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April 18
Hey, You! Pay Attention!
The students sit in class, tapping away at their laptops as the boring old law professor mechanically plods through his lecture. Except one. Instead of hunching over a portable computer or a notebook, he’s playing solitaire with a deck of cards on his desk. The professor halts his droning. “What are you doing?” he demands. The student shrugs. “My laptop is broken,” he says.
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- Looking at Students and P2P — With Data, Oct. 31
- Social Networks, the Next Educational Tool?, Oct. 30
- Outsourcing, Open Source and Budget Cuts, Oct. 29
It was a sketch, performed at a Yale Law School skit night some time ago, that sent a chill through the professors’ section in the auditorium.
Ian Ayres, the William K. Townsend Professor of Law at Yale, remembers it well. Long a critic of giving students free reign to surf the Web during class, he’s tried multiple approaches to discouraging laptop users from distracting themselves with e-mail, games (like solitaire) and gossip. Now his theories are being put to the test.
Late last month, as students returned from spring break, the University of Chicago Law School announced that Internet access would be blocked from classrooms. While individual professors at law schools have created policies banning laptops or allowing them only for specific uses — and while some colleges don’t even have classroom Internet access, or mandate classroom-only use without any enforcement — the move by Chicago appears to be the first institution-wide directive of its kind. Already, there’s been an uproar among students and even senior administrators, while some law professors have stepped up to defend the policy.
As first reported in the blog Above the Law, Dean Saul Levmore sent an e-mail message to students on March 25 announcing the change, which came as a surprise to many. Calling the policy “experimental,” he said it would now be considered a “breach of our norms” to use the Internet during class time.
“A great many conversations and classroom visits have generated the perception, and I think reality, that we have a growing problem in the form of the distractions presented by Internet surfing in the classroom,” Levmore wrote. “You know better than I that for many students class has come to consist of some listening but also plenty of e-mailing, shopping, news browsing, and gossip-site visiting. Many students say that the visual images on classmates’ screens are diverting, and they too eventually go off track and check e-mail, sometimes to return to the class discussion and sometimes barely so. Our faculty (and I, as well as many of your classmates with whom I have spoken) believe strongly that we need to do everything we can to make Chicago’s classroom experiences all they can be.”
Further down the message, he continued: “Visitors to classes, as well as many of our students, report that the rate of distracting Internet usage during class is astounding. Remarkably, usage appears to be contagious, if not epidemic. Several observers have reported that one student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within twenty minutes an entire row is shoe shopping. Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated.”
The solution, which has already been in place for over two weeks: Switching off most wireless access points and under-the-seat network jacks covering the law school’s classrooms, a method that works only because they are located in a single building wing that can easily be isolated. But even Levmore conceded that there would be ways around the ban, such as using wireless cellular or radio cards that bypass the campus network.
There are also exceptions. The dean noted that one classroom would continue to have Internet access to “facilitate occasional computer training.” At the same time, said Gregory A. Jackson, Chicago’s chief information officer, one out of four classrooms — as well as all the podium areas — still has live connections available via network cable. He also added that depending on students’ computers, they might be able to get online if they sit at the back of their classrooms. (Plus, Sprint has plans to launch its new WiMAX service in Chicago, which would provide a new, high-speed way to get on the Internet beyond the campus network.)
“I think now, the social norm is that people who have the equipment ... check their e-mail constantly, maybe even every 15 minutes,” Levmore said in an interview, noting that those everyday norms seep into the classroom as well. Speaking of the policy, he added, “It’s obviously paternalistic to a degree, and I wish it weren’t. I feel quite libertarian in my own life,” he said, but in this case he found that “intervention is worthwhile.”
Levmore also said that many of the professors — as well as students — he’s spoken with have expressed support for the policy. But others contest that view, saying he is painting a distorted picture of the opinions. It’s “not terribly popular with anybody except the dean who requested it,” said Jackson, the Chicago CIO who was ultimately charged with carrying out the policy. “I actually don’t think it’s a good idea and I don’t think it will work.” Moreover, he said, in conversations with senior administrators at the university, he found a “general consensus” that it wasn’t a good policy.
In Jackson’s view, students today are adept at multitasking and they expect to be connected in “sophisticated ways,” and any attempt to circumvent those tendencies will eventually fail. If students aren’t paying attention, he said, it’s “not the fault of whatever is distracting them” but the lecturer who isn’t captivating their attention. Levmore’s idea to create some sort of “on-off switch” that would enable Internet access between classes, or give professors the ability to allow students online for specific classroom purposes, was also a non-starter, Jackson added: It “won’t happen,” he said.
Law lectures aren’t necessarily more susceptible to the capricious attention spans of Web-surfing students than those of any other discipline, but they do tend to have the greatest concentration of laptop owners. Some law schools, such as Chicago, require students to take all exams on laptops — among other reasons, so that they can upload or e-mail their work on the spot. But as student technology use continues to evolve, even laptops are starting to be supplanted (or augmented) by smartphones such as BlackBerries, Treos and other devices that can access the Internet through cellular networks. Students using such devices would not be affected by the Chicago law school’s policy.
Whether or not most Chicago law professors agree with the dean’s view on Internet use, prominent academics have come out in favor of limiting it in the classroom setting. “I think that surfing the Internet is qualitatively worse than daydreaming and doodling in a couple of senses,” Ayres said. “One, I think there’s fairly strong evidence that it’s a more addictive activity, and independent of that it has more of an externality, more distraction [to others] than many of the alternatives.”
Ayres has tried different ways of regulating students’ Internet use and has dreamed up even more, such as one scenario in which students who wanted to surf during class would sit in the back row (so that no one else would be distracted) or another that would require all applicants to law school to check a box pledging not to misuse the Web during lectures.
“I wholeheartedly applaud the move,” said David D. Cole, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, in an e-mail. “I’ve barred students from using laptops in my classes for two years now, and it has manifestly improved student participation and the level of engagement and discussion. And no wonder — allowing students access to the Internet is like putting several magazines, a telephone and a television monitor at each students’ seat and inviting him or her to tune out and browse, talk or watch TV anytime their mind starts to wander. It is corrosive of an engaged classroom.”
Not surprisingly, many students don’t hold the same view, and most who responded to requests for comment did not want to be quoted by name. “Surfing the Web was widespread in class, but to be honest, class discussion hasn’t changed much since the ban,” wrote one in an e-mail. “People now play chess, solitaire or just go through their pictures in class.” Another suggested that some students even save Web pages to their hard drives to read later in class.
The number of students who spend all of their class time on the Internet is relatively small, suggested Chicago Law student Hadi Nilforoshan. Another group, probably bigger, doesn’t use the Internet at all in class. “The rest of the students probably fall into a middle range,” he wrote in a Facebook message. “This group is usually paying attention to the professor, but will occasionally check their e-mail or chat online. The only time this group of students uses the Internet excessively is if they feel that the professor does a horrible job of teaching, and know that listening will be of no use. This is very rare, however, given that we have mostly phenomenal professors.”
Levmore said that other law deans had contacted him about the policy, many of whom were enthusiastic or at least interested in the results. Yale Law, which had been reported to be considering a similar move, said through a spokeswoman that no such discussions (to the chagrin of Ayres and others who share his views) were under way.
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Comments
try something more pedagogical like identifying the assets and liabilities of the technology and agreeing on rules to maximize the assets and minimize the liabilities — keep updating your syllabus. This ain’t gonna go away!
