all the factors squeezing our post-secondary education system: politics, isolationism, social media, the simple cost--and commodification--of education are but a few topic. You aren't revealing your age here, but simply operating within a dysfunctional period that will yield to something anew. I hope that what emerges will bring us together because the alternative feels really dystopian.
thank you Mark, good to hear from you.
I retired last year after teaching high school math in large public schools in Colorado. I also have a 19-year old daughter and a 21-year old son, both of whom are attending university and now law school for my son in New Zealand (they’re dual citizens). My colleagues and I have definitely noticed an increased apathy and an increased negative parent involvement in our area. We are in a small conservative town (Rep. Lauren Boebert’s district and avid Trump supporters) but at a school that was intended to be more innovative with its structure and curricula. Probably needless to say, but the school has been pressured by loud parents and some district staff to conform to more traditional models and has lost much of what made the school unique, so I feel that has played some role in our student apathy. If they hear mom complaining about the “weird math” program at home, the kids are probably less apt to be engaged. We’ve also had an uptick in absenteeism, more for mental health than physical probably.
As a mother of the same age group, I struggle in this issue because I was seeing both sides. My son graduated high school in 2021 and struggle immensely during Covid shut downs. He talked to me frequently during his first year of Uni about his fear for the future for his generation - financial, environmental and political and didn’t feel like it was worth bothering to get a degree. His fear at times was almost paralyzing. And I was hearing that from other parents and educators. I convinced him and my daughter, both of whom are intelligent and thoughtful kids who had done well academically, to try university for a year, not because I wasn’t open to them pursuing a non-degree career but because they wanted to live overseas where they didn’t know anyone their own age yet. So I used the first year dorm as an incentive to get an education. While I know my son isn’t necessarily representative of his entire generation, he ended up loving Uni and finished his bachelors and is now in law school. But even he will admit that his fellow law students (some who are only 18 because NZ law programs can start as a bachelors track) seem apathetic and ask what he considers to be stupid questions regarding assignment instructions, etc
So I guess I feel your pain and can see that at least some of our students are truly struggling with health and fear because their world is, in some ways, very different from ours. Yes, their attention spans are trash but then I can’t tell you how many times I was in a staff meeting with other teachers or spending time with my Boomer parents and everyone around me was in their phones instead of listening to others. Now that I’m self-employed and work different hours, I also see Facebook posts and other garbage going up in the middle of the work day for people I know are supposed to be working for someone else. So the apathy isn’t restricted to Gen Z.
I just recently found your Substack through Laura Fenton and I really appreciate your thoughts on our future with climate change. So thanks for keeping up the good fight! As someone who already left the teaching profession (to pursue helping people declutter and live more sustainably), I certainly can’t counsel anyone to stay in teaching. But it sounds like you are making a difference to many and probably even to many of those who aren’t attending.
Hi Lloyd, it was nice to meet you in Auckland last year. I was reading this post and it seemed that you were describing exactly what was going on in my classes last year. It is sad to see that university life is like this nowadays, I think students are missing out on so much, not just the academic side but also all the socialisation that used to happen at uni. I had about 20% of students attending last year, and I used to get so disappointed after spending a lot of time preparing things for them. The worst case was when I organised a walking tour to see examples of adaptive reuse, and nobody showed up!
However, we managed to make some changes to class schedule and this year I have around 90% attendance now. We moved my classes to be after their studio course, and now they all come as they are already at uni. If this is something you can explore with your faculty, I highly recommend combining more classes into one day. Basically, they wouldn’t commute to uni just for one class, and especially if the lectures were recorded. I hope you find a solution and don’t lose hope, as I’m sure you are teaching some great content!
Best, Priscila
Thank you Priscila (and thank you for the tour of Auckland!)
I forgot to mention that this was a great posting.
Thank you Lloyd.
I also feel your pain, from teaching Architecture (part-time) here in the North West of the UK... but it's also important to note that the Universities themselves don't seem to even care, TEACHING seems to be low down in their priorities!! Teaching staff get very little proper support from these huge institutions.
"Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"
Lloyd,
Kids are engaged, just not at the plodding meat-world pace of their teachers' generation.
One wonders when the school system will stop blaming COVID. Yes, that also happens in the elementary and high school level also.
As a retired teacher and an active substitute teacher, I can see the difference between when I started teaching, and today. And it all boils down to, the schools have become a daycare for the school year. As you do your best to gather their attention so that you might teach them, they become disengaged after about five minutes.
