My lingering question, however, is what happened when I got to college? Isn't the idea of college that there is less busy work like the math worksheets, and more genuinely productive work? Does college lend itself more to learning and less to studenting? I certainly agree with this sentiment in that I have much less (if any) work that I view as "pointless." I can see the objective in every assignment that is put before me and as a result, I feel that I am learning much more. But perhaps, as a friend suggested to me, we are just learning to student differently, to con another system.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
student
I was drawn in on thursday by our brief discussion on the student. Within this discussion we defined student both as a noun and a verb. All students (n.) are capable of learning and, ideally if they are good they do just that. But often times what happens (and what I did pretty much all through high school) is the student adapts to the system and, instead of focusing on learning, they focus on studenting (v.). Studenting, as Dr. J put it so well, is basically gaming the system. This can include writing papers right before the deadline (no pun intended seeing as this blog post is a bit down to the wire), creating an easy schedule of classes, or doing just enough for the desired grade and not for the knowledge. Studenting can involve learning if the student is good, but does not inherently include it. I am confident that we are all guilty of both learning and studenting at some point in our academic careers, some of us with more favorable ratios than others. I remember all of the endless and seemingly pointless math worksheets and spanish exercises in high school which I did between classes, during lunch in the cafeteria, or even with one eye on my peer's completed work. I'm not exactly proud of it, but our discussion on thursday suggested that maybe I was merely honing my skills as a student. I was just playing the system that was put before me.
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I'm not sure it's possible to be seen as a "good student" without studenting. You could be learning while in school, but there are still exams, homework, and "busy work" that we all have to deal with. I definitely think we can be studenting without learning, but I think we can't go through our school system entirely avoiding studenting.
ReplyDeleteThe coursework is more interesting, yes, but it make no mistake - you are still learning to game the system. In college, the system is based around that all important syllabus. Also crucial is figuring out exactly what each particular teacher is looking for. Some want attendance, some want participation, some want you to repeat their points back to them like a parrot, others just want to get it over with and go home with minimum interruption. Studenting. It never ends. I hear it gets even worse in grad school.
ReplyDeleteI like this discussion. It seems to me that there is a clear difference between a good student and someone who is good at studenting. A good student is the teacher's ideal student: diligent, hard working, sincere, essentially playing the game as it was intended to be played. A person good at studenting, on the other hand, is good at procrastinating, cramming, and feigning sincerity for the grade. This is how the system is set up. I almost wonder if cheating could be considered good studenting?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erin and T. Sunshiine Love. I think that the good student may also be someone who is good at studenting, maybe even more than the bad student. The good student is the person who agrees to studenting, to going through the motions, like a pet that has been conditioned to do tricks well. The tricks are not naturally what the animal wants to do, or even what a person naturally wants to do, but something it is taught and conditioned to do by the treats it gets. In the same way, a good student may be diligent, hard working, and sincere not because of an innate willingness to learn things in school, but because of their willingness to learn to receive the award that is given to those who do these things. On the other hand, the bad student, who refuses to accept the treats and just go through the motions may not be studenting as much as the good student. By cramming, cheating, feigning an interest for grade they are definitely bad students, but also seem bad at studenting if studenting is focusing on the grades, on being good in classroom, on being what the teachers want and the educational system expects. Just like we call a pet bad when it doesn't do the trick we want them to do, a bad student might be the student that learns how to get the rewards while refusing to play the game correctly.
ReplyDeleteCheating would be considered studenting, but viewed as something that a good student does not do. In addition, cramming, working only for the grade, and being distracted in class are all functions of studenting, but the good student suppresses these functions.
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