Is it manipulative, or just practice for the work world?
Should college mirror the "real world" or should it be a liminal period during which students are encouraged to explore?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The perfect class...
Is about human sexuality, or more specifically, students' sexuality. What makes this the perfect class, in Nathan's view (and that of her student informants)? It mixes personal experience and off-limits topics with academic content in a balance that favors experience over academics.
"Approved" topics of conversation among students also tend to favor personal experience over more academic topics.
"Good questions" are those that ask technical or clarifying questions about expectations (for tests, quizzes, papers, etc.). They are NOT supposed to be about the content. Students who ask questions about the content are seen as different (suck ups, outsiders, geeks, etc.). (I have to say that this is not my experience, in general, but I do get exasperated when students ask so-called good questions after I have just finished talking about something that I consider really interesting and thought-provoking.)
How does she know? How does she find out?
What are the implications for teaching and learning? Students: what do you say to this?
"Approved" topics of conversation among students also tend to favor personal experience over more academic topics.
"Good questions" are those that ask technical or clarifying questions about expectations (for tests, quizzes, papers, etc.). They are NOT supposed to be about the content. Students who ask questions about the content are seen as different (suck ups, outsiders, geeks, etc.). (I have to say that this is not my experience, in general, but I do get exasperated when students ask so-called good questions after I have just finished talking about something that I consider really interesting and thought-provoking.)
How does she know? How does she find out?
What are the implications for teaching and learning? Students: what do you say to this?
Individuality and ignorance
One problem with studying your own culture is that you take a lot for granted. It's hard to challenge assumptions that you hold as truths, question patterns that you have learned your whole life, see things through the eyes of a stranger. That's what anthropology tries to teach us, but often we need help seeing the "other," especially when they are us.
Nathan interviews a number of foreign students and asks about their perceptions of American college students. Some common themes emerge:
1. American students have superficial friendships. That is, they are close to a small number of people, and very friendly with a large number of people, but in a superficial way. They are not close with their families, and rarely socialize with parents or introduce friends to their parents.
2.There is a casual informality to meeting people and it seems to be easy for them to do it, but they rarely follow up with invitations, phone calls, etc.
3. American students are isolated from world events and news, geography, and other languages and cultures. They are taught to believe that the US is at the center of everything, and that what is important about world events is the US role in those events.
4. There is a large degree of individuality among American students. One Japanese student observed that this is what makes it easy for them to do group work (because no one cares about how their involvement affects the rest of the group).
5. There is a reluctance to get to know the international students, and the questions that do get asked are naive and ill informed.
Qualitative Research Students: How do you answer these charges?
Think about these questions: How many students did she interview? In what context did she interview them? What kinds of questions did she ask? Was she leading the interview toward these outcomes (can you tell?)?
Nathan interviews a number of foreign students and asks about their perceptions of American college students. Some common themes emerge:
1. American students have superficial friendships. That is, they are close to a small number of people, and very friendly with a large number of people, but in a superficial way. They are not close with their families, and rarely socialize with parents or introduce friends to their parents.
2.There is a casual informality to meeting people and it seems to be easy for them to do it, but they rarely follow up with invitations, phone calls, etc.
3. American students are isolated from world events and news, geography, and other languages and cultures. They are taught to believe that the US is at the center of everything, and that what is important about world events is the US role in those events.
4. There is a large degree of individuality among American students. One Japanese student observed that this is what makes it easy for them to do group work (because no one cares about how their involvement affects the rest of the group).
5. There is a reluctance to get to know the international students, and the questions that do get asked are naive and ill informed.
Qualitative Research Students: How do you answer these charges?
Think about these questions: How many students did she interview? In what context did she interview them? What kinds of questions did she ask? Was she leading the interview toward these outcomes (can you tell?)?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Community and Diversity
She talks about these as linked concepts -- they depend on each other for meaning in the context of college life.
The student life page on the SLU website talks about connection (community) and activities that will promote community (see here). One of the things Nathan observes about community (and subsequently diversity) is that with so many choices, there is less community and more individuality (and also more sameness and less diversity). The website says there are 170 (AND COUNTING!!!) clubs that one can belong to. And like in her example, there is a line that says if nothing "floats your boat," start a new club.
Wha'?
I'm the faculty advisor for ACJS, and we never get more than a small handful of people to come to meetings. After having read this book, I realize it's probably because there are too many other demands on students' time. But try explaining that to the chair of the department. The answer is "try harder" to get them to come. Think of the poor RA in Nathan's example trying her best to get people to come to movie night. I can relate.
The student life page on the SLU website talks about connection (community) and activities that will promote community (see here). One of the things Nathan observes about community (and subsequently diversity) is that with so many choices, there is less community and more individuality (and also more sameness and less diversity). The website says there are 170 (AND COUNTING!!!) clubs that one can belong to. And like in her example, there is a line that says if nothing "floats your boat," start a new club.
Wha'?
I'm the faculty advisor for ACJS, and we never get more than a small handful of people to come to meetings. After having read this book, I realize it's probably because there are too many other demands on students' time. But try explaining that to the chair of the department. The answer is "try harder" to get them to come. Think of the poor RA in Nathan's example trying her best to get people to come to movie night. I can relate.
Getting into the scene
One of the hard parts of qualitative research is "gaining entree" -- getting people to accept you and let you study them. Nathan is in a strange position in her research: she is posing as a student, but she is obviously older than the other freshmen she is studying. In some ways that's a good thing -- you don't want to get TOO close to your subject because you could lose objectivity. But you also don't want people to treat you like a total outsider because you won't find out much.
She goes to all the dorm activities and all the stuff her RA promotes (not many students do, though, and I remember a similar pattern when I was in college). She finally starts to get accepted when she participates in pick up games of touch football -- she's seen as more like the other students (or rather less unlike them). But back to the RA events. She talks about a "script" that they all follow: ask a controversial question and then let each participant offer a response. No one responds to anyone else's answer. Everyone is just waiting for their turn to talk (or to HAVE TO talk). That's the way a lot of class discussions go, too, and I definitely don't remember that being true when I was in college. Maybe I'm romanticizing my experience, but I remember having truly interesting discussions in class and also outside of class. Does this happen anymore?
She goes to all the dorm activities and all the stuff her RA promotes (not many students do, though, and I remember a similar pattern when I was in college). She finally starts to get accepted when she participates in pick up games of touch football -- she's seen as more like the other students (or rather less unlike them). But back to the RA events. She talks about a "script" that they all follow: ask a controversial question and then let each participant offer a response. No one responds to anyone else's answer. Everyone is just waiting for their turn to talk (or to HAVE TO talk). That's the way a lot of class discussions go, too, and I definitely don't remember that being true when I was in college. Maybe I'm romanticizing my experience, but I remember having truly interesting discussions in class and also outside of class. Does this happen anymore?
My Freshman Year
I really like this book for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it makes me think about my own freshman year, and a lot of what she describes is the same as when I was in college. I laughed out loud the first time I read about the door decorated like a package, because the RA in my dorm did the same thing. (Actually, it was my sophomore year when I had a female RA. My freshman year I had a male RA and he didn't wrap his door...!)
The point about conformity in non-conformity is something that I think a lot of Americans struggle with. We strive to be individuals, but there are definitely limits on what we count as individual and quirky and what we consider strange or out there.
More later.
The point about conformity in non-conformity is something that I think a lot of Americans struggle with. We strive to be individuals, but there are definitely limits on what we count as individual and quirky and what we consider strange or out there.
More later.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
First Blog
Students -- if you are reading this you are on your way to creating and maintaining your own blogs for this class. WOO!
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