They are taught to use computers starting in first grade, but they are not taught to type properly ever. Telephones are their world, and if they're taken away from them during class because the student would rather be on their phone rather than do whatever assignment is do, not only does the teacher (me) get called into the principal's office to be told that we (the teacher) are not allowed to confiscate property, even though the student was given several warnings, we were told to F-off, threatened bodily harm, and verbally abused; we (the teacher) will probably have to face the wrath of angry parents because we "forced" their angels to pay attention in class.
Grades and testing are considered harmful, so the kids are not challenged nor do they know how to test (unless it's just a multiple guess type in the computer). Critical thinking is not allowed, and emphasis is not placed on learning but rather placating the student.
In otherwords a daycare conveyer belt to get the kids out of the system when their 18.
And, when they're 18, it's not the schools probelm anylonger.
The reasons the kids are like this are few, but, COVID is not one of them.
And yes there are exceptions, there always are, and those exceptions make the job worthwhile.
I will add to the comments: I have taught engineering and architecture students at the university level (and a highly rated one!) for about 25 years. I also have notice here has been a noticeable shift in the average class engagement, and although this has likely been massively impacted by Covid, the trend was there already. As you noted, your concern (complaint?) does not apply to all students, and there are many great ones who do engage, attend, ask questions, etc. But the change is palpable.
As someone who also has taught studio, I can say that this is a technique (too expensive for public education unless you get significant extra funds like in architecture) that helps reduce the problem, but the trend is still there. If I had classes of 15 students I could greatly limit the issues, and perhaps develop the culture of learning and hard work that was previously more common. In classroom teaching, it has been helpful to add numerous pop quizzes, and grades for in-class exercises, to encourage attendance. Alas, these eat into precious classroom team (if we added an hour a week to the class schedule, then it would be fine).
I also love teaching, and get enough rewards from the many exceptional students that it makes up on balance for those who appear to be disinterested, focused on grades, and looking for the easiest path. Frankly I think I am lucky to be at a school that has a high proportion of excellent and exceptional students. But the rising number on the other side of the ledger is depressing, and also makes me consider retiring.
This is such an important topic, and we need more conversation in schools, from high-school to post-graduate, about how to address this.
If there are students who attend a class taught by Prof. Straube and are looking at their phone instead of paying attention, they are missing an incredible mash-up of superbly assembled lectures that are clear and practical, and a fairly high level of stand-up comedy. If I am attending a multi-track conference and John is speaking, no matter that I have heard him on the same topic previously, I always choose to hear what he has to teach me, because I always learn something fascinating and new to me. Students who don't appreciate this are just in the wrong field!
It is all depressing but I am relieved to find that I am not alone.
thank you John!
Interesting article Lloyd. My experience of teaching in a school of architecture in the UK is that there is a world of difference between lecturing and studio teaching. Lectures are difficult. Attendance is often poor, and engagement equally so. But it does feel that disseminating information using essentially the same techniques as Socrates is increasingly outdated - we use the lecture theatres because they are there, and we always have, and not because it is the best way to teach students of architecture. Studio teaching - in tutorial format, either individually or in small groups is completely different. Attendance is virtually 100%, engagement is excellent, students are creative, ideas can be exchanged and built upon (and questioned) rather than delivered as gospel. But for the university, it is undoubtedly more expensive in terms of staff to student ratios. For me personally, the biggest question is what we should be teaching the students to prepare them for what they are likely to need to confront within the lifespan of their careers. Interesting times indeed...
This dovetails with my experience. (See my comment above. I was differentiating between teaching at a liberal arts school vs a design school, but I think it correlates with architecture school lectures vs studio.) The question is how to deliver non-creative content - what we would normally have in a lecture/presentation - in a way that engages. Does teaching need to change or do students?
An aside: I do recall frequently falling asleep in college lectures (even, gasp, Vincent Scully's) or when just reading assignments decades ago. I blamed myself for being 'lazy' for years and only recently discovered it was indeed mild ADHD hobbling me long before the diagnosis existed. A little med assist before a lecture or even a play or movie has made a world of difference. So I do have some empathy with today's students. But there's more going on than just this.
There's a bunch of reasons for this but this student takes the cake (mud cake, that is):
"...People in higher education need to understand how much the world has changed, particularly since 2020, and adapt instead of holding students to expectations that no longer apply."
Seriously? Your other quote covers some of the Why:
"...most don’t seem to care that they do not know what it is assumed they should or would know. They are blissfully happy in their ignorance.”...
