Hacker News Reader

Comment by slvv | Hacker News Reader

"I’m coming to see student focus as a collaborative process." To me, this statement feels deeply condescending. I would much prefer to treat students as people making their own choices - for good or ill - so that they can deal with the consequences. If a student chooses not to pay attention in class to their disadvantage, they have every right to do that! I hope professors aren't pressured to become babysitters.

View on HN

Remember the students start at 18, and many have not had these choices before. They can really benefit from having expectations clearly explained to them. Profs in first year are responsible for setting norms. This is not the same as babysitting - it's part of the students' education.

Not all 18 year olds make great decisions without some help.

"If a student chooses not to pay attention in class to their disadvantage, they have every right to do that!"

This misses the point. You should respect people when in their presence. Its a basic tenet of social interaction.

People who (are so self absorbed to) dis-regard this ultimately do so at their own peril.

Its not condescending--its literally the opposite.

Yeah, what do those stupid professors know about education? How dare they attempt to engineer an environment in which students can engage with new ideas and information, even if it's a little dry or difficult to understand at first. You should totally be allowed to waste their time and energy and occupy a seat in their class that could've gone to someone who might've valued the experience a bit more.

That's fair - the intentions of the no-screens policy are really good, and I hope that students do respond favourably and end up getting more out of their classes because of it.

I do think the intentions are good. I know Clay Shirky and have taken several classes from him. He's very thoughtful about the decisions he makes in his classes. On top of being someone who has a very good rapport with his students and is very talented and making class interesting. If he thinks this will help, I am strongly inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You also happened to tap into one of my pet peeves about education: Students being weirdly condescending to their teachers for having the audacity to try to make them learn.

Thanks for your reply! I admit that I've spent the last 10 years teaching, TAing, and being a student, and I'm probably a tiny bit skeptical about what it's possible to get students to do, which coloured my initial reaction. Anyway - hopefully Clay is right and the learning process improves screen-free! :)

Sure -- thanks for not (appearing to) take offense to my snarky tone. :-)

I've also spent a fair amount of time on both sides of the classroom, as student and as teacher. It's really tough for students to understand the classroom from the teacher's perspective.

This is akin to saying people have a right to smoke cigarettes in a room, because it is their choice. This behavior has a clear impact on other people. When you see the people to the right and left of you glued to their screens, its like they are not even there at all. This is extremely demotivating, and causes a chain reaction of inattention.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com