In my upper-level courses (both undergraduate and graduate), I tend to use a final research paper in lieu of a concluding exam. The students are asked to come up with a topic of their own choosing, albeit in consultation with the professor. This exercise has always produced some interesting results. Occasionally a student will suggest an almost encyclopedic tour of the course materials, and I’ll have to help uncover a thesis amid the abundance of details. Other proposals are amusingly terse: “For my paper, I want to write about sin in the thought of St. Augustine.” Still, these are expected problems, particularly for undergraduate students, and I enjoy watching students refine their thinking and develop genuine insights.
A couple of weeks ago, however, I was faced with a new and more alarming problem. A student presented me with a perfectly valid paper topic, though it was far too gnomic for me to give approval. We kicked around a few ways that the proposal might be strengthened, and I suggested that a trip to the library was in order. The student, who is a senior, said to me: “I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve never used the library before.” I tried to contain my shock, and I put him in touch with an excellent research librarian at Villanova. I’m happy to report that a few actual books made their way into his final paper, which was solid if not exceptional.
Still, this occurrence verified what, in my opinion, is an unmistakable trend in education: students don’t like to read and, in many (not all) cases, try to avoid reading whenever possible. To be fair, if a student is not majoring in the humanities (something that is increasingly rare), she might not be required to read entire books, much less engage in long-form research projects. But this tendency, however understandable from the standpoint of a given discipline, nevertheless creates certain expectations and habits of thinking—for one, that higher education has very little to do with reading and “quiet” study and far more to do with gaining technical skills and practical knowhow. This assumption has become so entrenched that, to return to my previous example, some students eschew books and libraries altogether. They get by in core classes by finding online, non-academic “articles” or, if they’re uniquely advanced, by using Google Books or JSTOR. I myself have seen this dozens and dozens of times and have tried to address it. Yet, if a student can make it through four years of university life without using the library, it is unrealistic and, frankly, silly to think that an instructor or two can suddenly turn the tide. This is not a moral problem, rooted in the failure of this or that individual. It is a very much a social condition—an indicator of how we now see the world.
Indeed, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, German thinker Martin Heidegger warned that the modern West was going through an era of technological nihilism, whereby all activities and things are reduced to the status of optimizable and readily available resources. Heidegger refers to this mode of ontological revelation as “enframing” (Gestell), thereby suggesting that the course of Western thinking has come to place or to position (stellen) entities to be understood in a technological manner. This horizon of intelligibility also extends to education. In his important book Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education (2005), Iain Thomson argues that Heidegger’s philosophy of technology indicates (i) that the Western model of education is in the throes of Gestell and (ii) that it nevertheless is the (only?) path out of the current dilemma. In other words, while education itself can be viewed as a fungible and exploitable resource (a notion implied in the expression “diploma mill”), it can also be attuned differently. According to Thomson, this new form of attunement must cease to see things in terms of what we can get from them. Instead, it should “disclose the being of entities creatively, responsively, and responsibly, thereby helping students, things, and being all come into their own together.” Put more simply, the contemplative goal of learning, and not just “getting,” must come back to the forefront of the educational process.
Of course, many would agree with this intention. The harder part is breaking the deeply ingrained habits of calculative thinking, which permeate not only our educational institutions but, in fact, our whole lives. As my student recently realized, one can now go years without visiting a library (or reading a poem or sitting in prayer) and even do quite well in the world. Perhaps this is why, late in life, Heidegger famously stated, “Only a God can save us” (Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten).
I know, at least at the secondary level of education, too much emphasis is put on teaching content with almost no emphasis on the affective aspects of learning. Therefore, students are not valuing what they’ve been taught. This is a devastating blow, especially to the humanities.
I know, at least at the secondary level of education, too much emphasis is put on teaching content with almost no emphasis on the affective aspects of learning. Therefore, students are not valuing what they’ve been taught. This is a devastating blow, especially to the humanities.