I was first introduced to Michael Wesch’s work a couple of years ago when a colleague in the University of Wisconsin System played his video – A Vision of Students Today – at a workshop I attended on using technology to enhance student learning. Since then I have visited Dr. Wesch’s You Tube channel many times, finding other gems, such as his presentation for the American Democracy Project called The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube and the Politics of Authenticity. So I was not surprised that his article on Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance was as compelling and thought-provoking as his other work.
The environment in which I teach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) is very similar to his world at Kansas State University (KSU) – both schools are research and publication oriented, and utilize large lecture courses to increase the efficiency with which huge numbers of students can be processed through the assembly line known as higher education. I struggle on a daily basis with students who are disengaged, refusing to purchase their textbooks, much less read them, and who couldn’t care less about learning the material that the Undergraduate Program Committee deems important for all students to master. I also hear the same complaints from faculty colleagues that professor Wesch hears at KSU – students are lazy, undisciplined, lack motivation, and only want to socialize and party with their friends, etc.
Yet, when I look into the eyes of the 150 people who sit across the aisle from me in that large lecture hall, I see something very different. I see human beings who are starving for authentic and genuine human connections, who want to be passionate and interested in something greater than themselves. I see people who really do want to learn, but they need some guidance in order to recognize how material in a textbook applies to their lives. Many of them need a bit of nudging and coaxing to figure out how the critical thinking and analysis skills I ask them to apply in class can help them be more successful and satisfied with the choices they make outside the classroom.
Even before reading about brain-based learning in one of my Full Sail Online (FSO) courses, I realized that some of my personal learning preferences hinder my ability to connect with my students in meaningful ways. I have excelled in academia precisely because I possess strengths in verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, which are hallmarks of the higher education system. Yet the majority of my students are strong in visual-spatial intelligence and have grown up in the hyperlinked, multi-tasking, discovery-based world of digital natives. Many of my colleagues hold the opinion that it is the student’s job to figure out how to adapt their learning styles and preferences to the way each instructor feels most comfortable teaching. I think this belief is at the heart of the crisis of significance that Wesch described so eloquently. My response to this crisis has been quite different than most of the faculty with whom I work.
Rather than continuing to be frustrated by the blank stares and lack of motivation and engagement I see in so many of my students, I have been gradually changing how I teach so that I can make better use of all of our talents as learners. I am developing my skills as a visual storyteller and am revising all of my lecture presentations using Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen approach. I am also working very hard to encourage my students to see the connections between the lessons we discuss in class and their everyday lives and the choices they make. I know I have a long way to go to make a dent in the crisis of significance, but I can already see a difference, not only when I look into the eyes of my students, but when I look into my own heart and feel the renewed passion, sense of purpose and pride I feel as an educator who is committed, not only to lifelong learning for my students, but for myself as well.
