21st Century students, while displaying significant dedication, are not showing the same creativity or originality of thought.
In an article for The American Thinker in fall 2009, I described the difficulties that a professor with conservative views encounters on American campuses. For example, during eleven years in a senior administrative position, I trod the ever-present minefield of liberal dogma that thoroughly permeates the campus. Since that time, I stepped down from my administrative post and formally retired, but I am continuing to teach mathematics courses – largely to engineering and science majors. This fall, in my first teaching assignment in twelve years, I delivered a post-calculus course to approximately 200 sophomores and juniors. My goal here is to describe the nature of today's students – at least as represented by the two hundred with whom I interacted, point out some differences from students in the 1990s and earlier, reflect on how the differences mirror societal changes, and finally to speculate on the implications these differences portend for the nation.
Here are the salient characteristics that I see in today's university students, together with an indication of how their attitude/behavior differs from those of previous generations.
- Despite a great diversity in race, sex and ethnic origin, there is a remarkable consistency in how students approach problem solving, differentiate what they think is important from what they see as trivial, and also how they interact with each other and with the faculty member. This consistency was highlighted by almost unbelievable similarities that I saw in their exam papers: almost all make the exact same mistakes, concentrate their study on the same right – or wrong – topics, and ask questions that reveal a scarily uniform train of thought. This is of course an exaggeration, but there were times when I wondered whether they were all cloned from a common model. Certainly, the diversity of thought and behavior was far greater among students in previous generations.
- Related, but not identical, was a lack of creativity and originality that I observed. This was surprising because in terms of academic performance, the students were strong. The university has been working diligently for more than 20 years to upgrade the quality of the student body. And as far as I can tell, it has succeeded. The scores on my exams – the level of which was comparable to those I administered 15 years ago – were higher. But the students achieved the higher scores by careful attention to method, lots of studying, working collaboratively when appropriate, memorization of technique and by dint, perhaps, of a higher level of innate intelligence. What I didn't see was the unusual student who solved a problem by a clever, innovative method, distinct from the procedures learned from me or from the text. Average performance might have been lower a generation ago, but I rarely failed to see a clever solution (by an unexpected method) on at least one student's paper for each exam. Not today!
- Also related, but distinct from the previous two points, I saw few (if any) students whose prime objective in the course was to learn well a distinctive branch of mathematics. In the past I always encountered students – not always the best – who seemed to enjoy learning a new mathematical subject and who would approach me for suggestions on what they could do (beyond class) to enhance their knowledge of the subject. I saw none of that this past fall. The prime goal, even for the best students, seemed to be to earn the highest grade possible and their entire approach to the course was in pursuit of that objective. Getting good grades was always important, but for today's students it seems to be the only objective. In a related vein, one senses that they are at the university primarily to collect a degree – which they see as a ticket to a job or a graduate program – and little attention is paid to the accumulation of knowledge, wisdom or moral values.
- On the plus side, my students were virtually always well behaved, respectful, polite and pleasant to interact with in person. This was a welcome change from some of the surly and immature behavior that I too often witnessed (admittedly decreasingly) over the years from the 60s to the 90s.
- In a somewhat similar, but definitely less encouraging spirit, I found today's students too deferential. They seem to have too much respect for authority. They never challenged anything I said, questioned my judgment or doubted that I was an oracle dispensing the concrete pieces of information that they required. I sense that they are used to being told what to do by their superiors, that they rarely question the content of the "wisdom" that their elders supply, but rather they are programmed to believe what they are told and to follow orders. I might be overstating this but there was not an iconoclast in the bunch.
- Finally, twelve years ago, students didn't send emails to faculty. Now they have no hesitation whatsoever. And they send the most outrageous messages. They whine about missing quizzes because of illness and demand a makeup, plead for advance information on upcoming exams and demand redress for their poor and undeserved fate on exams. They don't complain about the syllabus, my teaching style, the amount of material to be covered – only about exams and their grade. But as we shall see below, this is completely consistent with what I described above.
The changes in student attitudes and behavior are not accidental. Today's university students are a product of a government school system, which teaches them that modern society (including its political, economic and even its cultural components) is too complex to be understood by the average citizen and its direction must be entrusted to professionals and experts. They are taught according to an increasingly uniform national curriculum that belittles non-conformity and drums into their heads the primacy of multiculturalism, global climate change, egalitarianism, central planning, secularism and the illegitimacy of any exceptionalism – American or otherwise. Finally, they are imbued with the idea that their highest objective should be to get credentialed and connected so that they can enter the Ruling Class so aptly described by Angelo Codevilla in the American Spectator last summer. They are also a product of a society that reinforces the baneful lessons they are taught in school; a society in which: lack of feasance to the prevailing wisdom is punished by marginalization and scorn; morals are relative and no value system is more worthy than any other; deference to professional authority is encouraged and individual curiosity, initiative and responsibility is demeaned; and respect is due to those who help one to gain entry to the Ruling Class, while contempt is reserved for those who stand in one's way.
