When to break it to ’em






One response

  1. I really enjoyed reading this thoughtful critique of the purported need to sell students on the value of a given course. It is tempting to extend the analysis even further than you have suggested given our collective fondness for opining that students are incapable of discerning the value of what we offer until they have lived enough life beyond the undergraduate experience in order to somehow mature into a robust understanding of the impact of our courses. Of course, this begs the question as to why our offerings are so out-of-synch with the life worlds of our students that it somehow takes years for them to yield such understanding in the first place.

    Returning to your central argument I am tempted to ask a another question. What if one were to do as you suggest and truly engage students in an open, post-course dialogue regarding the value of a course only to learn that the now fully informed students have deemed the course to be of negligible value? Would we have the courage to take them at their word or would we frame their wisdom in the light of my foregoing comments regarding our supposition that they can only discern value down the proverbial road?

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