The Good Student?

It stands to reason that good teachers need good students. But what’s a good student? Not so easy to define. Ask some professors about what makes students difficult and unruly to teach . . . well, that’s a different story. You’ll get an earful. These days, professors are very concerned about students’ personal behaviors that are uncivil, disruptive, and inappropriate for learning in a college classroom, and rightly so. What sorts of things are at the top of the professors’ complaint list? Here are some favorites: late arrivals to class; not keeping up with assignments; using a smart phone in class to text, check Facebook, and such things; arguing about grades (as opposed to asking for clarification or discussing a grade); goofing around in class; snoozing; poor reading and writing skills; dominating discussions or not participating in class discussions . . . and on and on! Some of these complaints about uncivil behavior and “bad” students are as old as the hills; others are new issues of troubling dimension to professors. The simple fact is: Professors and students are both the victims of uncivil behavior.

But hold on!

I know your goal isn’t to be a bad student and that negative definitions aren’t all that helpful. (Besides, you already know what the “student from hell” is like from your experiences in grade school and high school classrooms.) For the purposes of this discussion, I am assuming you know the value of being civil, enthusiastic, attentive, studious, prepared, cooperative, collaborative, and self-motivated. I also assume you desire to build on these traits, and you want to develop other admirable qualities that have a spot on the “Good Student Checklist.” Let’s move ahead and examine some “thinking qualities” that will mark you as a good student and contribute to good teaching. (A good teacher will want to promote “ways of thinking” for you to practice and make part of your intellectual development.)

1. Searching the shadows—One of the toughest things students must develop as learners is the ability to go beyond the obvious. It makes no sense for you to accept something at face value without searching the shadows, peeking around corners, examining the underside, and probing the surrounding areas. An easy way to make my point here is to imagine examining Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of David. Trust me, you can’t possibly understand and appreciate this sculpture unless you “search the shadows.” Great artists are attempting to tell us something, to excite a reaction, to bring us beyond merely standing and staring. A casual viewing of the sculpture, without moving around to view it from different angles, hardly helps us understand Michelangelo’s intent or genus as an artist. For example, what is David thinking as the battle with Goliath is about to commence? Moving to view the sculpture from different angles raises some interesting questions about how Michelangelo portrays David’s emotions at the moment of battle.

2. Rethinking the myths—As a beginning college student, I brought with me an array of knowledge, values, and beliefs acquired from my parents, friends, and teachers, community institutions, political leaders, and popular culture (radio, TV, movies, sports, and so on). Much of this knowledge and accompanying values and beliefs were solidly held, and I rarely had a second thought about them. Once in college, several of my professors challenged what I thought to be true and beyond dispute. That was good teaching—exactly what professors should be doing as part of their overall role. My definition of an educated person and a good student embraces and honors the critical examination of one’s biases, assumptions, values, and beliefs. Such thinking is a fundamental action for a good student and a necessary skill to develop in college. I like what one law professor has to say about how she attempts to help students in this matter:

I teach because I enjoy challenging students. First, I challenge their assumptions about the law. Second, I ask that they question their assumptions about themselves and their beliefs and values. Finally, I challenge their assumptions and attitudes about society generally. I neither expect nor desire to change their assumptions, beliefs and values; it is the process of evaluation and reevaluation that I seek.[1]

I would strongly advise welcoming challenges that lead you to rethink personal and societal myths, biases, assumptions, beliefs, and values during your college education and beyond those years of study. Doing so, shall we say, is “critical” to success in many ways. Don’t mistake being exposed to new ideas and academic opinions about issues as “indoctrination” or some sort of “liberal conspiracy.” Despite all the bombast about that sort of thing happening on the college campus, the number of offenses is miniscule and hardly comparable to all the overt and covert ways that indoctrination and propaganda flourish in our daily lives, thanks to many politicians, the popular media, and advertising. You’ll learn quickly enough as a college student to identify professors who abuse their authority in the classroom and act unprofessionally. I doubt that your basic thinking ability and strength as a person will allow you to be “brainwashed.” Be a critical thinker and learner.

3. Making connections—Too often, professors teach as though their individual courses are unique in importance, unconnected to what other professors teach or to what goes on in other parts of the curriculum. You need to be on guard against this sort of teaching and search for the connections between what you are learning in several courses of study. Making connections between what you’re learning in a philosophy course and a sociology course or in a mathematics course and a biology course is a sure sign of an educated person. Connecting the dots and pulling together what you are learning in different academic disciplines and courses is not easy, especially for first-year students, but it’s something to keep in mind, something to practice. When you do make a connection, it’s an exciting intellectual moment you’ll long remember and put to use. Maybe a couple of examples will help you appreciate this important way of thinking. Let’s say you are studying Theories and Techniques of Advertising in the business administration curriculum. Your semester’s course load includes Introductory Sociology, Basic Psychology, Political Science: Presidential Politics, and Introduction to Statistics. A heavy load! (And I’ve stacked the deck here to make a point.) In the advertising class, as you learn about “factors that influence consumer behavior in the United States,” the connection between that topic and what you are learning in sociology (for example, how strongly Americans value self-reliance and individualism), psychology (the psychology of human memory and perception), political science (effects of TV advertising on presidential elections), and statistics (data sampling, probability, and hypothesis testing) might be easily discovered and applied—if you are on the lookout and practicing connection-making.