It does not augur well. While I suspect that many of today's students will make good managers, bureaucrats and competent engineers and scientists, I wonder how many Mark Zuckerbergs or Sergei Brins we shall produce.
Compared to the unkempt, undisciplined and unruly students that I taught 35 years ago, today's students are a delight – hard-working, self-disciplined and pleasant. But unfortunately they also a bit boring and predictable, except when they are tenaciously arguing for a higher grade. Two hundred more will arrive at my lectern at the end of January. I am trying to decide whether to supply them with the link to this article.
Dr. Lipsman
“I am trying to decide whether to supply them with the link to this article.”
Based on what you have told us, I would say NO! In my world we would say “It would just piss them off” :>)
However, I see that much of what you have written is true and I have a partial explanation for it. Many studies have shown that men and women have nearly the same average IQ, but the bell curve for males is wider than that for females. There are more men at the low side and more at the high side. Since your sample is skewed towards the high side, maybe +1.5 SD to no upper limit, the increased diversity would naturally reduce the quantity of upside outliers, which those clever solutions came from in the past. Being an outlier myself in many ways, I understand how we get trimmed from the system for being less that deferential and iconoclastic. Fortunately, some trimmings take root where the wind blows them and thrive in a different place where you don’t see them.
This sounds like the subject for a dissertation.
Many of Professor Lipsman’s observations are similar to mine as a college teacher. My teaching experience only goes back to the early 1970s, so I don’t have quite as much to draw on as he does, but I will share some of it.
First, I too am aware of the nearly universal uniformity of thought among most of my students. I don’t find very many iconoclasts either. Very few students really want to dig into an intellectual problem with any seriousness. Some of them actually resent it when I disagree with their textbooks. I teach political science, and not mathematics, but many students seem to assume that textbooks are the only possible source of knowledge.
Second, I too find an almost overwhelming emphasis on grades. I’ve had to start including in my course descriptions a passage to the effect that I’m not under any obligation to give students an “A” simply to help them get into law school. And every semester some students complain that they just don’t ever get grades less than “B’s” and so they’re sure I’ve miscalculated their grades. I agree with Professor Lipsman that these students want to get credentialied but I’m not sure it’s so they get into Codevilla’s “Ruling Class.”
I think what most students have absorbed is that, if they want to get jobs at all, let alone good jobs, they must be as conformist as possible. They’re accustomed to ‘high stakes’ testing in high school and believe that education means getting high scores on standardized tests. Iconoclasts don’t do well in such a setting–this today’s student knows very well. They know that the corporations they may work for are no different, really, from government or all of those liberal institutions that Professor Lipsman dislikes: none of these entities want creative, original thinkers who might rock the boat.
Third, relevance is equated almost entirely to whatever it takes to get a job. Much of what I teach is the history of political philosophy, and very, very few students really want to read Plato or Hobbes or Aquinas as having anything to say to them, or to the present. At least my better students used to think that it was somehow a good thing to try to learn from what I’m still naive enough to call the great minds. Now there are just a very few who think this is important.
When I first started teaching, student discussions in class were far more animated than they are today. Some of this change is indeed due to political correctness. As I’ve said before on IC, it’s hard to find any professor on my campus who does not think that Israel practices apartheid against the Palestinians. On my campus I’m regarded by some faculty and students as dangerously right-wing because I challenge the mindless pro-Palestinian sentiment I see around me.
My campus has a very large percentage of foreign students, and I must say that here I often find qualities lacking in many American students. In particular, I’ve had a succession of exceptional Russian and Eastern European students since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And these students are usually far more literate in English than most of the American students.
I think Professor Lipsman should give his students a link to his post; they need to know what they don’t know.
What an odd confluence of ideas. My wife is off in Rome, to the wedding of her daughter and I’m home working on the heating system in our home. I just read an email from her telling that the bride and groom received a gift that took them to an old Roman bath where they spent 5 hours sitting in the steam, drinking tea, and getting a massage. I wrote her that I would rather spend 5 hours fixing the heat and drinking coffee. But to show my acceptance of their luxury experience I wrote “But that’s what makes horse racing.”
Then reading Gestell’s message I thought “How many of these students would agree with me?” “How many of these students would understand my feelings even if they liked massage?”, and “How many would understand the reference to horse racing?”
