Teaching the Impossible to the Delusional

In the student reviews of my teaching I have often noticed that a certain fixed percentage find the course "boring" or "irrelevant" to their experience. These kinds of reviews usually give me low scores for motivating them and they might throw in some callous remark like "needs a new set of clothes" or "doesn't explain things so I can understand" and so forth. I used to get angry when I'd read these reviews, thinking to myself you don't deserve to say these things, you haven't the right to this view. I still think that, of course, but I see a new level of truth to these reviews and remarks. And no, no I don't recognize the validity of these remarks. Rather, I see in them all the hallmarks of delusional thinking--delusional thinking that has been drummed into these kids from day one.

It begins with the parents who are themselves deluded in important ways. First, the parents are anti-intellectual--they themselves hate learning and so they pass on the bad habits to their children. They read very little, watch TV to numb the boredom of their lives, and they generally have an authoritarian cast of mind (learnt from the work world) which they impart to their kids. For them the role of the teacher is to make up for what they lack, what they have failed to impart to their children. Their end of the bargain is simply we pay for it so you must supply it. And then they turn their kids over and expect a miracle--but, again, they don't really want a miracle because that would put them at odds with their children who would come to disrespect them for their anti-intellectualism. So the message to the kid is "yeah, go to college, but remember--its all bullshit, anyway." The bad intellectual habits that they engrain into their children are too deep and long entrenched to uproot in one semester. I have seen some remarkable changes in a few remarkable individuals, but about a third of every class bears the mark of this upbringing, a kind of recalcitrant anti-intellectualism and they cannot be shaken loose from their position. Why?

They cannot be shaken loose from their position because to be shaken loose is not like anything they've experienced before. Its not like being suddenly jolted with a good caffeine drink, nor is it like being entertained to the point of losing yourself, nor is it like a religious ceremony in which you are brought to tears. Rather, it is the somewhat disappointing and depressing awareness of the fact that you are ignorant. And, out of that awareness, can grow (if things go correctly) a sense of shame--of being ashamed of this fact. And, what can follow from this is a commitment to do what it takes to overcome one's ignorance. What these kids are expecting is to be moved rather than to move themselves. The media has a hand in this with its image of the superteacher setting young minds on fire like in Stand and Deliver or Dead Poets Society. When the reality of working for your keep dawns on them--that learning is not an hour and a half movie set in the Autumnal blazes of a northeast campus with the love affair, the inspiration, the soundtrack, etc., what a rude awakening it is. The journey must begin from a vivid sense of what one lacks.

Of course, many, many things prevent this journey from getting going. For one thing, it goes against human nature itself which tells us that we are okay as we are--that we're doing just fine. This is called the Lake Wobegon effect. Second, it requires giving up the anti-intellectualism bred into the kid by the parent. To overcome this one must also overcome one's parents--or, at least, their cast of mind. But to do so entails biting the hand that feeds and they are, after all, paying for this whole college experience. They must know the value of it or, even if they do not, the kid learns to get just as much from the college experience as is needed to reduplicate the relative success of the parent. And third, and this is the really important point I would like to make: the culture in which these children are reared--a culture which has shaped the thinking of the parents and of every "successful" individual in their lives is a culture that is a runaway train. It is a culture that valorizes consumption and accumulation of wealth to the detriment of learning and of uprooting these tendencies. This is why students regularly report that the only reason they go to college is to get a job to make more money. The rest of it is there as a kind of bad joke or painful bunch of bullshit that they have to endure until its over.

When these students open up Plato or Kant and discover that it is not Stephen R. Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Successful People what a disappointment it must be! This is why I cannot help these students and I'm quite happy when, at the beginning of the semester, many realize that my game--my teaching--is hard and painful for them and they realize they are not up for it. I gladly sign their drop course form, now, knowing why they are dropping the course more than they can understand.


Perhaps this kind of thing is what is needed to cut through the delusion: http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/trailers-and-reviews/