I have to qualify my post about bad students (see March). There are also self-serving students, who have no sense that learning in groups is a collaborative venture.
They don't prepare for seminars and say nothing in them and contribute no goodwill to the course or to their fellow students, but then use up a lot of my energy in asking for special help when essay time comes round. Then they turn in their good papers in the end and get a lot of credit -- even first class degrees. I hate them. Self-serving types.
In the old days students got 10% of their degree for their contributions, goodwill, hard work, etc., but now any surly, non-contributing student can get through without those good qualities.
That reminds me of the student who, when a lecturer asked if he would open a window, retorted, "Open it yourself." But that leads me to a larger train of thought about their upbringings. Is it their fault that their parents have given them that horrible attitude to life?
No, but from about the age of 18 I believe that it is incumbent on every adult to get some insight, to shape up, to evolve.
The postscript to this is that I am very aware of the seriously shy students in my seminar groups and would never put them under duress. Poor things. The most gentle of encouragements is needed here, as is working in tiny groups where I can spy on them flourishing, smiling, even using their hands to express themselves.
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Question is -- are we as educators looking at these students just like folks did at our generation twenty, thirty, forty years ago? Looking back through the literature -- our mentors said the same things about us...
They might have said we were lazy or ignorant or illiterate but I don't imagine they said we were self-selving. There is a meanness of spirit abroad that is getting to me.
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