\tThis is a regular teaching day for me this semester: 8:30-10:00, 20th Century Literature (compulsory), I face my sleepy-eyed, unmotivated first year students: 50% attendance, of those in class 50% don\u2019t take notes (apparently they don\u2019t even bring paper to class) and 50% don\u2019t even bother to conceal their boredom (the ones not taking notes are not necessarily the bored ones). I\u2019ve had, at the last count, three serious incidents with students deciding that class is up before I finish, having breakfast in class or \u2013this one is new\u2013 kissing as I lecture. Second class: 13:00-14:30, Contemporary British Drama, an elective. Yes, attendance is also only 50% (but at least it\u2019s the same students) and few take notes, but this is because they\u2019re actively following what happens in class, particularly the amazing performances by their classmates. All seem highly motivated (I grant a few seemed less enthusiastic, I wouldn\u2019t say bored) and class discussion must often be cut short for lack of time. I\u2019m the same teacher in both classes.<\/p>\n
\tIf I consider what Joan Sim\u00f3n said in his seminar I\u2019m doing things right only at 13:00: a) I\u2019m bringing a collection of guests for my students\u2019 benefit (5, which costs the Dept. some extra money \u2013 thanks!); b) I\u2019m asking students to produce something on which they can invest their creative energies (a short play, which I\u2019m not quite sure how to assess); c) they feel in charge of their learning, as shown in their performance of the selected scenes. Yes, the subject works beautifully and I\u2019m enjoying it, particularly because I can relax for part of each session. More or less. I\u2019m still shaking remembering how intense was the performance of parts of Mark Ravenhill\u2019s Shopping and Fucking<\/em> this week.<\/p>\n \tPrecisely, what I wondered when I saw the scenes was what could possibly motivate students to work so well, much above my wildest dreams. The marks? Certainly not. My \u2018espabilation skills\u2019? Ha, ha… I was really scared when I prepared the subject that students would not go along with the experiment and that the sessions would fall flat. I am no longer worried but whenever students thank me for the subject (sorry to sound appallingly smug) I insist it is not my merit at all: it is theirs<\/em>. I am just VERY LUCKY. <\/p>\n I asked the students playing Ravenhill so brilliantly why they\u2019d gone to such pains \u2013literally\u2013 and they told me that it was something different: it was fun. Such fun, that I actually received two guests, friends of students in my class to see them… This worries me, for it shows that students\u2019 motivation is not primarily learning but enjoyment. Of course, plays are perfect for mixing pleasure and learning, as students are discovering to my relief, but there is plenty of Literature less amenable to that reading methodology. Some texts must simply be endured \u2013yes, endured\u2013 for the sake of learning about the History of Literature and I\u2019m beginning to feel guilty that my British Drama class may be doing things harder for other Literature teachers. Even for myself in other classes.<\/p>\n \tGenerally speaking, life is not fun and learning, even for the highly self-motivated, can often be mortally boring, a pain in the ass. We\u2019ve become university teachers by spending many gruelling hours tied to literary texts we hated, breathing in deeply, and using whatever carrot and stick we had at hand. We are all Victorians for, as George Eliot wrote, we believe that \u201cConscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.\u201d <\/p>\n In contrast, our students belong to a generation fixated on their right to have fun. This was, to my surprise, formally acknowledged as a fundamental human right by the 1959 UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child but, somehow, it has spread beyond childhood to clash badly with adult duty, as adulthood is delayed and teenagehood prolonged (into the university classroom in what is called \u2018bachillerizaci\u00f3n\u2019). <\/p>\n Most of our students, particularly in the third and fourth years, are dutiful people, I know, but a significant minority still must learn that an adult is, simply, someone who must do his\/her duty and have fun only once that is done. These are a worrying percentage of the ones we battle with on the front lines of the first and second years. And we must motivate them… Tell me how.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a regular teaching day for me this semester: 8:30-10:00, 20th Century Literature (compulsory), I face my sleepy-eyed, unmotivated first year students: 50% attendance, of those in class 50% don\u2019t take notes (apparently they don\u2019t even bring paper to class) and 50% don\u2019t even bother to conceal their boredom (the ones not taking notes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-tools-and-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}