Steve Davis, at 7:55 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Computers in class
I can understand why this is a good idea. Last week I happened to pass by a Spanish 101 class being taught by one of my colleagues who allows students to use computers in her class. The students were involved in an oral repetition exercise as they normally are when I pass by each morning. Much to my surprise, when I glanced through the open door to the classroom, I saw that a handful of students were responding to the instructor’s cues to repeat. The majority were sitting with computers and clearly engaging in something that had nothing to do with the task at hand. I couldn’t understand why my colleague would tolerate this kind of behavior. I feel compelled to ask the following question: what is wrong with having to listen to a boring professor or a boring lecture? Plenty of us had to do that when we were students. A lecture may not have provided us with instant gratification, but we were taught to respect the professor no matter how boring his/her lectures were. To my way of thinking, you turn off your cell phone when you go into class, and you should turn off your computer as well. This is a lesson in civility, for starters.
gianstefano, at 8:45 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Agreement from Silicon Valley: “Topless” Meetings
Here’s a related story from the L.A. Times, 3/31/08:
Silicon Valley meetings go “Topless": Without laptops, that is. Silicon Valley is unplugging — at least in conference rooms.
A classroom is for human interaction; if one wants an on-line education, why not do it completely on-line>
LEN, Professor & Chair, Theology and Religious Studies at University of San Diego, at 8:45 am EDT on April 18, 2008
laptops and lectures
It just seems to me that if you are interesting enough — if you are actively enough engaged in your pedagogy that you can read your students and know whether they are engrossed or not — then laptops and internet use become non-issues. If all you are doing is showing PP slides and speaking as if to an empty room — well, I’d surf the internet myself in such a situation. Connecting with and challenging your students is the best defense against attention drift.
J J Cohen, Chair of English at GWU, at 9:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
I would be curious to know how some of these professors stand on the rights of students who storm the podium of a lecture in progress. Wouldn’t it be a twist in irony if some of these students were accessing Students For Academic Freedom during one of these lectures? It IS probably about time professors learned to incorporate the use of all this tech. into classroom discussion. The mode of education is quickly changing. Never before have we had the thoughts of great minds at our fingertips. Professors can’t compete so they should figure out a way to run with it.In the meantime students should have learned that it is poor manners to be “otherwise engaged” when someone is speaking to them.
denise, at 9:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Be realistic
Well. Couple things. For one, these are adults we are talking about. Second, there’s more than one way to learn even though the mileage may vary.
I have no rejection on those that saying this is a lesson in civility. But, if that is so, please say so. Otherwise, I think we should accept the fact that there’s more than one way to learn and our goal is to advance students’ knowledge as much as possible. Of cause, the advance should be evaluated as objectively as possible.
Personally, I know that professors have a lot to offer. The question is if they have spent time thinking about it. For the minimum, they should realize that there is no need for them to repeat what the textbook is saying and should concentrate on explaining points that students have trouble with. Those points could be a very good evaluation material.
Duncan, at 9:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
This does not surprise me. I have students text messaging and using using a Blackberry in class. That being said, I look at it as if a student feels the need to do this kind of crap in class, they will suffer the consequence of a crap grade.
Prof TK, Adjunct Instructor at Medaille College, at 9:45 am EDT on April 18, 2008
onus of responsibility
“If students aren’t paying attention, he said, it’s “not the fault of whatever is distracting them” but the lecturer who isn’t captivating their attention.”
Why yes if you are bored it is always someone elses fault. You are not responsible for your education because it is someone elses job.
If drivers are not paying attention in traffic, it is not their fault, it is their cars fault right, or perhaps those boring traffic lights?
What self centered, immature, hedonistic irresponsible, disrespectful trash.
You get out of education what you put into it.
People are responsible for whatever they endevour. Students are responsible for their education. Any student doing anything in class except participating with their full attention should be thrown out of class. The classroom is not your living room/kitchen/den/game room or bath room.
Mr. Socol, students used to know how to pay attention, even when the lecture was boring, and still managed to learn something. Adding cell phones, ipods and laptops for todays students who were born for the “short attention span theater", is throwing water on a grease fire. Students seem to no longer have the skill to be able to focus on one thing at a time. Blaming the lecturer is the lazy persons copout.
Multitasking is not always a positive thing as countless traffic studies have shown. Ultimately, though students need to learn when to multi-task, and when to focus on the job at hand. Shopping and solitaire are not adding to the lecture.
Ironically, the bored students of this story are not using the internet to search for other source materials that may brighten or enhance the lecture for them. If they were using their laptops to increase their knowledge of todays lecture noone would be complaining, and the question would not have to be repeated.
What did he say?
Bored by lazy students, at 9:50 am EDT on April 18, 2008
unplug your laptop and plug into class
I find it bizarre that students would have the option of surfing the net during class. But the respondents to the article, who appear to be students, are appalled that their freedom should be compromised by making them pay attention to the class and think the problem is boring lecturers: if the professor wore a clown suit and juggled chainsaws during class they’d pay attention to that. Maybe they would film it on their cell phones and post it on You tube so their friends who cut class could watch it during some other class. I think this is why students aren’t learning: they aren’t paying attention. Unless it is part of the lesson, nothing that isn’t class work should be allowed during class time. In college and graduate school, people have plenty of time outside class to look things up. And in case something does come up, a student could ask for permission to look it up in a database or the professor could suggest it himself. This is ridiculous, and the analogies made to the democratization of knowledge are specious. Class time is precious and shouldn’t be wasted by finding the love of your life on Match.com or bidding on a surfboard on Ebay.
Jay Bernstein, librarian/asst. prof. at Kingsborough Community College, at 10:05 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Please don’t hold me accountable!
Kudos to “bored with lazy students.” You provide a very eloquent assessment of the problem. Many of the abusers, I would guess, are also the type of student who is likely to blame the professor because they are failing the course."Gee, if the lectures had been more stimulating, maybe I would have been motivated to study harder.” Try saying that to the boss when the report is due in his/her office, and you just haven’t gotten around to writing it because you weren’t inspired enough to do so. Out the door you go! What ever happened to accountability? If you feel that you can learn more from the computer than the professor, stay home.
gianstefano, at 10:25 am EDT on April 18, 2008
I understand the desire to limit student internet access. In defense of students AND adults everywhere, these technological tools are distracting. The problem is that the students in question at this law school do not self-regulate their behavior, and now the law school will be the ones regulating their behavior. What happens when they get out? NO CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR. There are two possibilities to intervene: One is to modify instruction to integrate the tools. Second is to create enforced policies about what happens when students aren’t paying attention because they were shoe shopping instead of participating. I find it SHOCKING that a law student at the U of Chicago would ask for a question to be repeated because they weren’t paying attention. The student should be made to feel embarrassed for this behavior, and it should impact their grade. Turning off the internet is just a band-aid.
Not the right solution, at 10:45 am EDT on April 18, 2008
bored, and Dr. Bernstein
“students used to know how to pay attention, even when the lecture was boring, and still managed to learn something. Adding cell phones, ipods and laptops for todays students who were born for the “short attention span theater", is throwing water on a grease fire. Students seem to no longer have the skill to be able to focus on one thing at a time. Blaming the lecturer is the lazy persons copout.”
Ah, the wonder of memory. I’m old enough to know that students have always been bored, when things are boring or irrelevant. That they’ve always been distracted. That they’ve always written notes, and done crosswords, and read other books.
And it is important to remember that the only reason we have teachers/instructors/professors at all is so that they can meet students at a place the students can connect to, and deliver content in a way that matches student needs. Otherwise we could just go read the books or now, yes, go online.
The trick here is not wearing a clown suit. The trick is engaging using the information technology of the time. Just as a textbook is worthless if there’s no reason to open it, the technology is not of much value unless the prof uses it. “Can you look that up for us and email it to the class?” “Can you find anything which supports that?” “What do we have in [this journal or that — and now we’re teaching real library skills] which supports or contradicts what she/he just said?” “Text message 5 of your friends and ask them this question?” “Can you go to that book online and find a passage which shows the similarity?” “Can you see what The Telegraph/LeMonde/Washington Post said about that last week?”
