If there is one student attitude that most all faculty bemoan, it is instrumentalism. This is the view that you go to college to get a degree to get a job to make money to be happy. Similarly, you take this course to meet this requirement, and you do coursework and read the material to pass the course to graduate to get the degree. Everything is a means to an end. Nothing is an end in itself. There is no higher purpose. When we tell students to study for the exam or, more to the point, to study so that they can do well on the exam, we powerfully reinforce that way of thinking. While faculty consistently complain about instrumentalism, our behavior and the entire system encourages and facilitates it.

367 notes

Show

  1. spookyskookin reblogged this from a-swell-kind-of-hell
  2. a-swell-kind-of-hell reblogged this from flameintobeing
  3. flameintobeing reblogged this from theblacknessdyer
  4. papierstadt reblogged this from andrewers
  5. asiafields reblogged this from world-shaker
  6. martins-brolly reblogged this from cyvivi
  7. yvonensadultsleepover reblogged this from starkdisassembled
  8. danielgum reblogged this from gladlybeyond
  9. gladlybeyond reblogged this from thatfizzsound
  10. sequinedskies reblogged this from aacissej
  11. aacissej reblogged this from whatdidyoueverdo
  12. whatdidyoueverdo reblogged this from carmenjoy
  13. carmenjoy reblogged this from barefootuniverse
  14. icanbeyourexperiment reblogged this from thekushistooloud
  15. thekushistooloud reblogged this from anxiouslyalex
  16. barefootuniverse reblogged this from anxiouslyalex
  17. anxiouslyalex reblogged this from sociolab
  18. butterbeerandscotch reblogged this from packagecontainedbobcat
  19. packagecontainedbobcat reblogged this from maelstrommist
  20. maelstrommist reblogged this from gabzillaattack
  21. gabzillaattack reblogged this from beardykraken
  22. beardykraken reblogged this from veineux
  23. thesilverstandard reblogged this from therealandideal
  24. safetypin-up reblogged this from walkingblockade

Blog comments powered by Disqus