Indeed. They REALLY don't know what they don't know. However, I would exchange the word "blissfully" with "militant". Seriously, the world has changed that much since 4 years ago? Four SHORT years ago? This guy has no sense of historical context - nor does he care that his entire lifetime isn't even a miniscule splat on Time's windshield. Not only is this unserious person, and others like him, are oblivious what is coming at them as they enter the industrial workforce.
I taught technical computer classes both in industry (deployment of new software) and as an adjunct covering various principles in the field (e.g., software engineering and design). The former (with a few notable exceptions LEARNed what was necessary - I gave their bosses what to expect from them before the class so the students had the motivation to learn as if their jobs depended on it (as they did).
With academic classes, I told them that I was going to push them harder than they ever had been before, not because I was a b***buster but because I expected excellence from them - and that if they didn't, industry would spit them out. I treated them as if they were my reports. I treated them with the expectations they could do the work.
It worked - one year, the class valedictorian was in my class and I received the highest praise I think I could get: "You worked us harder than anyone ever has before - more than any of the rest of our classes before. But the result is that I knew that I was learning something new every day".
Of course, the flip side was what one of my evening classes, a Professor did in a Networking 101 class (when X25, DECnet, and SNA were "things"). In 10 seconds he went from "my name is" to multi-variate calculus mixed with high level statistics on packet routing and control. At the 1.5 hour mark, he called for a break. To be honest, I barely kept up and was wondering "what HAVE I gotten myself into?".
Half the class didn't return after that break.
He smiled broadly and said "Good, you all are the students I want to work with. I just got rid of the unenthused, unmotivated, and those WAY over their heads and didn't want to put in the work."
He demanded excellence and made his students realize just that.
IMHO, it doesn't matter what the "new fangled technology" is that the above self-absorbed one was blithering about; it is still about a consensual bidirectional push of information in amusing and instructional manners ("keep'm laughing, folks!) and a willingness to drink from the "oh, this is making sense" informational firehouse.
And yes, keep them laughing - I've always found that if people are laughing, they are paying attention - CLOSE attention.
Just my 2 cents...
"Now, let's get back to reasonable." I learned more in that class...
I would appreciate it if you would edit out the twits and the insults. You make valid points but don’t criticize other readers, particularly students.
Point taken.
However, outside of the really motivated students that are a joy to have and watch them thrive, too many, to the detriment of their future, have been ill served in the "self-esteem" and "participation trophy" generations that were praised to the max for not doing much at all.
If they aren't called out during their educations, industry will spit them out. I've read the biz sites and seen such results when the underlings try telling their Mgt how to run their businesses. At one legal firm, when the summer interns petitioned that the entire firm not "dress to the nines", the whole lot of them were fired.
Standards were kept regardless of "popular opinion".
And look at what happened at the New York Times a bit ago when the Mgt caved.
Unfortunately, while those edu-phrases have mostly disappeared, what has disappeared is the needful sense of rigor and heightened expectations as students are working their way up the grades. Sure, some teachers are trying but as Jack noted, it's the Administration that is furthering this dumbing down by taking it out on the teachers who expect more than the Administration does.
Which should lead back to the evergreen question: what specific set of metrics is driving those coercive (and educationally corrosive) behaviors BY "Administrations"? And does anyone have the courage (and chutzpah) to wage that battle?
If one doesn't set the expectation of excellence and remind these often poorly raised students all the time what that is, you won't get it. And then once out in industry, remember who they will blame when they get fired...
...not themselves. Because they've been trained otherwise.
Educating is not for the faint of heart anymore - I get that and most folks here have said just that.
So Lloyd (and you knew this was coming), what would be your Principles to rewind this educational ennui that has been growing for at least 4 decades, and do the reform that is required?
I went back to school in 2016 to finish my degree after an autoimmune diagnosis initially forced me to drop out for a few years. I was frankly shocked at what passed for a college student and that was now almost a decade ago. I was considered some sort of prodigy and all I did was complete my assignments and write competently. I remember during that time editing a document with some friends for a group I ran as a hobby. One of them was working on her master’s at an Ivy League school. She was suggesting edits that were totally grammatically incorrect, and me and the other girl (who was a journalist) were tongue tied because we didn’t know how to tell her that her suggestions were flat wrong. At some point institutions will need to separate the wheat from the chaff, because it is a disservice to society to allow these students to believe that they’re academically competent.