One last thing — “the analogies made to the democratization of knowledge are specious” — how smug. A person with a career in an elite system which fails 75% to 80% of the national population wants to keep things exactly as they always have been. Access to differing learning methods and tools using ubiquitous technology (laptops and mobile phones) is a significant “difference-maker” around the world. That is not something to be sneered at — it is an essential issue of equity, both in terms of differing capabilities and differing economic means.
Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 10:45 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Guilty as charged
I am a law student, and near the top of my class, and I have a confession. I spend a lot of time in class online or playing solitaire. In a way, a light distraction allows me to focus more clearly, otherwise I totally daydream.
Let the markets decide this issue. If a student cannot hack it or does not pay attention, let him fail. If they succeed despite their innatention, then let them do whatever. If a professor is bothered by this he may A) make his tests harder and fail out those whom cannot pay attention, B) become a more interesting lecturer or C) find other employment.
MR, Law Student at Suffolk, at 11:10 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Are the pro-wired poeople kidding? The Internet is like crack. And often about as bad for you. I don’t want my classroom to be turned into one of those BBQ restaurants with a separate TV for each person at the table.
TBD, at 11:10 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Hey, You! Stop Whining!
I use laptops in class often in law school. Mostly I browse the web. Sometimes I take notes.
Still, in undergrad I did not have a laptop. Even if I had, the desks were too small to make them practical.
I survived undergrad.
I also survived those classes where I did not bring my laptop. Surprisingly, I took more notes. I paid more attention.
Yes, they were boring. Mind numbingly tedious in some cases. I even passed out, asleep, in one case. My head lolled back and then rolled forward, throwing me out of my seat. Humiliating. But I paid attention the rest of class.
All of this is moot, however.
The classroom is the professor’s domain. It is his or her kingdom. Their will is the law.
If you don’t like it, do not take that class. Can’t change class? Then go to another school.
Otherwise, stop whining. Buckle down. Read your cases. Pay attention. Handwrite your notes. Learn what the professor wants you to learn.
Professors are the gatekeepers of grades. They are your boss in that classroom. They owe you nothing. You owe yourself the hard work and effort to learn the law.
I am constantly surprised at the laziness, the whininess, and the sense of entitlement present in many law school students today.
Perhaps there grades would improve if they stopped making excuses for their poor performance and begin trying to learn.
Seriously, folks. It is not the end of the world. And no, you don’t have a right to solitaire in your class. You have no rights. You are a peasant in the professor’s kingdom. You waived your rights by agreeing to submit to law school.
And here’s a point: You can always quit if it is really so difficult.
- John3L Law Student
John, at 11:15 am EDT on April 18, 2008
An instructor’s job is not to entertain students. It is to convey knowledge that the students need — as determined by the institution that student chose to attend. Often the subject matter is not as entertaining as the Internet or a friend’s email message. But that is not the student’s decision to make. If the student knows better than the instructor and the law school dean about what they should study, then why are they attending law school?
This modern sense of entitlement in students is frightening. They are there to learn under the tutelage of the instructor. The instructor and the institution know better – that is why they are at the front of the room and the student is in the seat. Let the instructors do their job as they see fit and acknowledge that the student’s role to listen.
Peter, at 11:35 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Why don’t professors take charge of their class and tell the students to close their computers? Why is a policy necessary? If faculty don’t mind students surfing but want them to pay attention during important sections or discussion times, then tell them to close laptops and put away electronic devices then. BTW, I see faculty doing the same thing during meetings!!!
Davison, at 11:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Poor Lectures = Distracted Students
I personally attend many technology-related lectures over the course of the year. And specifically in these lectures, the majority of attendees have laptops with wireless access. Many surf during the lecture. But they attend the lecture nevertheless, not because they are required to, but because they feel that they gain from the lecture. Also, unquestionably, if an important email comes up or if they wish to verify a fact or link quoted in the lecture, then they have that option.
Lecturers tend to forget that they are there for the students and not the reverse. The students come to experience the exchange of information between themselves and their lecturers. In most cases, the lecturers run through a slide deck that was prepared some time ago, and which has been only minimally modified since. In contrast, those lecturers that enhance “dry” slides with conversation and a back-and-forth with their students, tend to enjoy a great deal of eye contact and feedback during class.
I believe we have all experienced top researchers and academics who lack even a modicum of public speaking skill. If lecturers want students to participate, then the time has come for them to learn how to capture the attention of an audience. That means investing serious time in creating dynamic presentations that enthrall students. Before you say “university is not Disney Land”, that is exactly what it is. In fact, that is what all of our lives are. Information is so vast and frequently changing that one must reach out and grab the minds of people if ideas are to be passed on. In today’s age, universities are no longer the only source for advanced learning. Students can learn so much from the Internet. In fact, it should be a requirement of every lecturer to post their slides and written/oral summary of the lecture beforehand. As such, students will have the opportunity to truly be prepared beforehand. And others may decide that there is no value in attending, which may be best for all. Clearly, in this scenario, the lecturer must create a new reason for students to physically attend.
Technologies exist today for including all attendees in a series of online questions and answers during the lecture. Visual demonstrations presented as video or animations will attract people to the screen. One could offer students a long list of web sites that accompany the lecture so that a number of them will focus, at least, on appropriate content. Simply put, try adopting the adage of “if you can’t beat them join them” before shutting down the Matrix … I mean, Internet.
Trying to halt “random” and “inappropriate” surfing will be as effective as trying to stop the exchange of bootleg copies of music and movies via BitTorent. Instead, the only way to make people stay honest is to provide an added experience that cannot be readily downloaded. I promise you that the professor, who invests in the presentation of his lecture and not just its content, will have an excited and involved classroom.
Dr Nahum Kovalski, Assistant Medical Director at TEREM Emergency Medical Services, at 11:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
I agree with this policy. I’m a student, and it is quite often distracting to me when the students who surrond me a clicking away on their laptops not to take notes ore read professors’ websites or anything like that, but fucking around on fackebook or youtube. It seemed to me that this was even worse during summer classes. Peoople who text on their cellphones are just as bad. I say: if they have their own wireless acceess bring in jammers.
Mike, I agree, at 11:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
The only thing wrong with computers in class is that it is taking away the imagination of undergrad students who would otherwise be day dreaming or counting ceiling tiles during a long, drawn-out lecture.
On a more serious note... if a student is accepted and paying to be in school, their success (or lack thereof) is in their hands. Consider any failure to be a result of a modern natural selection. Consider the success to be reminiscent of your jealousy for that naturally bright student who never studied but always did better than you in school.
I guess the real question is whether or not academic institutions should be charged with the responibility to groom the personal habits of a generation raised on the premise that there is a drug to cure any ailment... like ADD.
Daydream Believer, at 11:40 am EDT on April 18, 2008
Lectures, Knowledge, and Society
Ira Socol makes a key point for this discussion: “And ...remember that the only reason we have teachers…at all is [to] meet students at a place the students can connect to, ...otherwise we could just go read the books....”
Actually, two points are interconnected here: First, that the classroom/lecture convention has served as a means, a “technology,” of extending education to larger numbers and proportions of a society than was possible without the convention. Second, the functionality of that convention apparently extended beyond mere information-sharing, because correspondence courses (“just go read the books”) never worked nearly as well as live classrooms, even if dominated by lectures.
So the question is not whether information technologies (IT) disrupt the lecture model—of course they do, especially if IT is a means of further extending education to the population. The question is whether professors and educational institutions can exploit IT to the general benefit of society. –And this question can’t be answered merely by idealistic (and frequently self-serving) proclamations, whether in defense of the virtues of orderly lecture classrooms or in defense of the wondrous potential of the Internet.
IT is, among other things, a disruptive technology for bureaucratic organization. As far as I know, the uses and potential of IT for transforming organizations is still an unfolding story. We don’t yet know what works well and what doesn’t, organizationally speaking. But we do know that outcomes are possible using IT that were not possible before IT (global supply chains, flatter back-office administrative structures), so I think we can expect big changes in education, as well. It won’t be as simple as “distance education” as currently imagined. It won’t be as idealistic as some anarchist learning models seem to suggest.
