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The Name of Education

Peter Shulman

Last semester, I engaged in what became a heated discussion with a very respected professor about the importance of learning the names of his students. It began as a casual discussion regarding potential changes to the freshman year. We tossed around several radical alterations of the system (which had somehow been presupposed as necessary) when I made the offhand comment that perhaps undergraduates would become more invested in the educational process if their professors would simply learn their names. I did not expect this to be a particularly controversial point, but this comment was met with an incredulous, "Why should that matter?"

The irony of this entire exchange was that this particular professor was one I could always rely upon to flash a warm smile and a wave when we passed in the Infinite Corridor. But the conversation revealed a wide disparity in perspectives regarding the boundaries of the educational process. For him, or at least according to his argument, the classroom was ideally a venue of anonymous information exchange; having completed and digested the previous night's lesson, the students now listen to their professor lecture at the blackboard, receiving knowledge as a vessel receives water – passively. According to this model, the deep fountain of knowledge amassed by the professional is transferred in the classroom to the student.

As a student, I cannot emphasize enough how strongly sociological and psychological forces enter into the educational process. I do not purport to have discovered either the causes or solutions for students sleeping in class. Nor am I suggesting that fault somehow lies with either professors or students at all – these phenomena exist, and it is our responsibility as members of the MIT community to fix them. (Though I regret that we students will continue to fall asleep probably despite any possible change – this is usually a reflection of attending one of the most demanding and rewarding educational institutions in the world.)

That different fundamental attitudes towards education exist has already been recognized by both faculty and students. Last semester, the Student Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP), a committee of the Undergraduate Association, chartered a group to investigate the current state of faculty-student relations, with an eye towards how to improve them for the future. What has already been found reflects deeply ingrained habits of the MIT educational system; among them: (a) few undergraduates have any sort of relationship with their formal faculty department advisors beyond receiving the proper signatures on Registration Day; (b) many students have no relationships with faculty at all; and (c) while faculty members regularly announce their office hours, often few students appear (including those whose academic performance would suggest that such meetings would be beneficial). Undoubtedly, several variables interact to produce these situations, but it is undeniable that something is broken somewhere. We find ourselves living in several MITs simultaneously: the MIT as experienced by the faculty, the undergraduate community, the graduate community, the administration, the staff. Of course, these communities serve different roles at the Institute, but little exists now to make use of the very large potential for overlap; in the case of faculty and students, this will come from a recognition that the responsibilities of learning and teaching extend beyond the few hours of classroom time each week.

There is one week in the term that far surpasses every other in importance. This is the one week when no problem sets are due, no papers are turned in, and the grade books remain empty. This is the first week in the semester, when the relationships between teacher and student, and individuals to group have yet to be formed. This is the primordial stage of social genesis – the moment during which at least 50 percent of the class is thinking, "Is this going to be the first class to go when sleep-deprivation sets in?" This is the moment when an exchange of names constitutes an assumption of responsibility – responsibility to answer to that name. For a classroom, that is the responsibility to attend in the first place, but it will also manifest in the desire and the will to devote oneself fully to education.

The pursuit of a grade for a grade’s sake will forever remain as the dangling carrot in front of the starving donkey – external motivation. The donkey proceeds forward not because he chooses to, but because the carrot is presented as the easiest way, and perhaps the only way, to satisfy his hunger. The presence of the carrot is so overwhelming, he does not notice the far larger pile of carrots underneath his hooves....

Every semester yields the same frustrating experience for faculty – those perennial e-mails from students: "What grade do I need on the final to pass this class?" or "What is the dividing line between B+ and A-?" These questions exist because the goal for many of us is the grade itself. These questions offend professors because they reveal the motivation of students as not residing in actually learning as much of the course’s material as possible. But of course, our entire educational system has conditioned us to desire that grade, that GPA, that portfolio that will neatly sum up the depths of our knowledge so as to permit us to continue our educations, our careers, our lives. This is life as defined by a resume.

But subject to an internal motivation, an example of philosopher Martin Buber's authentic relationship between a student and a teacher, both student and teacher proceed because that is their responsibility – a responsibility to learn out of interest in the material. This responsibility grows from a sense of interest and expectation cultivated by the teacher. This is the responsibility to answer to a name.

Let's face it – there are just a lot of people around and it’s hard to remember everyone’s name. Sometimes it's just a temporary mental glitch – if only I had a nickel for every time I remembered someone’s name after we’d passed in the hall.... But speaking a name may be the first step in changing the course of a student's life, the beginning of a new approach to the course’s material, or at the very least, a guaranteed way of developing the relationships between students and faculty.

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