Oh this rings so true. I’ve been teaching architecture off and on since 1990. The changes to both students and curriculum are stark. Now I teach grad students, who are more committed to their education and the huge financial investment in their future. But those same challenges exist — especially when it comes to reading, writing, and drawing by hand. The most motivated students are first-generation students, many of whom are immigrants.
I’ve been battling with this for several years, starting well before COVID. In part, I think it depends on what type of school you are teaching at. My own education was at liberal arts schools (including architecture grad school). But teaching at design schools, as I primarily do now, can be different. Lectures and readings are seen as old fashioned and even irrelevant. (I know one instructor who assigns only videos, no readings.) Can anyone tell me: is it different at top liberal arts schools?
And that’s in combination with the much-mentioned diminishing of attention spans – my own included – that are a result of the digital world, manifesting in the growing number of people with ADHD and taking medications for it.
Plus, there’s malaise mixed with fear of what is coming, which surely affects students. But I want to put that aside for the moment.
I’ve been told that I should not lecture for more than 20 minutes! And that I need ‘activities’ to be a heavy part of my class sessions. This is college, mind you, not grade school. I try to accommodate that but find it nearly impossible to cover the content that my courses need to include, and that the activities (many coming from other instructors) feel – to me, I should emphasize – like playtime, merely a way to wake up the students. In response to my worry about content, I’m sometimes told that it isn’t necessary to cover the entire topic. But how do you gain, say, ecoliteracy without talking about all or at least most of its aspects? How do you do that without instructor presentations? In 20 minutes?
On the positive side, I’ve had students come up to me and say this was their best class, precisely because it wasn’t juvenile. But they are a minority.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, a product of an earlier idea of education. I hope not, because I fear that the idea of teaching and learning is fading, that younger people feel they can get nearly everything online. I try to focus on the concept of constant learning (and learning how to learn) and exploration, questioning and researching – how to think - and that Google and AI can’t do that for you.
I don’t know what the resolution of this is. I’m trying to adapt my teaching style and trying not to resent it. (“In my days,” spoken with a warbly voice, “we had real lectures and classes.”) And more importantly, trying to figure out how to make it work, how to help produce a generation that can think independently and innovatively. I worry about that.
20 minutes! I have three hours to fill.
Same. Presentations are recommended to not be longer than 20 minutes. (This is for first year students.) So I think I'm supposed to intersperse with other types of activities. Presumably, it's OK to have several 20 minute presentations in a class session.
Lloyd,
I'm not a teacher but have 3 kids who each have a different approach to education.
From my sample size of 3, boys are different to girls. Oldest son, 23, completed a BSc in Maths and Physics. Watched 90% of the lectures on line. Studied 9-5 most days. That was enough. C's get degrees but he did way better. He also skied 30 days last winter, joined the rocket club and drone club, and the coffee club. In holidays he headed to the coast and did no Uni work. He's now studying to be a Science teacher. He'll be great.
Daughter, soon 21, completed a Bachelor of Design Innovation. She, and a fellow student, jointly won a student Urban Design competition!!! She loves art and graphic design. She went to all lectures and studios(except during covid lockdown). Did fantastic work and now has moved overseas to explore.
Daughter soon to be 18. Has a limited idea what she wants to do at Uni. Studious. Maybe she'll do engineering, like me, 😂.
Their mother died 6 years ago 😭.
Everyone is different. You don't know what's going on in their lives. University is often a time for exploration and learning about oneself as much as the course. Students need passionate teachers/lecturers who love their topic and see value in the topic. Try not to let your ego get the better of you!
It's hard to ignore the fact that once upon a time places like the University of Toronto, where I spent 16 years in different fields of study, had a lot of government funding and a commitment to upholding its well established reputation, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The financial picture is very different now, for those on either side of the lectern. Should it surprise anyone that, with the multiple systems collapse scenarios we're now experiencing and reacting to every day, there's a generation for whom a lot of delayed gratification and self-directed focus training to insure future "achievement" has no appeal? Especially if their parents are paying the bulk of their tuition fees?
Boy I hate to be another one, but I’ve noticed this change as well. COVID was a real turning point. I only teach one class adjunct at the community college on home energy but it has been noticeable.
My wife teaches middle school and has also seen significant change in student behavior. We’ve boiled it down the word ‘apathy’. It just seems like an increased percentage of kids just don’t care. Not all, as you’ve said here, but it’s as though it’s shifting from a majority care to a majority don’t care.