Socol is right, but we should remember that “the only reason we have teachers” includes a function—expressed as a legitimate concern by today’s professors—of order and authority. But that authority cannot be maintained by defending the norms of an anachronistic organizational structure; we need to think about how authority can be mediated by IT.
Rod Bell, Adjunct Professor at College of DuPage, at 12:00 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Assuming
Assuming that John the Law Student is in a state/nation with no law school requirement for practicing law (take the test, prove yourself capable, and you’re a lawyer), I’ll accept his argument. But in any situation where academics hold the keys to the credentials gate, his attitude in 100% wrong, 100% elitist (in all the bad ways, not as in “superior"), and 100% devoted to maintaining the status quo in society.
In a credentialist society, the paths to those credentials must be open, must be fair, and must not be subject to the whims of any self-appointed classroom royalty.
Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 12:00 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Different styles of learning
If you see a class with a some raptly paying attention to the instructor while others appear distracted, you may also be seeing different learning styles. Sorry, but not everyone learns by watching a talking head for 50 minutes. I *can’t* learn that way and never have been able — which almost resulted in me not graduating high school. However I did finish high school, college, and eventually medical school (back when we didn’t have laptops in class.) Though I finished med school only by never actually going to lecture, running the note-service, and teaching myself in a way I can learn. (And despite not attending the talking head shows I graduated in the top of my class from a top 20 US medical school.)
I contrast that to my experience now attending Continuing Medical Education lectures (generally also 50 minutes of a talking head plus too much powerpoint.) If I bring my laptop and can have the minimal level of other input I need and I can answer questions that I have about the material (during the lecture), I find that now I can actually get something out of a lecture. Take away my laptop and I am back where I was in the 80’s. I can still do it, but it will be on my own again.
And I am sure that the few law students who are like me will suck it up and do it themselves too. But it would be nice if they didn’t have to.
Ryan G, at 12:00 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Shopping for shoes @ $600/hour
*All* lectures are boring when you’re only half listening. It’s a vicious circle that can start during the natural lulls in any lecture or meeting.
These are future lawyers — that’s why they’re in school. I’ll be one of their clients. I’m not so glad to learn that part of my $600+/hour ($10/minute) bill will be subsidizing their shoe-shopping compulsion.
Students clearly believe that they’re maximizing the value they’re personally getting from their time by multi-tasking business & other stuff. The people footing the bill, be it parents, future employers or clients won’t see things the same way. They’re probably thinking that business is business.
Just because students are often better at multi-tasking than their profs doesn’t mean that they’re good it at. We need to do a much better job of teaching students how badly multi-tasking affects their personal performance on their primary task. This is a bad habit they need to be educated about if we want to foster top performers. Everybody overestimates their ability to multi-task; just ask the young lady who ran over my toes because she was on the phone.
JD, at 12:10 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
BRAVO!
I applaud the move by the University of Chicago Law School to preserve the sanctity of the space of the classroom for teaching purposes.
This sends the clear message that while in certain spaces, the total focus should be on the teacher and fellow students, and not extraneous internat material.
THANK YOU, CHICAGO!
Steve Katsinas, Professor at University of Alabama, at 12:30 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
To respond to several earlier comments... there are 168 ceiling tiles in my lecture hall, I made two new friends on facebook today, and I just got an “A” paper back from my professor who is now discussing where others went wrong on their papers. I’m pretty sure there is no harm in my ability to access the web during lecture. For the record, there is a time and place for everything. I usually don’t have my lap top out in class, but I think I should have the freedom to do so.
Randy Ahgen, at 12:30 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
My laptop is set to stun.
“Instead, the only way to make people stay honest is to provide an added experience that cannot be readily downloaded. I promise you that the professor, who invests in the presentation of his lecture and not just its content, will have an excited and involved classroom.”
First, you assume that because the student is bored that the professor did not invest in his/her lecture. It is my experience that most professors have invested a great deal into their courses.
Perhaps the lecturer is great, but the subject is boring. Of course it is an individual perception as to what is boring.
Maybe, the student suffers from various distractions that make the lecture boring.
Maybe the students are boring the hell of the professor with their innattentiveness.
Here is a trick that I learned as an undergrad; if the class is going slowly, think of a good question to ask the professor to break up the pace of the class and possibly draw other students into a discussion.
Don’t wait for the professor to be entertaining. You may find that the professor will respond to your attention.
Second, for those who say that this type of behavior can’t be stopped because the internet is everywhere, throwing the student out of class will stop the behavior in the class.
Third, as they are future attorneys I am hoping that I don’t have to keep them honest.
Mr. Socol, I too remember that students have always been bored by something or other. The point is that the boredom begins and ends with the sufferer.
I suspect that if your world view is that you are an inert being acted upon only by those things that impinge upon you, then by todays standards you have grown up to believe that it is everyone elses responsibilty to entertain you. Again, the self centered lazy persons excuse for whatever.
I believe, however, that I have the ability to influence my surroundings by being engaged. Many of todays students just seem to “run in place” while waiting for the big paycheck to hit.
Bored of Lazy Students, at 12:50 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Normative?
Unfortunately, this might not be limited to professors’ lack of effective classroom management (or disengagement from their students), or students’ lack of interest in the material (or disengagement from their professors). Perhaps this “multitasking” has reached a normative status, in some form — whether a result of available technology, or this generation’s ease and familiarity with it, and its social, not just academic, dimensions. Whether an accepted behavior by those in charge or not, this behavior persists among students of this wired generation, and possibly self-sustains due to a lack of dissuasion among peers, rather than proscription from above.
In most of the graduate school classes I’ve taken this year (at one of the USNWR “Top Ten” programs, for what that designation is worth), one often could find students who are online while the professor is teaching: they were/are shopping, posting and arranging photo albums, and perusing Facebook and MySpace accounts... and I sheepishly admit that on occasion I’ve been one of them. True, some professors are more riveting than others, and I wouldn’t (didn’t) engage in that behavior in some classes, out of earned respect for (or fear of) the professor; or, I was too busy trying frantically to keep up with note-taking and discussion to be otherwise distracted. But it’s tough to ignore the ease with which some peers multitask their attention and computer activities, and how easily they dismiss what I vaguely remember as more admonitory ("rude?") behaviors back in my undergrad days fifteen years ago, before there WAS an internet. Maybe I’m just not as successful a multitasker as some of my peers.
And an excellent point was raised by an earlier poster, however cliché it may be: it’s also up to these students to “get the most out of their education,” or suffer the consequences—immediate or eventual, temporary or cumulative, intangible or concrete. One hopes that students—my peers and I—realize the investments that we make in our individual educations, but also how those investments contribute to the educations of the rest of us. Or, how lack of investment—and, as Mike noted, the distractions of others’ electronic disengagement—affect us, too. Again, I’ve been guilty at times, but thankfully it’s been infrequent.
I believe there are clear benefits to the integration of the internet in the classroom, that can be realized by both students and professors, who can constructively utilize it and its applications in courses at all levels. With that usage, however, comes the risk of non-related activity (abuse?), and as much as professors are responsible for effective classroom management (and students are responsible for paying attention to what’s going on around them), this may reflect a much larger social issue, not just an academic one. It would be interesting to study the social/normative structures of internet use in academic environments, relating to any pre-/proscription & admonitory behaviors—I know of some related research involving other “norms,” but perhaps those specifically geared to technology use haven’t been covered yet? -or, if they have, perhaps someone knows more and can post details…
(and no, I didn’t compose this in class)
Grad Student (Higher Ed AdminiI), at 12:55 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Law is hard work
Have these law students ever been told how hard their future jobs will be? They should be reading the works of Louis Nizer to find out how much work goes into every legal interaction, especially in a boring environment. Nizer said the hardest work any attorney must perform is listening with unwavering focus to what is going on. He wrote that after four hours in a courtroom, he would leave dripping with sweat from the exertion required to just listen. Do these law students think that every client, every judge, every other lawyer will provide them with entertainment or diversions to break up the monotony? The best training a quality attorney can have is attending class with a professor whose teaching style forces the student to dig deep for the importance of the message when every cell in the body is screaming to be released from the tortures of boredom.
