 | Spring/Summer 2005 |
Perspectives: David Weaver Reflects on 40 Years of Teaching
Retiring after many years as a member of SVSU's faculty, I have had many thoughts and been asked many questions about my experiences. Perhaps fortunately, I often find that memory does not serve me as well as it might. On the other hand, the process is helping me to recall many people and events that had receded from view.
Quite a few people have asked whether I think today's students are different than those of two, three, or four decades ago. I suspect that some of the questioners expect an old professor's complaint about the general decline in the quality and character of students over the years. I have thought on the matter as any teacher would, I suppose, and concluded that while there may be differences, they are not immediately visible and probably not substantial.
What differences I have been able to discern are not at all startling. Certainly, I have not detected an impending demise of civilization caused by the decayed morals and/or intellect of youth! (I am less confident about some of our supposedly mature leaders, however!) Many of every generation seem to think such things even as they are replaced by those who follow. But today's students seem to share dullness, brightness, interest, boredom, excitements and commitments in comparable proportions to their forebears and will be able to take on the responsibilities and risks of life with similar vigor.
There are, as one should expect, some differences among the generations that may be detectable, but they are not so easy to demonstrate as some would expect. Any that I can detect are based on the peculiar views a professor of political science gains from the perspective of a few introductory and advanced classes. If there are fundamentally profound changes they may be so subtle as to defy clear and balanced observation.
Today's students are often more courteous than some have been in the past, but the courtesy often seems superficial (as many courtesies often do!) and is counterbalanced by a perhaps less pronounced, or less freely expressed, curiosity. I am not certain that this perception of increasing courtesy and deference on the part of students is not really a function of the increasing grayness of my beard!
Simply at the anecdotal level, I have been surprised by comments from students having just finished a course expressing their surprise at the scope and import of topics discussed since they expressed little or none while the course was in progress! That students would often prefer to be seen and not heard certainly is not new but the extent of the occurrence may be. Overall, however, I see that today's students struggle with learning, growth, and maturation much like their parents.
At a serious level, however, it may be that there is not a new but an increasing sense of alienation from the fundamental institutions and mechanism of society, accompanied by an unwillingness to engage in the social process of constructive criticism so necessary to citizenship and to the sustenance of a democracy. As always, however, there are those students of today who are willing to engage the political and social process and, I trust, will do so. They cause me special pleasure. I am still in touch with former students who contemplate running for public office or otherwise trying to contribute to the greater good, and I am very heartened by that. They will be in charge. The teacher must retire and the student must take his place!
That is as it should be.