My model of teaching is pretty basic, kind of a three-legged stool: 1. Students read books 2. We talk about the books 3. They write about the books In the last couple of years, the bottom has fallen out of 1 and 3, and without 1 there's really no point to 2. I don't know what to do about this. - ThreadSky

aristofontes.bsky.social • 67 days ago

My model of teaching is pretty basic, kind of a three-legged stool:

1. Students read books
2. We talk about the books
3. They write about the books

In the last couple of years, the bottom has fallen out of 1 and 3, and without 1 there's really no point to 2.

I don't know what to do about this.

Comments

carlosfnorena.bsky.social•67 days ago

I believe it is a pedagogical crisis.

carlosfnorena.bsky.social•67 days ago

And I agree entirely with those who say that we shouldn't blame the students themselves for this state of affairs, but disagree sharply with the proposition—often attached to the "don't blame students" view—that teachers always see deterioration of standards. No. This is a true break. And a crisis.

aristofontes.bsky.social•67 days ago

I think I first became aware of it 2-3 years ago when I asked students in my Roman movies class to read Howard Fast's 'Spartacus'—which is a *novel* and quite a gripping one—in the course of a week, and it became clear that most of them could no more do this than fly to the moon.

iotasubscript.bsky.social•67 days ago

I really want to send AI summaries to hell. And before someone goes “Students have always done Cliffnotes,” that’s really not the same. Plus, Cliffnotes don’t exist for all sorts of random stuff.

pthibodeau.bsky.social•67 days ago

I recently sat in on a online course offered by the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research just to see what it was like. Was just like you would hope: student were interested in a topic, paid a few hundred for the course, and everyone was engaged. No credit, of course, but that didn't matter.

pthibodeau.bsky.social•67 days ago

Their model can be replicated without a lot of hassle. The problem is that the # of potential paying students is a fraction (1/10th?) of what we have now. But it may be a necessary path.

pthibodeau.bsky.social•67 days ago

And for the record (such as it is), I'm not seeking to teach there. But can't say the thought didn't cross my mind.

pthibodeau.bsky.social•67 days ago

The class had about 8 students reading Homer Iliad 1 in what most would call third semester Greek.

forgotten-niceties.bsky.social•67 days ago

why have they stopped reading? do they just ask chatgpt for a precis?

aristofontes.bsky.social•67 days ago

That's an aspect of it, but it goes deeper and probably has more than one cause. @adamkotsko.bsky.social wrote a good piece about it a while back.

cdanby.bsky.social•67 days ago

I think there are underlying skills that seem so obvious once you have them that they're hard to name. With a novel, keeping track of the plot. Sorting out foreground and background. In nonfiction keeping track of the argument so you're not thrown when an author sets out counter-arguments.

cdanby.bsky.social•67 days ago

I read genre fiction as a kid for entertainment and while _Freddy the Detective_ is not exactly _Middlemarch_ it taught me how to read a novel.

cdanby.bsky.social•67 days ago

I still have a foot in the "'twas ever thus" camp because even 25 years back I found (a) students reading for "quotes" rather than continuously, and (b) discovered that for about half of them anything written before the 20th century was unintelligible. They just couldn't parse the sentences.

meirazk.bsky.social•67 days ago

It’s why I left the classroom

profconnors.bsky.social•67 days ago

I’m glad to know I’m not alone in this. I’ve been experiencing the same thing.

immorley.bsky.social•67 days ago

I don’t know that this is anything new. As a kid, after spending 7 hours at school, doing what ever extracurricular I had to do, eating dinner, and a few hours of homework, i could rarely force myself to read something I wasn’t interested in. Cliff notes and asking a friend for summaries was my jam

iotasubscript.bsky.social•67 days ago

But at the same time there are those students who 4. Realize to their surprise that they may like books? It’s always so cool to get that moment, and my classes are big enough that I can usually manage at least one a year.

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