Kathy Anderson, Director, Diversity & Equity at Cal State Univ. Monterey Bay, at 1:50 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
One-Pointed Attention
I generally lean toward Ira Socol’s argument. But multi-tasking is worth discussing with students. I once had my feelings hurt that a student was wearing headphones and surfing. I asked, “Have you been paying attention to my presentation and the class discussion?” He gave us the “minutes of the meeting” in more detail than I myself could have remembered.
I caught another student surfing while I was screening a key film clip. I cleverly gave an end-of-class quiz with a blatant question about the clip. He blew the answer, and later closed his lap top when I screened other clips.
I was once shocked at the gratitude an entire class expressed to me for having them read an essay by Eknath Easwaran: “One-Pointed Attention” in _Meditation_: A Simple Eight-Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideals into Daily Life_, Berkeley: Nilgiri Press,1978,1991.
Hold a discussion about when it is well to multi-task, yet also know when—and how—to engage in one-pointed attention.
Jed Leland, at 2:40 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Creds from the Net
“In today’s age, universities are no longer the only source for advanced learning. Students can learn so much from the Internet.”
I suppose that’s true. But I wonder, then, why corporate america hasn’t caught on and decided that, since the internet offers so much advanced learning all on its own, there’s little reason to favor job candidates who possess a college education over those without one...
Wait, I remember: credentials. The “net” doesn’t offer any. At least, not any that are actually taken seriously.
More generally, engagement in or out of a classroom is ultimately everyone’s responsibility, laptops or no laptops. No, professor, you don’t have to don the clown suit, but would you honestly keep showing up to a recurring meeting with someone who at each meeting merely parrots what you took the time to read in advance of that meeting? And students have little to gripe about so long as the instructor is soliciting their genuine engagement through the posing of relevant problems and questions (i.e., doing more than blazing through slides or more or less reading at the students) that defy breezy, from-the-book answers and instead promote engagement. Failure to engage at that point is not a failure of the instructor to use “enough” of a specific technology or to re-cast the subject in sufficiently entertaining ways, but it *is* a failure of the students to appreciate the significance of what’s before them. Let them sink until they learn that lesson the hard way.
Publius, at 2:40 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
When Children Rule
A laptop is a wonderful tool in the hands of the motivated, but all too often is used as a toy to entertain and/or distract the operator and anyone else in proximity. When has it become a God given right for individuals to be rude and obnoxious with technology? If you as a student know it all or are bored…leave, just do it quietly and don’t whine when you don’t get it later, when it really counts! I don’t believe in banning technology from the classroom, but I don’t believe the instructors’ or other students should have to put up with the disruption either. Each instructor should verbally and in writing make it known exactly what is expected within the classroom environment and except nothing less. Like it or not, the instructors’ responsibility is to manage the learning environment. When people behave like children and we condone their behavior then we are perpepuating that behavior. Sometimes it is healthy to remind the childish that they are in an adult world and they have responsibilies to themselves, their follow students and to their professor.Personally, I will close my classroom to technology when and if it becomes a problem. I am upfront with my students and they know where I stand. I very seldom ever have behavioral problems with students, but when I have, it’s amazing how many of the other students will communicate their approval to my methods and are glad to be relieved of the disruption.
Bill, at 2:50 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
responsiblity
This issue is not “technology is bad", the issue is the abuse of technology. I am all in favor of students taking notes on laptop, downloading my powerpoints, etc. The problem is that a few bad apples spoil the bunch. When I look across the class and see students laughing because they are chatting online, and other students staring at their neighbor’s screens where they are downloading music on MySpace, that just plain disruptive. It boils down to respect for the classroom. It’s not personal; it has nothing to do with how engaging I am — it starts on day 1. Some students see their time in the classroom as unimportant and no matter what bread and circus we hold out, we can’t compete with the ADD world of internet.
S., at 3:15 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Whats the problem?
Considering how much students spend, it seems to me that they should have the option to get as little, or as much out of the lecture as they see fit. Their only requirement should be to be respectful. I don’t see anything disrespectful about playing at game, surfing the web, or texting as long as it is done quietly.
In class, an individual student is often only called on a handful of times over the course of 4 months. If they have been doing the reading, they usually already know what’s going on in class. It’s no wonder they look for some form of distraction. It’s not meant to be personal against the professor. The system just doesn’t do much to keep attention.
I say, teach the students to be respectful. Feel free to give them a hard time if you call on them and they aren’t prepared. Besides that, give them the freedom to use their minds as they choose. Trying to be their parents and block the internet is so China, don’t you think?
Former Law Student, attorney at law, at 4:25 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Plugged In Students at Arkansas & the Yale Digital Discussion
Andy, Thanks for another timely piece. While speaking yesterday to the College Personnel Association of Arkansas on “Motivating Millennials,” I slipped into a lively student-led panel discussion on this topic of “topless” & “unplugged” versus open access classrooms (coordinated by Dr. Juliana Mosley). I tested the premise endorsed by all six students—if using restraint, multi-tasking in class is fine. That is, throughout the session I answered emails, read an Inside Higher Ed article, scheduled events, and simultaneously listened to the conversation. I missed a few key sentences that brought laughter, and missed a few important segues. When it ended, I wished I had video-taped it with my phone, thrown it up on YouTube, and then used it in my next session with those same students sitting in the audience (though not sure of FERPA regulations). Dr. Mosley also revealed that it was common for her colleagues to multi-task during high-level meetings. Your article provokes several thoughts. On the one hand, the classroom is a special learning environment led by the professor—and he or she should be able to control it in such a way that makes the most sense for the students’ learning. And sensible approaches vary with each professor and subject. Simple unplugging devices per room should be the purview of the professor. On the other hand, the article by Ira Socol is provocative and worth reading, i.e., “Humiliation and the Modern Professor” (3/17/08), though it does seem to resonate more with the attitude espoused by Cynically Tested (Twixters) and by the free thinking and candid editors of CollegeVoter.com. It’s helpful to read and view such sites on occasion. Also, the Los Angeles Times piece balances this a bit, “Silicone Valley Meetings Go ‘Topless’” (3/31/08). We (educators) can learn from companies dealing with the value of meetings as well as how to use online systems to prevent “boring” ones, e.g., Plaxaco & SmugMug. The article’s last line by a former Yahoo executive seems revealing: “No laptop meetings make sense, no meetings makes even more sense.” I wonder, as many of the above comments signify, if we’re indeed to a place of rethinking the amount of classes that actually need seat time (a question often asked but residential campuses seem to see them as an affront). It seems that online classes, once seriously ballyhooed, might be part of the answer to this multi-tasking generation, and that hybrid classes on residential campuses make a lot of sense—with lectures reserved for courses that lend themselves especially to such an arrangement. (BTW, I assume that few classes over 100 can make a strong case for the need to have live professors v. YouTubing lectures—if the professor still remains available online and in special on-campus gatherings.) Colleges would save millions in space allocation alone. Also, the work by Marc Prensky (www.marcprensky.com ), though controversial (e.g., criticized by Thomas Reeves [UG] in his wonderful lit review) seems to provide a usable look at the classroom through the technophile lens. “A View of Students Today” provides an engaging beginning to this digital discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o&NR=1 –. And for those chatting with their students/children about texting, a fun clip is the Leno contest between texters & Morse Code: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhsSgcsTMd4. The Arkansas students made it clear that texting in class should not be done if it offends the professor, and also that they text because they’re addicted (and the most common texter is their parents). And on the “boring” professor note I’m reminded of a story about T. Harry Williams while at Yale (and this might indeed be folklore from the ‘50s, but is likely true of many)—the history graduate students voted him two awards in the same year, “The Most Boring Professor” and “The Professor We Learned the Most From.” And if any of you are stuck in the Little Rock airport I’m at Gate 4 for quite some time—the mediocre-looking, pot-bellied professor-ish guy with headphones, laptop, and a galley on my lap with a felt pen behind my ear. Again, thanks Andy for prompting this exchange with our article. JP
Jerry Pattengale, AVP for scholarship & grants at Indiana Wesleyan University, at 4:25 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
“if the professor wore a clown suit and juggled chainsaws during class they’d pay attention to that”
That would definitely count as a teachable moment in the first-year tort context.