I said before that I would not recommend giving the link to your students. Now, with this good debate and my questions, please do. My money is on the premise that you will need to explain paramutual betting.
reply to Ivan Ivanovich,
A big part of my teaching consists in explaining what may seem like obvious things to students. A few years back I had a student who wasn’t sure when the American Civil War happened, or who was involved on each side. Almost any historical reference dating back past 20 years or so needs some explanation. Things like World War II or Reagan’s presidency or the Protestant Reformation are largely unfamiliar items. Few students have even a rudimentary grasp of what the stock market is and why it is important. And as for science–things are even worse. I have part of a lecture on the origins of early modern physical science in which I explain why, on the basis of modern astronomy, astrology is impossible. Many students never really get it. They just ‘know’ that astrology is true. I mentioned the discovery that glaciers shaped much of the landscape around us, only to find a religious student who said he just didn’t believe that. Then there’s the student who (having had perhaps too many Marxist professors) asked: “Didn’t the bourgeoisie always run everything?” He was shocked to learn that no, they hadn’t.
Gestell
Thanks for your comments. Your first comment about the ACW reminded me that I had a history teacher that said “I will tell you, and you will read, about events that happened in a certain year, but I will not test you on dates. My focus is that you learn the order of things, such as the Greeks came before the Romans, which came before the Dark Ages, which came before the Industrial Revolution.
Then you mention WWII and it makes me think that those of us the grew up after the war are infused with history because our fathers and uncles went off to all parts of the world, some to fight and bring home scars and some to ride in ships that were always under threat. My dad was on an LST (officially meaning Landing Ship Tank, called by the sailors Large Slow Target). They didn’t talk about it, but we watched Victory at Sea on that new fangled thing called a TV. We knew about the Crash of 29 and the Depression from parents and grandparents (my granny told me about selling apples and my mother told me about her dad making hooch in the basement). I often thought that the generation born around 1900 saw so many new things that it would never be equaled, but now, seeing all the new gadgets I wonder. But I still think I was right. Texting can never compare with indoor plumbing and the electric light bulb. Having been born in Michigan it’s hard to imagine any explanation other than glaciers, but I’ve also met people who think the world is only 6,000 years old. Go figure! From what I’ve read about the bourgeoisie they not only did not run anything, they didn’t do much at all. Kind of like the Congress that does not read the bills they vote on. That’s why their approval ratings were so low. It was he Kulaks that ran everything.
reply to Ivan Ivanovich,
As a teacher I’m much more interested in the significance of some historical event than I am in reciting a bunch of easily found facts to students (even though many students want the latter). I tell them that if they want to know the details of the Treaty of Westphalia they can use the Internet. I want them to understand the differences between the modern nation-state, which that treaty is often regarded as having brought into existence,and the types of political entities that preceded it.
Like you, I grew up after WWII–for me this is still ‘the war’ as a generic expression–and I watched “Victory at Sea,” “The 20th Century,” and “Air Power” over and over. My father was in the Battle of the Bulge, was decorated, and the wounds he suffered plagued him the rest of his life. He’d tell me about sleeping in movie theaters as a kid during the Depression and trading unpaid farm work for housing in the barn of a local farmer after his mother left with yet another guy. My mother grew up poor on a farm in Oklahoma that was devastated by the Dust Bowl. Her father was able to hang onto the farm, just barely, but agriculture in that part of Oklahoma never really recovered much.
My wife and I were born in Michigan, but left it many years ago for Massachusetts.
Gestell
That’s interesting. I’m thinking of taking back all the bad things I’ve said about you. But just for fun here’s a little test:
1. I was born inside the city limits of Detroit, but not in Detroit City. Where was it?
2. What do you call the car company that did not take a bailout (short version)?
3. What country do you enter first when going south from Detroit?
BTW, my wife got her PhD. from U of M.
Your quiz:
1. Highland Park or Hamtramck–both are inside the city limits of Detroit.
2. Ford; I’d say they’re doing all right these days.
3. Canada.
My wife and I both got our master’s degrees from U of M.
Gestell
Very good!
1. It was Highland Park. Hamtramck is for Pollocks and Clint Eastwood. I’m half Scot and half Lithuanian.
2. I was looking for Ford’s, but I’ll give you part credit. I’ve been told that the only place they say Ford’s, with the “s” is in Detroit, it’s a good way to identify a Detroit accent :>)
3. Right! It seems to surprise many people. I had a visitor from Mexico once and I took him to Windsor. He was very surprised to find we were going south. He said he would use my question when he returned home.
Go Blue!
Sense it’s so easy to do, I take back all those bad things I said.
Ivan Ivanovich,
Thanks! I didn’t think of that unique way of pronouncing “Ford’s” because I grew up well west of Detroit, in Adrian and didn’t hear the Detroit accent much. I do remember that the emphasis is on the “De” in “Detroit.”
I’ll take back my bad comments about you as well. Michiganders need to stick together.
More to the point of the article, I have a little story. It was 1965 and I was taking a mechanical drawing class at trade school. The teacher returned our drawings with a grade and we looked them over. On mine, there were no red marks showing any errors but the grade was 95%. After class, I stopped and ask the teacher why I got 95% when there were no errors. He said “Let me see it again, I’ll find something”. I just smiled, took the paper and left the room.
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