DON’T THINK I AM AN APP!
Whenever
asked what I wanted to become when I grew up, I had a firm little girl answer:
“Veterinarian.” It was quite an influential treat to be seated like royalty
atop a gorgeous animal every time my dad took us along to his research trips to
horse breeding compounds. In elementary school, I fell out of love with my
father’s profession as soon as I met my beautiful first grade teacher with the
bluest blue eyes and a smile almost as sunny as my mom’s. I knew then: I wanted
to become a teacher. While in high school, I tutored the children of
several family friends and acquaintances on various school subjects. Long
before my graduation from college, my wish had become a set passion.
Much time
has passed since the world saw that fresh graduate with her never-ending
enthusiasm for teaching. Thirty-seven years to be exact. Also, much has changed
in higher education – my profession, that is. Significant modifications of
teaching techniques and methods took place along with field-specific curricular
developments. Nothing unexpected, nor anything I will get into. The dramatic
transformation of students’ approach
to learning is, rather, a concern to me, as I am still alive in this arena
(“approach” in the singular form is no typing error).
During my
many related eager readings, “Rethinking the Way College Students Are Taught,”
an American RadioWorks Tomorrow’s College
Series article by Emily Hanford had my full attention at first. The more I
read, the more I realized though there wasn’t going to be any “Eureka!” moment
in me. For I had been relying on the same insights I had attained on my own for
decades already: don’t lecture, involve students in their own learning process
as active participants and adopt technology in class. What has, however, been
happening at least for the last decade in my classrooms (and those of my
colleagues – good friends with whom I commiserate on this matter often enough)?
A competition of the oddest nature for the students’ attention: namely, one
between their electronic extensions and the instructor – who by birth is not
connected to a high-speed Internet service.
Let us
consider a typical scene at the onset
of a class session in the way Hanford describes in her article and has my
complete agreement: students are sleepy, chatty, laughing and finding their
seats; or they have found their seats and are sleepy, chatty and
laughing. The class begins with a “shh,” she notes. In my realities of
close to the first thirty years in my career, students’ chattiness, laughter
and search for their chairs didn’t meet a “shh” from me. On the contrary, such
behaviors used to give me assurance, for an actual engagement was transpiring
between them and their immediate environment. One such conclusion, however, is
a dire mistake for today’s circumstances that go back about twelve years,
around the time when my students have been born into and lived in an
electronically charged and charging life setting. The dilemma, therefore, is
not to quiet them but rather having to instill interest in them for their own
higher education to the point of outlasting their iPhones, iPads, laptops, iPods,
etc. – an unattainable body snatching procedure for any college instructor. To
what extent, then, learning takes place under such unrealistic expectations is
the open-ended question here. Whether they are quiet or talking during the
process, in other words, does not matter.
 |
| Baby with a frown |
No course
material or presentation style a college instructor is capable of delivering
can come to the 21st century students as fast, as colorful, as
illustrious and as etc. as the information flood in which they have been
swimming right after their birth and continue to pass by at all times. The
period between their walking year and attending a higher education institution
seems to happen at warp speed. At the time they are in a college class, they
still are – only for this informal commentary’s sake – babies together with
whom I (or any other instructor) must work to contribute to their educational
gain. Their babyhood, however, is nothing ordinary: they need and expect to be
fed in the exact manner that technology has been offering them for long
already. Regardless of the curricular objective, their expectation mostly
equals a command: “Give me (relevant or not) data now but make it fast,
appealing in color, shape and sound and free to download!” Hence, my choice of
the two opposing pictures to help you visualize what I get to see in any given
class session anymore: a baby with a frown – above (“Why isn’t this a
high-speed connection?”) and as snug a baby as anyone can be – below (“Ahh!
Great Internet service!”)
 |
| Happy baby |
“DON’T
LECTURE ME!” is, after all, a valid plea by today’s students, as the article
for my commentary’s inspiration stresses. My dilemma as a seasoned teacher still
remains undefeatable, though: I am not an App; nor will I ever be one. What I
am about in the pyramid called higher education constitutes merely to much
accumulated knowledge in the field, some wisdom for life, numerous teaching
methodologies to better suit my different learners’ styles and habits,
countless innovative, creative and effective teaching insights and techniques.
I guess I could also add my unwavering commitment and painstaking dedication to
my profession – to the extent that my personal life stayed, until now, in the
background. Oh, not to forget: my love for teaching and how I thrive from my
daily interactions with my students. Besides, I so greatly miss those admiring
eyes I used to find on my students’ faces whenever I introduced them to solid
chunks of field-specific or outside information toward their well-rounded
education. Without googling any of them.
Alas! The
Apps on their seemingly truest companions are now the privileged ones to get
their awed attention…
Confucius
is said to have asserted the following once:
Choose a job you love, and you will
never have to work a day in your life.
Had
Confucius also had teaching in mind? I don’t know. I certainly did and do.
Because every semester yet, I enter my first class with my by now notoriously
known enthusiasm; to then survey the room to locate in my students eyes or
demeanors that long-lost special glow, that succinct hint of excitement toward
learning from their real-life teacher. Not much of any of it in sight…But I
still refuse to consider that I am doing “a job” and therefore I am torn
between two reactions of my own. Whether to make a counter plea to my students
to say: DON’T THINK I AM AN APP! Or, to reveal perhaps an all-inclusive
instructor’s wish of ultimate secrecy: IF ONLY I WERE AN APP!
Related
Links:
Author’s
Biography:
 |
| Dr. hülya n yılmaz |
Dr. hülya n
yılmaz is a published author, a freelance editor and a Liberal Arts college
professor with an extensive teaching career. Her debut non-academic work, Trance, a collection of poems in English,
German and Turkish has been published on December 12, 2013 by Inner Child
Press, Ltd. together with her own English translations of her foreign-language
poetry. She maintains a weekly blog of poetic, fiction and non-fiction writings
as well as her own literary translations. hülya recently launched her Services
for the Professional Writer, a freelance writing and editing business. With
this article, Dr. yılmaz invites attention to the dilemma in Higher Education
in the US today on account of the irreversible impact of electronic
developments on 21st century college students. Instead of merely
diagnosing the problem today’s student generation’s have with their attention
spans, she is stressing the significant role university instructors and
teachers alike must assume now in order to meet the unique needs and wants of
their pupils.
Contact
Information:
Web Page – www.writerandeditordryilmaz.com
Personal
Blog – http://www.dolunaylaben.wordpress.com
E-Mail –
editorphd.hulyanyilmaz@gmail.com
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