JBM, at 6:45 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Whose Responsibility?
Look, if the professor herself doesn’t care enough or is inadequately prepared to make classroom technology calls on her own, then this is a larger issue of faculty preparation and the value of teaching in American higher education. A Dean should not have to come out with an “experimental” policy to ensure that professors are doing their jobs and making sure that students are engaging the material. This entirely circumvents the issue.
Andrew Lounder, at 6:45 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
If students aren’t allowed to surf the web in class, how are we going to prepare them for life outside academia?
(Posted from my cubicle, at work.)
Alex, at 7:05 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
Doubtful
” .. Technology changes education ..”
For better or worse?
If for better — wouldn’t Microsoft already be selling LazyStudentHelp ™ for $999.99? And wouldn’t the rich — that 1% of the population paying 39% of total income taxes — wouldn’t they be buying it for their offspring?
Reality: strongly-motivated students, with strongly-motivated families, make education happen. Not technology. Not teacher unions. Not university presidents making $800,000 in total compensation.
Buzz, at 8:50 pm EDT on April 18, 2008
TechValue
Many of the comments suggest that Internet use in the classroom is a clear benefit, but that its use is being retarded by technophobic lecturers. I think the utility of the web, the computing technology that has become ubiquitous is not yet clear. I think many schools, the faculty and administration are struggling to find the balance that works not just to talk at the students, but that finds a way to enhance the educational venture. This is not to say that lecturers owe students a thrill ride. They don’t. Enhanecment may be a podcast of the lecture, it may be a PDF of the key points, it may even be a requirement that laptops be closed during parts of a lecture. Technology is not a magic spell, it has benefits and drawbacks.The students who surf, and game and multitask are missing an opportunity to engage with the schools in finding that balance that will make their educational careers meaningful not only for themselves but for the next generation.
jaquin, at 4:55 am EDT on April 19, 2008
Ah, students
Students think their lecturers should be entertaining? It’s the teacher’s fault if they don’t listen?
That is just asinine.
If you’re in class, paying money to learn, that is your responsibility; not anyone else’s.
Students who do this kind of crap (anything but pay attention) seem to be the ones who complain when their grades aren’t up to scratch. “Oh, the marking system’s not fair", “Oh, it’s the lecturer’s fault", “Oh, the world owes me a living for doing nothing". How about: you’re arrogant and want to get through life by making excuses for yourself, and you don’t care about the inconvenience your crap causes others.
Stevros, at 4:55 am EDT on April 19, 2008
snooping the student traffic
Particularly for wireless environments, but also for wired too, the lecturer can monitor all student Internet activity. The data could be used live or offline. For live, one could list the websites that students visit via an additional projector. Or list the ones that seem relevant to the lecture. One could get nasty and reveal instant messages, and images, etc., that cross the network and thus make Internet use a bit more risky. Offline one could analyze attentiveness (but there may be little correlation).
On another note: why not use polarization filters to hide screen contents from neighbors? This is common in industry.
Josh LeVasseur, at 4:55 am EDT on April 19, 2008
As my Mom used to say: “if you’re bored, you’re boring.”
If you’re bored, it’s your own fault. Life is interesting, even a lecture.
V. Rich, at 11:40 am EDT on April 19, 2008
In fact, it should be a requirement of every lecturer to post their slides and written/oral summary of the lecture beforehand.
While I can see the point of this (most of the time — though you may well want to hold some slides back); I’d like to know where Dr Nahum Kovalski would generate the time from ... should we reduce the research time, reduce admin (yes please!) ... or what?
This is a difficult one; I lecture, and as far as I’m concerned, I let my students use laptops -we’re studying Educational Technology so it would be fairly hypocritical on my part to ban it. I don’t check to see what they are doing. (As an undergraduate, if I was in a lecture that I realised was material I already knew, I’d use the time to write letters [pre-internet days!], do the crossword or whatever, keeping an ear open for when things that I didn’t know cropped up. As a student (I have been attending class), I haven’t taken a laptop, as I figured that the department I was taking it in wasn’t familiar with them. When I go to conferences & meetings, as they’re generally technical ones, I do. (I was in a meeting last week, & we discussed which was more environmentally friendly; printing out the 30 or so sheets of appendices etc, for the meeting, or plugging in & reading them online...)
Emma, at 11:40 am EDT on April 19, 2008
‘Hey, You! Pay Attention
The Chicago Dean should have done a little homework such as in buttressing his arguments with data. If I were him I (or someone in his school) would do a little comparative study for courses that allow full access of the Internet and those that don’t, by measuring the learning outcomes or even conduct a longitudinal observations of students whether students who are not allowed to Internet surfing in their lectures end up as better lawyers etc., Until we have these kinds of evidences any thing else is well… we don’t know the whole effect of allowing the Internet during lecture times.. I myself prefer the students stop surfing as much as possible unless it starts distracting other students sitting nearby...After all, the students (law students presumably are older and more matured than a typical undergraduate freshman) are the consumers and it is should be their choice.
Tech Prof, at 11:40 am EDT on April 19, 2008
Hey, You! Congratulations!
We work hard in our small high school to facilitate university readiness. It’s true that surfing, shopping, cell-ing, myspace-ing are all a part of this generations’ need to be plugged in and connected. I’ve often “preached” that they cannot do this type of distraction at university level (and it certainly is a norm that all electronics are OFF during any lesson at our high school) Engagement is critical with the material & teachers in order to learn. It may be over-parenting, but 18-21 year olds, are still in need of how to be a student and how not to be a plugged-in, distracted, slave to technology. You go Chicago!
Kristy, Compass Montessori High School, at 11:40 am EDT on April 19, 2008
Get over it
I have taught at a University for 10 years, so I am not new to this. It continues to surprise me that many faculty have this obsession of needing to have the student’s eyes fixed on them, as if learning can’t take place unless that is happening. You teach your classes differently than faculty did 100 years ago. Some things do indeed change, and the way this generation learns and interacts is different from the way that even you did it as a student. And the fact that you don’t recognize that or like that doesn’t change the fact that it is true.
If you were speaking at a conference and someone in the audience was on their computer doing something other than looking at you, would you also feel compelled to turn off internet access to the room? No, of course not. That would be rude, wouldn’t it? Why should they be REQUIRED to pay attention to you? Are you that personally offended that you would desire to control another person’s behavior?
I feel like college students are no longer children and if they don’t want to pay attention then that’s their choice. Believe me, their grade will suffer and that’s the main thing they care about. I am not their mother, and I am certainly not some arrogant faculty member who thinks that the only way these students can get this knowledge is from my mouth. They have the entire body of knowledge of my profession at their fingertips on the computer, so I have to offer them something that they can’t on the internet...my personal experiences, my perspective, and the activities and experiences that I give them in class to stretch their thinking.
If your students are bored in your classes, then maybe you need to evaluate your own teaching and quit blaming students. If the goal is to teach them the subject you are assigned to teach, then figure out a way to do that and quit whining.
