I have enjoyed nearly all my courses at NC State, but I have sometimes been disappointed with my fellow students. Frequently, they fail to speak up. Maybe they aren’t prepared or, for some reason, they just don’t want to talk. This occurs mostly with undergraduates but graduate students, too, can avoid participation in discussion for long periods of time.
I know it’s frustrating to the professors, some of whom go to great lengths to encourage discussion—requiring students to write short essays for each class or having a student present a five-minute précis of the day’s readings. Sometimes these work and sometimes they don’t. Some instructors also have pop quizzes to persuade the students to be prepared—although no professors of mine have used this tactic. Oh, and then there’s grading attendance and participation. That doesn’t seem to work at all.
I recently came across a guide for college instructors in the Chronicle of Higher Education that sheds some light on this problem.[1] Written by Jay Howard, a sociologist who has studied classroom interaction, “How to Hold a Better Class Discussion” explains that two “classroom norms” protect students from having to speak up.[2]
For the past few years I have been taking courses at North Carolina State University—first, a few undergraduate courses in French and history, then graduate-level classes in history alone. In April, I was accepted as a genuine, formal graduate student seeking a master’s degree. My primary concentration will be European history.
I’m retired. I’ve been retired since 2015. My husband, Rick, is an economist who says that education is an investment and, given my age, I won’t have much time to earn a return on it. So why do I want to do this? My reply is that this education is a consumption good, not an investment. Some people have “bucket lists” of things they want to do before they die—usually places they want to see. My bucket has two things in it: studying history and speaking French.
I’m writing this blog because I wish to deepen my educational experience and see if my observations resonate with others.’ I want to comment about it all—mostly history and historiography, but also other academic disciplines and maybe even pedagogy and college administration (not personalities, though, except possibly my own). I hope my questions and comments will elicit further observations, including corrections, from colleagues and friends, practiced historians, and fellow students.
