On Saturday, the National Governors Association released the results of a poll of 10,000 teenagers (16-18 years old), including both students in high school and those who had dropped out. Significant numbers of students reported that high school was not challenging enough and that they were willing to take on more work. —Scott Jaschik —High School Students Want Courses That Challenge (Inside Higher Ed)
This is good news. Of course, what people say in response to a poll question, and what they actually do in real life aren’t always closely related. Still, it’s good to see evidence that the kids are alright. (Will this poll be used as a cudgel in a political battle against teachers’ unions? Should it be?)
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That is a good point, Will. On our standard course evaluation forms at SHU, there’s a question that asks students to rank whether they “Worked harder on this course than most courses I have taken” in addition to “amount of reading” and “difficulty of subject matter” and “amount of work in non-reading assignments.” I’ve found that students almost unanimously rate this as extremely “high” in my classes — particularly any class that incorporates writing. And I’m inevitably surprised by this, because I always drop at least one big project or novel from a syllabus out of a sense that I’d be assigning too much work for 3 hours of credit. I don’t know what to make of it except to assume that English in general — taught by a concientious teacher — is inevitably perceived as inherently “challenging” “work” no matter how much or little material is assigned.
Good point, Will.
What would be interesting is to see, if you did two surveys, one that said “more challenging” and one that said “more work”, how big would the gap be? Even ambitious students often want more “challenge”, but not more “work”…mostly an issue of language used.