Steve, at 11:50 am EDT on April 19, 2008
I am a journalism student who is constantly in awe of the blatant disrespect shown for professors in my department. I’m disgusted that anyone can turn it around and place blame on the professors. They’re not being paid to entertain. Yes, it’s nice to have engaging professors, but a boring professor is not an excuse for playing solitaire during class, nor is that a blanket reason for students’ inattentiveness.
I am currently in a writing and reporting class taught by a brilliant and successful professional journalist. He has worked for decades at a highly respected newspaper. He was a Pulitzer prize finalist. He is a powerful person in the industry, and— believe me— his lectures are not the reason that inconsiderate and unmotivated students play computer games during his class and don’t even bother trying to hide it.
He and I, and the few others who are active in his class, know that those students are squandering their time, and that ultimately those who do not pay attention are the ones who will suffer for their choices.
The students in this article are lucky that they have professors who are willing to go to these lengths to motivate them in their classroom performance. If I taught the class, I would simply let them be, and let the ones who don’t care pay the price for their lack of motivation.
Student, at 4:50 pm EDT on April 19, 2008
Get real
” .. If your students are bored in your classes, then maybe you need to evaluate your own teaching and quit blaming students.”
Yo — U-Chic is an Ivy-level law school. The Socratic method. Like getting an immediate “F” if you’re not prepared for class. The real thing.
Not a bunch of Billy Ayers-types, singing Kumbaya and holding hands. Professional stuff — like passing the bar exam and impacting millions of people.
Even Fidel expected Raul to show up on time — and pay attention. Viva Che!
KCG, at 4:50 pm EDT on April 19, 2008
Can anyone really multitask effectively?
Two common arguments are presented in this article. A. “In Jackson’s view, students today are adept at multitasking”B. “Half the time a student is called on, the question needs to be repeated.”
I have heard and read others offer the argument in A. I believe B to be common based on the experiences reported on many message boards. I do not understand how B can happen if A is true.
Frank Montabon, Iowa State University, at 10:50 pm EDT on April 19, 2008
Studies of attention (see DualTask.org) show that people cannot “Multitask". Attention is limited and when you try to split it, you do neither task effectively. Those who think they can multitask are wrong, as studies of distracted driving clearly show. The only things that can be done simultaneously are those that use different cognitive capacities. To the extent that using a laptop and listening to a class both require thinking, they distract from each other.
Perry, at 3:25 pm EDT on April 20, 2008
Hey Buzz
“Reality: strongly-motivated students, with strongly-motivated families, make education happen. Not technology. Not teacher unions. Not university presidents making $800,000 in total compensation.”
Buzz: I was the first in my belatedly highly motivated family not only to graduate H.S. but to go to college. I was also the youngest. Before my father was in a union my family was too busy struggling to survive even to discover or to learn from new, more affluent neighbors how to get me into college.
That is, my 8th-grade educated, working-class father was becoming more middle class by the time I came of age. Let’s face it; throughout American history, labor unions have provided a necessary “checks & balances” on the real power (the upper 1%). They were always flawed, and too often corrupted and co-opted by the very power they first set out to oppose. They were an inevitable and integral dynamic of U.S. history, constituting our very identity as a “land of plenty” today.
You’re right about “motivated families.” It’s just that, usually, academically “motivated families” are more affluent and secure in the first place. That’s why education reform will never happen in the U.S. strictly within the education system itself, not without first some economic restructuring in the outside world, which will take a resurgence of labor movements to help bring about.
And it may involve the upper 1% actually paying some of their official 39% tax rate, rather than their hiring professional lobbyists (many of whom are also in the 1%) to wangle myriad hidden loopholes and off-shore corporate accounts for their rich comrades.
I believe part of Ira Socal’s point about technology in the classroom (above) indicts traditional attitudes that tend to reproduce the class system. It says, “Succeed. But only as an individual conformist to the existing rules. Give no thought to collective involvement or political action.” Why would that be so important to squelch? Because it’s the only thing that’s ever been effective on a large scale for improving families’ lives. To be sure, I’m where I am today because of my individual ambition. But more importantly, I’m convinced it’s also because of labor movements which created the enabling conditions for me to strive academically in the first place. Since my youth, the labor movement has been rolled back next to nothing, and I see that as a huge factor contributing to the crisis of education these days.
I salute you regarding the $800,000 university presidents. Q: Do they pay their full 39% in taxes?
Jed Leland, at 3:25 pm EDT on April 20, 2008
Paying attention are hard work
” .. And it may involve the upper 1% actually paying some of their official 39% tax rate ..”
Gad .. this gets boring, after the 1,000,000,000,000th time ..
A quantitative (ooh!) analysis of official IRS data (get out a calculator) —
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
I know. Don’t let facts get in the way of a high-minded call for class warfare. Right.
Facts is hard. So are paying attention. And “A Nation At Risk” was a Reagan plot to be mean to “the children.”
Buzz, at 6:25 pm EDT on April 20, 2008
My Mistake
Buzz: Sorry, I was confusing tax rate with % of taxes paid. The key is AGI and the loopholes which show that the percentage of taxes paid at the very top ought to be much more, for two reasons (and this is not off topic IHE, as I’ll explain below).
See Doug Henwood’s _Wall Street_. He performs a deep, revelatory analysis how Wall Street and our major financial institutions and leading families come by their wealth to begin with, much of which information will make your hair stand on end—"just facts.” These practices have only increased since Henwood’s book appeared in 1997, the mortgage meltdown, for one. Henwood concludes:
“Seriously boosting the income tax rate on the richest 1-2% of the population could fund all manner of public programs,from free education and childcare to public jobs programs. And taxation of wealth itself, along with income, would be a wonderful way to raise funds for, say, upgrading of the physical and social capital stock—financing urban reconstruction, mass transit, alternative energy research, and environmental repair.” Here’s the kicker: “Both forms of taxation would also have the lovely side-effect of reducing the wealth and social power of the very rich.” Lovely because democratizing.
And, increasing the wealth, Henwood’s statement implies, of the lower 50% such that it could pay a fairer percentage of taxes in its own right (consult the chart posted by Buzz, dear readers, to grasp my meaning here), is a major condition for improving education from the bottom up, technology or no technology in the lecture hall.
Finally, this imposition of a higher tax rate on the most powerful, oligarchical segment of U.S. society would need, among other things, a resurgent and sustained labor movement. Class warfare? Read Henwood et. al. and see how class warfare in the 90s (under that great Republican president Bill Clinton) was further declared anew—after the Reagan era—upon the lower 50% while buying off the loyalty of the 49% in between. (Neither is this, by default, an endorsement of Obama.)
Buzz, What’s squeezing you and your fellow tax revolters isn’t taxes. It’s how the economy as a whole is structured, how money circulates, what it’s doing and not doing, for whom and against whom. I feel it too. You’re not alone.
There are some average people out there refusing to pay about 40% of their taxes, the percentage, that is, going to the Iraq war and which is only enriching private contractors while fueling anti-U.S. hatred around the world. By the way, why didn’t the media cover The Winter Soldier Conference a few weeks ago? I guarantee you, if any students surfing their laptops came across it on _Democracy Now!_ they learned something more important than whatever was going on in the classroom that day.
Hey, you. Pay attention!
Jed leland, at 10:20 pm EDT on April 20, 2008
Citation for Henwood Quote
Doug Henwood. _Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom_ London: Verso, 1997, 1998: 316.
Jed Leland, at 10:20 pm EDT on April 20, 2008
Wow!
In every aspect of life, technology is changing how things are done. Why is it so hard for educators to understand that? Face it, we (most of us) are not attending college to prepare for a life of academia. We are attending college to prepare for the “real” world. The real world that wants things done faster, cheaper, and better. By the way, read a job description and you’ll often find multitasking to be a requirement.