4. Dealing with uncertainty—One of the most difficult and frustrating things about learning at the college level is uncertainty. When there is no satisfactory, single answer to a question or a problem—when something can be understood in more than one way, leaving an open-ended search for meaning—it can be an uncomfortable, exasperating, and downright discouraging situation. It challenges what we have strongly held to be a “truth.” Most of us would prefer to have the “right answer.” When a literature teacher says that “there are many ways to look at the meaning of this poem,” when the scientist suggests that “what appears to be an accepted scientific explanation for this event can be disputed in several ways,” or when the economic theorist admits that “we really don’t have a complete answer as to what caused this sort of a market downturn,” we become uncomfortable. Uncertainty and ambiguity served up in the pursuit of knowledge makes it difficult to work up an appetite for such a squishy, unpredictable course of education. How disconcerting if a teacher says, “I don’t know what could be the best answer. It’s an ambiguity scholars have yet to resolve.” (You’d like to say, “Come on, Dude, you’re the teacher. Is this going to be on the test?”)

Let me suggest that dealing with uncertainty is a high art of learning and fertile ground in which to grow as an educated person. Uncertainty is not necessarily something to avoid in learning. And the fact is that in the “real world” we confront uncertainty each and every day. One professor, who routinely leads students toward uncertainty as a teaching strategy, had this to say, “As a result of the ambiguity, students reported curiosity, independent investigation, anticipation, appreciation for novelty, and enjoyment in discovery.”[2] These students had left the realm of rote memorization and the acquisition of facts for higher, more sophisticated levels of thinking. They took an active role in their learning and discovered that many points of views, competing explanations, and unpredictable situations enhanced their learning. Not a bad trade-off for walking toward the gray unknown lurking in many college courses. Uncertainty? As some authority in your life might have told you: “Learn to deal with it.”

5. Reflecting—It stands to reason that as you listen, discuss, read, write, and take action to learn in college, taking time out to reflect or think about what it all means is good common sense. While you’re at it, why not analyze the depth, extent, importance, and future directions of that learning. Reflection doesn’t need to be all that theoretical or complicated. For example, as you finish up a class or any other form of study, ask yourself a few questions: “What was the most important thing I have just learned?” “What important question remains unanswered?” “What was the muddiest point (i.e., what do I least understand from the lecture, reading, etc.)?”[3] A good teacher will set time aside in class for you to deal with these questions, but if not, do so on your own.

Try this easy model for reflection:

What Do I Need to Do Now?

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How Can I Use This Learning?

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Does This Learning Connect to What I Have Already Studied? How So?

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Why Was This Learning Important?

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Did I Understand? How Well? (Quite Well? Not at All?)

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START HERE: What Did I Just Learn?

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Before concluding this chapter’s discussion of being a good student and how the teaching/learning process influences that, I’m going to bring up some additional considerations. Professor Gerald Graff, who we met earlier in this chapter, suggests some important academic guidelines for successful college study you’ll need to consider:

·       Be yourself, but do it the way we academics do.

·       There are no right answers, only endless questions; but some answers are better than others and some don’t even qualify to get on the map.

·       Important issues are endlessly open and debatable; but you need expertise in order to enter the debate.

·       Academia wants to hear your ideas and arguments, not a mere rehearsal of what others have said; but your ideas and arguments won’t be taken seriously unless you take others’ views into account.

·       Challenge authority, don’t just write down what teachers say; but you can’t challenge authority unless you know the rules of the game.[4]

Confusing? Yes, at first glance. As Professor Graff makes clear, these guidelines for academic success have a “paradoxical, double quality . . .”[5] But these guidelines (and others we’ve discussed) are how the game is played. Being a good student takes effort, and while a good teacher will make sure to help you understand, discuss, appreciate, and apply Professor Graff's guidelines, you're the one who has to put them into practice.

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[1] Professor Sean M. Scott of the University of Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/scott.html/.

[2] International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 1, no. 2 (July 2007): 3. http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijotl/.

[3] These are called “Classroom Assessment Techniques” (CATs). Professors can use these CATs and other techniques to measure how well they are teaching, as well as where their students stand in understanding concepts, issues, and so on. Thomas A. Angelo and Patricia Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edition (Jossey-Bass, 1993).

[4] Graff, Clueless in Academe, 29.

[5] Ibid.