"Too heavy! Too heavy!" shouts the little demon who sits on my shoulder monitoring my performance. No doubt he's referring to the philosophical nature of my last two posts - on "Life" and "Death". Time to lighten up.
During my first two years at university in Scotland, I had the opportunity to sign up for two or three subsidiary subjects. The ones I picked were Sociology, Religious Studies and Swedish. These were on top of my two major subjects - English Studies and Education.
For Sociology there was reading to do and a couple of hour long lectures to attend each week. In addition, we had to attend weekly seminars with assigned lecturers. I was assigned to a group that was chaired by Dr Sheila Mitchell who had been at the university from its inception in the mid-sixties.
Each week, we had to read academic papers on particular aspects of sociology and then return to the seminars to discuss them. The reading was quite challenging and some of the others students in my seminar group soon gave up and just sat there like lemons. I was one of the few who soldiered on with the process and tried hard to participate in the connected discussions.
It was easy to see that Dr Mitchell was becoming frustrated with the seminar group. Sometimes she would pose questions related to the paper of the week and get no response. After a couple of months, she became so exasperated that she cried - as if she had been personally slighted. I recall her blurting out something like, "Why can't you get involved and answer my questions?".
It was as if she had completely failed to grasp that the elephant in the room was those academic papers. They were just too damned hard. None of us actively disliked Dr Mitchell. She was a nice woman and her command of sociological language and ideas was impressive.
After her tearful outburst, the students tried to up their game and rally round her. More effort was made to read the homework paper. In the following week's seminar, Dr Mitchell read out a couple of paragraphs. One of the other students in the group was a sweet young woman from Edinburgh named Morag. Very politely, Morag asked, "Excuse me Dr Mitchell but what is the precise difference between 'subjective' and 'objective'?"
You could have knocked me down with a feather and the look on Sheila Mitchell's face was priceless. I mean, there she was trying to encourage talk about higher level sociological notions and findings and here in the seminar room was a student who did not have a clue about subjectivity and objectivity. Basic terms that you might expect every university student to have grasped long ago. I sincerely hope that Dr Mitchell was enlightened in that moment but I am by no means sure that she was.
It is a memory that was made around fifty years ago and for some reason it has always stuck in my head. It wasn't Morag's fault. At least she was brave enough to pipe up with her question. The problem was the inappropriate nature of the core material. It just did not "fit" the clients.
As a twenty year old some fifty years ago, I would have known the difference between subjective and objective, and certainly my grammar school teachers would have been horrified if their school leavers had not known the difference. And that would have applied irrespective of what subject options those pupils had taken at "A' Level.
ReplyDeleteGiven the reputation that Scottish education had at that time, I am surprised that a university student didn't know the difference.
I would think that there are many more of those classes than Dr. Mitchel's. In these classes there is a wide background of students.
ReplyDeleteIt's been 57 years since I was in school and I didn't even finish high school, so perhaps you'll forgive me not remembering and explaining the difference between subjective and objective? I have a vague idea, I think, but examples would help.
ReplyDeleteI've heard about you sociologists and your aim to destroy capitalism. Universities seem to breed such left wing radicals.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I suspect that Morag was struggling so much that she didn't realise her question was assumed knowledge.
ReplyDeleteKnow the audience is rule #1
Your previous two posts made for good food for thought, but I did not even attempt to comment on them - my comments would have become way too long, and I don‘t like typing on my ipad without a proper keyboard (which of course I do not have here).
ReplyDeleteSince I have left school with the German equivalent of your O-Levels, I can only assume that university students should know more than I did at that age, and I certainly knew the difference between subjective and objective.
As you said, the student who asked that question was brave enough to admit not knowing something. I often observe that in business meetings. You know that some in the room have no clue, but would never admit to it.
Oh yes, I recall my entire group of 6 being ousted from a tutorial on one occasion for “trying to snooze through it” -as it was at 9.30am on a Saturday morning to accommodate a lecturer who doubled up working at the university with maintaining his professional career, I’m not sure why he was so surprised by our lack of application!
ReplyDeleteTut .. these inferior beings are so tiresome aren't they?
ReplyDeleteI saw similar when I went to teacher training college in 1973. We were reading a play in a group one day and it was apparent that some students could not read very well. I left after a term and later went to university. But I find it surprising that Stirling had such weak students. You were lucky to get in.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that jibe went too far. I would have jumped at the chance to go to Stirling then but did not have the entrance qualifications. You were one of the minority that did.
DeleteIn my opinion this presented an opportunity for the teacher, to teach something meaningful, to embrace the question and encourage other questions that might lead to greater understanding. Then see if papers or exams of the students showed any improvement for the effort, even the level of class participation increased. Subjective - my opinion, objective we can measure the change.
ReplyDeleteI agree with TP.
DeleteI would get exasperated by some of our educational presenters (not the students!) who would exhort us to stop the rote and basic learning and work only at the higher levels. The problem is that in order to reach those higher levels one must have a basic knowledge of the subject. You can't do calculus without knowing anything about numbers. You can't discuss works of French literature without having learned enough vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that some of the students in that seminar didn't speak up about the difficulty of the papers. That professor should have realized her mistake and adapted her material.
ReplyDeleteIt must be incredibly frustrating to be trying to teach and get minimal (or no) response from students. I'm not sure I've ever been tempted to cry but I understand the impulse. I wonder if Dr. Mitchell drew any conclusions from Morag's question? (And yes, kudos to Morag for asking it.)
ReplyDeleteGiven the circumstances, I'd call Morag brave. Encouraging students to ask questions about what might seem basic or obvious to the rest of us reveals a bit about our own ignorance too.
ReplyDelete