Lu, at 8:50 am EDT on April 21, 2008
One-Pointed Attention
Lu: But see Eknath Easwaran’s chapter “One-Pointed Attention” in his book _Meditation_ that I cited more fully in one of my posts above.
It may be unfortunate that the workplace is becoming ever more a place of multi-tasking. It ain’t human.
Where we once thought of education as helping students go deeper, it’s now about helping them to stay shallow. I’m sorry the market seems (I emphasize SEEMS) to promote a shallow mass culture.
But see also Ira Sokal’s posts. Just as arguably, the traditional attitude would seem to perpetuate a class structure, which is why I gravitate, on the whole, toward his analysis (and yours, so long as you’re not arguing for a shallow, politically naive market culture).
Jed Leland, at 9:20 am EDT on April 21, 2008
Theology/ History
As someone who has just recently paid off $50,000 in student loans over a 25 year period, I would never in my right mind think of wasting class time doing anything else but taking notes,asking questions or thinking no matter how boaring the lecture may be. Education is simply too expensive “to play games.” I guess you can tell who is paying for their education and all of their electronic gadgets including their $2,000-$3000 laptops.
Gerry A. Russo, ms at University of Memphis, at 10:00 am EDT on April 21, 2008
Paying attention? Hardly
” .. Buzz, What’s squeezing you and your fellow tax revolters isn’t taxes ..”
Why, yes .. I’m waiting for Hill and BHO to take on Bob Dylan (est. wealth: $300MM), Bruce Springsteen (est. $250MM), Michael Jackson (est. $200MM), Paul McCartney (est. $1.5B), Madonna ($250MM), Britney Spears ($125MM), Hill & Bill ($109MM). Why has it taken so long?
Seriously: advice from my old grand-uncle whose Daddy lost the family farm in 1929: “you can make yourself sick, complaining about how others got it better. Or you can fix your own problems. Your choice.”
Laptops as a symbol of class struggle? In a country where illegal immigrants buy $150,000 homes? Sure — and the Berlin Wall didn’t really fall, it was a CIA trick.
P.S. Jed Leland. Charles Foster Kane’s college buddy. About as funny as the late Chris Farley in “Beverly Hills Ninja.”
Buzz, at 11:20 am EDT on April 21, 2008
Berlin Wall
Actually it was likely a CIA trick that the Berlin Wall built.
Jed Leland, at 4:55 am EDT on April 22, 2008
Still not paying attention?
“Actually it was likely a CIA trick that the Berlin Wall built.”
Why .. of course. The 133 confirmed murdered there, trying to cross to the West, actually rammed their bodies into the AK-47 bullets of the Stasi. And here’s the proof —
http://victimsofcommunism.org/
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — among others (Charles Foster Kane?) — are giving away their billions in earnings.
You indicate you want a say in that giving. Hint: don’t hold your breath — IMO, they could give a rip about what you think.
P.S.: say hello to Susan Alexander Kane.
Buzz, at 4:40 pm EDT on April 22, 2008
A lot of this issue boils down to the concepts of - respect for the professor,and the institution - respect for the learning environment - exhibiting self discipline — and personal accountability.
If you think the professor is a load of manure, then drop the class, switch to another section, or see them during their office hours to resolve the issue. To sit there and go through the motions of “attending class” is not only rude but also stupid.
If you think the classroom situation is bogus and uncomfortable, then change your major or move to another school with classroom situations more to your liking. But also be aware that when you get out of school, your working situation isn’t going to be custom-tailored to your desires; in fact it will be more “like it or lump it". And if you can’t tolerate it, you’ll be told to leave.
Exhibiting self discipline to get through a seemingly uncomfortable situation, is just part of growing up and becoming a mature adult. Perhaps students need to curb their appetites and focus on why they’re really enrolled in law school to begin with. (By the way, there are a slew of “30 and 40 -somethings” running around out there who have yet to learn this, too). Hand in hand with this is the ability to stop being so self-consumed, and start realizing that there are students in the classes who really DO want to learn and succeed. Where do you get off interrupting their freedom to learn and participate?
Personal accountability means that you are held responsible for your actions or inactions. This is not high school where everything is laid out nicely in front of you, and if you just show up, someone will shepard you through to graduation. If you want the credibility and the knowledge from having attended and completed the program of education, then you need to step up and be held personal responsible for your efforts and actions.
Education is a two-way street. And no one likes someone who’s being only one-way.
C. Crawford, at 11:45 am EDT on April 23, 2008
been there, done that
Cornell Law School already has the internet blocked in the classrooms. Sure, there are still people who will play games, but the distraction level is drastically lower than in the one classroom that has internet. Glad to see another law school finally figure this out...
Big Red Alum, Cornell Law School, at 4:05 pm EDT on April 30, 2008
Berlin Wall
JFK felt the wall was a good thing, preventing a war. The CIA may have been involved in “dirty tricks” encouraging a brain drain from East to West Berlin. The writer in the link below, however, says the shootings (not 147 but 168) were legal under international law; evidently the guards at the checkpoints on the West agreed that the border should be enforced.
I find such “legal” shootings disgusting.
Later the U.S. used the wall for its own propaganda purposes even as the U.S. was actually a party to the wall’s being built.The official story is that poor East Germans wanted opportunity in the west. The fuller story is that West Germans sought education in the East, then wanted to cross back over to the West for the increased earning power their East German, free education had given them. The East German authorities were tired of subsidizing the West in that way, while their own economy suffered for lack of educated professionals.
To me the real story is how the rulers on both sides were oppressive and in a kind of strange cahoots. Beware of black and white thinking.
http://www.berlinermauer.se/BerlinWall/bygg.htm
Jed Leland, at 5:55 pm EDT on May 1, 2008
You Get What You Deserve
I have been teaching for over a decade and I have never experienced the problem expressed in this article. I have taught in two universities and have never had to teach a class with over 50 students in it. With a small number of students, a professor can learn student’s names, ask lots of questions, call on individual students, and keep them engaged. In a large lecture hall, that is much tougher to do and student learning suffers. Hundreds of students in a large anonymous lecture hall may be a great way for universities to save money, but this article clearly shows the result. There is no difference between seeing the lecture live or watching it on streaming video. Why not use a web cam to record the lecture and let student’s watch it asynchronously in the privacy of their dorm rooms where nobody will be offended by a student’s multi-tasking. The solution is not turning off the internet access; the solution is sufficiently small class sizes where students can receive a personalized education and where an insrtructor can effectively control the classroom environment. For the university not willing to do that, you get what you deserve.
Al Estes, Professor at Cal Poly SLO, at 8:40 pm EDT on May 31, 2008
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This ridiculous debate
just goes on and on...
“I just can’t possibly be a good enough educator to engage my own students,” so I’ll ban laptops from the classroom. “I’m just not an innovative enough teacher to figure out ways to use the research possibilities of connected students in class,” so I’ll shut off internet access. “I just can’t deal with this modern world!” “These crazy kids.”
Technology changes education. Technology changes cognition. Literacy changed things. Books changed things. Computers linked to the world’s greatest library also change things. And perhaps, just perhaps, we can see these technologies as moving information and education from more limited access to greater access.
Literacy meant people without the world’s greatest memories could start to become educated. The availability of relatively inexpensive books meant that a university in a prairie cow town like Chicago could have an extensive library. Computers and internet communication might mean that more diverse students can access and process information in differing ways which better support their individual learning needs.
(Ever look up a word in class? I sure have. Ever quickly hunt for an alternative way of explaining what a prof was saying? I’ve done that many times as well.)
So the question is never computers or internet access. It is teaching. After all, even paper becomes airplanes and spitballs and passed notes and letters to girlfriends if students have nothing better to do with it.
For part of the equity issue involved:http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2...umiliation-and-modern-professor.html
Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 7:30 am EDT on April 18, 2008