Insert tuition, press button, receive degree. Except life doesn’t work like that.
The real world doesn’t care about your participation trophy. It demands people who can think and not just regurgitate.
Education isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to change you. And that requires friction, failure, and occasionally wanting to throw your textbook across the room.
The students who get this will be the dangerous ones in the best possible way. Because when they graduate, they won’t be looking for the answers. They’ll know how to find them.
Churchill was right. But I’d add that the price of actual education is discomfort. And we’ve become allergic to it.
Tries to picture Neela at school throwing her textbook across the room... nope... too much self control for that - though I can picture you playing fetch with your textbook and your parrot
You know sometimes I wonder how the great men and women have centuries ago still remain so powerful and impactful today even when they are gone. Back then learning and realism wasn't attached to modern technology or science adaptations it was more about the reasoning and psychology and the creative world of imagination.
I wish we could reinvent ourselves and leave a Mark just like they did.
If you were part of the elite and born into the right lineage, that’s true. The competition to be great was certainly a lot less fierce than it is today if the circumstances where right for it, Ral.
That’s funny! I’m trying to be more creative with my titles and hooks. I based it on the little punch cards we used for lunch in elementary school. Talk about inefficient! lol
Bette this us one of your best and it’s just the tip of the iceberg highlighting the problems of our current educational system. Grade inflation. Check. Curtailed curriculum with detailed study notes. Check. Continued decline on international common exams that have been given for decades. Check. Lack of debating or discussion about differing ideas. Check.
I have no idea what instructors or professors at any level do now to contend with generative AI creating all the essays. Research shows that students that use this facility actually learn less . The distinct fall off in reading is also alarming. Thanks for this!
I’m so glad you liked it David! I haven’t written too much on SS about HE. But trust me I have lots that I could! lol I’m sure many are in total denial it’s happening. I’ve been out of it for 3 years now, so I don’t know how they are dealing with it. Critical thinking skills have been declining for years and this is not going to help with that. There is an enormous amount of critical thinking that goes into writing well. I predict teaching that skill will look nothing like it did when we were taught.
I think we have created a world where knowledge is often “processed” for us to remove us much thinking as possible.
Social media is about giving questions and immediate answers in perfectly packaged carousels. Experts distill 10 years of experience into 10 simple slides.
I think encouraging students to build knowledge by finding ways to share it may be an alternative to traditional testing as the applied knowledge could be graded. It’s not a perfect answer and I’ve never been an educator but maybe it’s a start?
Professors in HE have been left scrambling because the typical sage on the stage doesn’t work anymore, Lee. Students want to be entertained, they want a say in their learning, and many do believe that effort should impact the grade received. That’s a tall order when you have large classes and limited time, even though for the cost they are paying, you can’t blame them. Administration puts a lot of pressure on faculty and staff to accommodate the students even when it may not be in their best interest to do so.
Personally, I think they need to revamp the entire system. But institutions like these thrive on maintaining the status quo. It will be interesting to see what happens in the US now that the Trump administration is dismantling the department of education. It’s going to impact HE - the question is: how will they react to it.
I am intrigued to learn more about what methods work well in higher education to see how they can apply to modern change management.
How to build engaging content and how to demonstrate knowledge is a universal challenge in and out of the classroom and I appreciate when people teach me new perspectives I wouldn’t have access to without Substack. Thanks for sharing your perspective so we can all benefit!
I can certainly write about many that didn’t work when I was there. I’m not sure how they are handling incorporating AI because I’ve been gone for a few years. But given how universities like to operate, that kind of lightning speed technology is going to be overwhelming. Change in HE is incredibly slow.
Hi Bette! As I was reading your tale of working so hard for an A in undergrad, it brought back a memory from high school for me. I signed up for World History AP (Advanced Placement). It was supposed to be a course to prepare you for college. I love history so I thought it would be fun.
The first day of class, the teacher gave us homework to do. A LOT of it. Like 20 pages of detailed questions to answer about the entire book. I took it home and started working on it. After a couple of hours, I had barely made a dent in it. I showed it to my mom and told her there was no way I could finish all this tonight. She looked it over, and decided this must be my homework for the entire semester. Just do the best I can tonight.
Well I got to class the next day, and first thing the teacher does is tell everyone to come up to her desk and show her that we did our homework! She was serious, it was all due! I got to her desk, she looked mine over and frowned and told me I didn't get much done and sent me back to my desk.
