What I learned and how I learned it

It's a guilty secret that professors learn as much (maybe more) in the classroom as students. And we get paid for it; what a scam!

The major insight of my first year of teaching was that most of my students were there because it's said that you get a better job with a college degree. They want better jobs, thus it's necessary to finish college. Fine and good. But generally speaking they do not like to learn or to read or to have to think.

Students have no empirical evidence to support the vague wisdom of the ether that "college degree equals good job." I, however, DO have evidence for my assertion: I ask my students on the first day of class every term what they think the purpose of higher education is. I can tell how the semester will be based on their answers. If there is a lot of talk about making money, I'll be struggling all semester. If there is a hint of social awareness or joy of learning, well, then, the semester has possibilities.

The insight from my second year of teaching has been that whatever love of learning may be intrinsic to human beings (I'll write much more about this in the weeks to come), it has been stomped out of them by the time they reach 13th grade, probably by the Public Education System. I'm generalizing wildly - but in general, for them reading and learning and sitting in a classroom are all chores to be dispatched as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Can we recover the love of learning? Can I do it in my classrooms?