There are times when teachers wonder if they’re making a difference. I read an essay where the writer wrestles with that question.

Main point: “while the dire question that drove Camus to write The Myth of Sisyphus was ‘whether life is worth living,’ I am confronted by a more modest question: whether teaching is worth doing.”

More about it:

• “Time and again, I asked myself if I was chained to an absurd task. How could it not be, if students themselves feel that reading and studying are not worth doing? How could it not be, if students themselves feel that reading and studying are not worth doing?”
• “In the late 1970s, 60 percent of twelfth graders read a book or magazine every day; by 2016, that percentage dropped to 16 percent. About one-third, moreover, did not read a single book for pleasure in 2016.” My question: How many of those still reading are girls vs boys? I would bet the majority are girls, so a question is also how to motivate boys to read.
• “The kind of reading that we learned to do six thousand years ago—what researchers call deep reading—was so challenging that it rewired our brains, creating a new circuit to enable this activity.”
• “…The kind of reading that we learned to do six thousand years ago—what researchers call deep reading—was so challenging that it rewired our brains, creating a new circuit to enable this activity. Unlike life in the shallows of our flat screens, deep reading entails time and attention. It is a task that asks us not only to reflect but also to reflect on the act of reflecting. It is hard, but the rewards…are huge, sharpening our analogical reasoning, critical analysis and sustained empathy.”
• “…student papers suggest my students are mostly floating on the surface. For them to piece words together in their papers is as difficult as it is for them to pick through the words in their books.”

Why it matters:

• Are we entering a version of revived oral tradition? “Digital orality, unlike ancient orality, is based on interjections and exclamations. The media scholar Andrey Mir argues that it operates with emotions and objects—memes, pictures, videos and so on—rather than with meanings.”
• “…when I asked the students if they read outside of their classes, a few raised their hands. When I asked if they read physical books, even fewer nodded their heads. When I then asked if they found the course’s books challenging to read, I was not surprised that many more nodded their heads…their difficulty seems to reside in the act of spending time alone with an open book in their hands.”
• “We, too, might take this pause, this moment of consciousness, to wonder where the new orality leaves us all, teachers as well as students. We have little choice but to live in the world as it is, but that does not mean we should not try to hold on to what is most important from the world as it was.”

Are you a student? Is this a professor’s rant (after all, older generations are always complaining about younger generations and vice versa) or does it make a point?

⇓ See below for resources! ⇓