This continued throughout the week. I remember I was sitting next to a girl who couldn't believe it either. After a couple of days, she dropped the class. I wanted to drop the class, but I was scared to go talk to the person that did that LOL
On the Monday after the first week, she started class and looked around the room at the empty seats from the people that dropped the class. She said 'Ok, now that the people who don't want to be here have left, let's begin'. The class was pretty good after that, but the first week was terrible LOL
I too had read the Adam Grant piece and it was pointed and excellent. Your writing was too, Bette. Both of you pulled the curtain back on the cold, reasonable and beneficial reality.
False beliefs and entitlement don't win the day in the world. Best to learn that, come to understand what is expected instead, experience the shock and frustration and come to adapt to what is required.
And to be fair, it’s not all students, Michael. But there is this pervasive belief that it’s a service they pay for and should be guaranteed a degree in the end. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way but the way universities and colleges have struggled with admissions, they have become more customer service oriented which is both positive and negative. The student isn’t always right and giving them a grade they didn’t earn to keep them from leaving the institution has created this situation where degrees can start to feel more like transactions than achievements.
I love your last sentence, Bette. Universities are there to teach students that lesson, if the adults in their family and high schools didn't teach it.
The encouraging news you shared is that some professors stand up to that expectation and deeply-engrained entitlement (even if its a student blind spot).
That there are still students willing to work for their education and grade is no surprise. There are always people who realize that a lot of pain is necessary to earn an education and the reward of the high grade isn't for showing up.
I would expect they too don't like their fellow students who expect an "A" or high grade for effort. Admission numbers are definitely unsettling to universities. That's bad for "business."
It’s tough because the students and parents have been conditioned. It’s not entirely there fault thinking the system works in a certain way when it doesn’t - or shouldn’t.
Hey Bette
We’ve turned learning into a vending machine.
Insert tuition, press button, receive degree. Except life doesn’t work like that.
The real world doesn’t care about your participation trophy. It demands people who can think and not just regurgitate.
Education isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to change you. And that requires friction, failure, and occasionally wanting to throw your textbook across the room.
The students who get this will be the dangerous ones in the best possible way. Because when they graduate, they won’t be looking for the answers. They’ll know how to find them.
Churchill was right. But I’d add that the price of actual education is discomfort. And we’ve become allergic to it.
It’s like a Netflix subscription. But I paid my money, now I want my degree while I watch comfortably from the sidelines to get it.
Tries to picture Neela at school throwing her textbook across the room... nope... too much self control for that - though I can picture you playing fetch with your textbook and your parrot
She never did the fetch thing except with food. Yea, I am not a fan of actually throwing stuff. It has crossed my mind many many times David.
Lovely Bette,
You know sometimes I wonder how the great men and women have centuries ago still remain so powerful and impactful today even when they are gone. Back then learning and realism wasn't attached to modern technology or science adaptations it was more about the reasoning and psychology and the creative world of imagination.
I wish we could reinvent ourselves and leave a Mark just like they did.
If you were part of the elite and born into the right lineage, that’s true. The competition to be great was certainly a lot less fierce than it is today if the circumstances where right for it, Ral.
My techie background shows because when I read your title, I immediately thought of IBM punchcards
That’s funny! I’m trying to be more creative with my titles and hooks. I based it on the little punch cards we used for lunch in elementary school. Talk about inefficient! lol
Bette this us one of your best and it’s just the tip of the iceberg highlighting the problems of our current educational system. Grade inflation. Check. Curtailed curriculum with detailed study notes. Check. Continued decline on international common exams that have been given for decades. Check. Lack of debating or discussion about differing ideas. Check.
I have no idea what instructors or professors at any level do now to contend with generative AI creating all the essays. Research shows that students that use this facility actually learn less . The distinct fall off in reading is also alarming. Thanks for this!
I’m so glad you liked it David! I haven’t written too much on SS about HE. But trust me I have lots that I could! lol I’m sure many are in total denial it’s happening. I’ve been out of it for 3 years now, so I don’t know how they are dealing with it. Critical thinking skills have been declining for years and this is not going to help with that. There is an enormous amount of critical thinking that goes into writing well. I predict teaching that skill will look nothing like it did when we were taught.
It is rather grim looking at educational futures
It's okay AI is coming to replace the students and its been trained on Reddit and LinkedIn comments so it must know everything
Now this made me laugh and hard. Well, what could possibly go wrong with that kind of training!!! lol
I think we have created a world where knowledge is often “processed” for us to remove us much thinking as possible.
Social media is about giving questions and immediate answers in perfectly packaged carousels. Experts distill 10 years of experience into 10 simple slides.
I think encouraging students to build knowledge by finding ways to share it may be an alternative to traditional testing as the applied knowledge could be graded. It’s not a perfect answer and I’ve never been an educator but maybe it’s a start?
Professors in HE have been left scrambling because the typical sage on the stage doesn’t work anymore, Lee. Students want to be entertained, they want a say in their learning, and many do believe that effort should impact the grade received. That’s a tall order when you have large classes and limited time, even though for the cost they are paying, you can’t blame them. Administration puts a lot of pressure on faculty and staff to accommodate the students even when it may not be in their best interest to do so.
Personally, I think they need to revamp the entire system. But institutions like these thrive on maintaining the status quo. It will be interesting to see what happens in the US now that the Trump administration is dismantling the department of education. It’s going to impact HE - the question is: how will they react to it.
I am intrigued to learn more about what methods work well in higher education to see how they can apply to modern change management.
How to build engaging content and how to demonstrate knowledge is a universal challenge in and out of the classroom and I appreciate when people teach me new perspectives I wouldn’t have access to without Substack. Thanks for sharing your perspective so we can all benefit!
I can certainly write about many that didn’t work when I was there. I’m not sure how they are handling incorporating AI because I’ve been gone for a few years. But given how universities like to operate, that kind of lightning speed technology is going to be overwhelming. Change in HE is incredibly slow.
Hi Bette! As I was reading your tale of working so hard for an A in undergrad, it brought back a memory from high school for me. I signed up for World History AP (Advanced Placement). It was supposed to be a course to prepare you for college. I love history so I thought it would be fun.
The first day of class, the teacher gave us homework to do. A LOT of it. Like 20 pages of detailed questions to answer about the entire book. I took it home and started working on it. After a couple of hours, I had barely made a dent in it. I showed it to my mom and told her there was no way I could finish all this tonight. She looked it over, and decided this must be my homework for the entire semester. Just do the best I can tonight.
Well I got to class the next day, and first thing the teacher does is tell everyone to come up to her desk and show her that we did our homework! She was serious, it was all due! I got to her desk, she looked mine over and frowned and told me I didn't get much done and sent me back to my desk.
This continued throughout the week. I remember I was sitting next to a girl who couldn't believe it either. After a couple of days, she dropped the class. I wanted to drop the class, but I was scared to go talk to the person that did that LOL
On the Monday after the first week, she started class and looked around the room at the empty seats from the people that dropped the class. She said 'Ok, now that the people who don't want to be here have left, let's begin'. The class was pretty good after that, but the first week was terrible LOL
I too had read the Adam Grant piece and it was pointed and excellent. Your writing was too, Bette. Both of you pulled the curtain back on the cold, reasonable and beneficial reality.
False beliefs and entitlement don't win the day in the world. Best to learn that, come to understand what is expected instead, experience the shock and frustration and come to adapt to what is required.
And to be fair, it’s not all students, Michael. But there is this pervasive belief that it’s a service they pay for and should be guaranteed a degree in the end. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way but the way universities and colleges have struggled with admissions, they have become more customer service oriented which is both positive and negative. The student isn’t always right and giving them a grade they didn’t earn to keep them from leaving the institution has created this situation where degrees can start to feel more like transactions than achievements.
I love your last sentence, Bette. Universities are there to teach students that lesson, if the adults in their family and high schools didn't teach it.
The encouraging news you shared is that some professors stand up to that expectation and deeply-engrained entitlement (even if its a student blind spot).
That there are still students willing to work for their education and grade is no surprise. There are always people who realize that a lot of pain is necessary to earn an education and the reward of the high grade isn't for showing up.
I would expect they too don't like their fellow students who expect an "A" or high grade for effort. Admission numbers are definitely unsettling to universities. That's bad for "business."
It’s tough because the students and parents have been conditioned. It’s not entirely there fault thinking the system works in a certain way when it doesn’t - or shouldn’t.