It was the day after returning from Thanksgiving break. I kept focusing that time on another case of cheating, and I decided to do something about it. “People,” I said, “I just don’t trust you anymore.”
After a strong start, many of the 160 mostly first-year students in my general education course were challenged. They were backing out of the classroom. Many simply stopped showing up. Those who did were often distracted and unfocused. I had to ask students to stop watching movies and not playing video games. Students wanted time to talk about how they were unfairly graded on one assignment or another but they stopped coming to meetings. My stressed out TAs sift through the endless AI-generated nonsense submitted for assignments that, in some cases, only ask for a sentence or two of completely baseless ideas. One student posed for a photo at a local museum rather than visiting it, as the assignment required. I couldn’t even do simple basic math questions, pen and paper for the class without one-third of the students coming up with miraculously identical word-for-word answers. Were they cheating? Somehow using AI? Had I simplified the questions so much that these were the only possible answers? Was I just a victim of my mistrust?
I meant that word, “trust,” to stay just like that. We spent several weeks exploring the history of art and culture in Philadelphia. An important theme emerged about whether Philadelphians can trust cultural leaders to put people before profit. We’ve talked about the expansion of local universities (including our own), the deployment of murals in the 1980s as an antigraffiti strategy and, more recently, the debate over whether the Philadelphia 76ers should be allowed to build a stadium nearby. The city’s historic Chinatown. All the time we faced difficult questions about who really benefits from public projects that are said to benefit everyone.
So, when I told my students that I couldn’t trust them anymore, I wanted them to know that I wasn’t just feeling bad about cheating. What worried me most was that our ability to trust each other in the classroom might have been undermined by the same kind of profiteering that explains why, for example, many of our neighbors’ homes are being bulldozed and replaced with cheap student flats. That in the classroom where I tried to teach them to be better citizens of our democracy, to separate the public good from private profit, to see the importance of arts and culture beyond their ability to make money, many students continued to try to succeed. by using the usual tactics of the profiteer—namely cheating and teasing.
But did any of them hear this? Was it important? How many of my students, I asked myself, would come if not for the opportunity to earn points? Maybe for them the class is just another transaction. Like buying fries from a food truck and hoping to get more by waiting patiently?
I decided to find out.
With a few sessions left, I’ve given everyone a choice: Choose Method A and I’ll give you instant full credit for all remaining tasks. All you had to do was join me in an honest class session discussion about how to create better college courses. Choose Route B and I’ll give you the same score, but you won’t even have to show up! You can just give up, no questions asked, and no need to go back to class. Just grab the fries-er, score-and go.
The frantic conversation that followed showed me that, if nothing else, my request got their attention. Some people go faster. Others gathered to ask if I was serious: “I really don’t have to come back, and I’ll still get points?” I assured them that no arrests were made. As I left the room, I wondered if anyone would choose Route A. Later that day, I checked the results: About 50 students had chosen to return. I was happy!
But how to proceed? For this to work I needed them to tell me what they really thought, rather than what they thought I wanted to hear. My solution was to disagree. When the students came back, I asked each of them to take two sticky notes. In others they will write about something they like about their college studies. On the other hand, they wrote something that frustrated them. The TAs and I would then stand at the whiteboard and organize the notes into several common themes. We’ll ask everyone to focus on whatever theme they’re most interested in, meet up with whoever they meet there and talk for a while about ways to add the good and eliminate the bad. I would sweep towards the end to find out what everyone came up with.
So, what did I learn? First, though, I learned to lower my expectations. Although 50 students chose Route A, only 40 came to the interview. And then about half of those people choose to leave when they are absolutely certain that they won’t be able to get more points by staying. To put it bluntly, I learned that—on this occasion—only about 15 percent of my students were willing to attend a scheduled class if doing so did not present a direct opportunity to gain points on their grades. Which also means that more than 85 percent of my students were satisfied with getting points by doing nothing.
There are many reasons why students choose or do not choose to return. The size of this sample though assures me that college teachers are facing serious issues related to how the growing generation of students understand learning. These are not problems that can be undone by new educational applications or by complaining about AI. They are issues about citizenship, identity and the commercialization of everything. They show the erosion of trust in institutions, in knowledge and in yourself.
I do not blame my students for not trusting me or the programs we have come to rely on at the university. I also have doubts about the integrity of our nation’s education sector. The real problem, however, is that the impossibility of trust means that I cannot learn in any reliable way what Path B students need to change this situation.
However, I can learn from Path A students, and one important lesson is that they exist. That’s great news! I also learned that “good” students are not always good students. Twelve students participated notIn general, the students I expected were left behind. I would say that about one-third of traditionally good students come back unmotivated. It’s an important reminder to all of us that surviving the classroom by teaching only those students who seem to care is a sure way to alienate others who really care.
Something Path A students have taught me I’ve known for a long time. They respond very well, for example, to professors who make content fast, interesting and personal. They feel betrayed by professors who read from age-old PowerPoints and will sit through those lectures in silent anger. Silence, in fact, emerged as a theme throughout our conversation. Many students are afraid to speak out loud in front of people they don’t know or trust. And they are not sure how to meet people or how to know that the people they meet can be trusted. None of us should be surprised that trust and communication are intertwined. Thinking more fully about how they fit into the classroom, for me, will be an important task going forward.
I’ve also learned that students appreciate an aspect of my teaching that I absolutely hate: See love when I publicly announce troublemakers and lawbreakers. They love it, that is, when I police the classroom. In my opinion, being difficult sounds like a pedagogical failure. My sense is that a well-run classroom should prevent most behavior problems from occurring in the first place. Understandably, dedicated students appreciate it when I ensure a fair and safe learning environment. But I have to wonder if Path A’s appetite for schadenfreude reflects deeper problems: an unwillingness to face adversity, a disregard for the commonwealth, a limited desire to be seen. Teaching is always a game. But maybe what our actions mean is not what we think all the time.
However, by far, the most remarkable and perhaps most troubling lesson I learned during our conference was this: Students can’t read. Technically they can understand printed text, and certainly more than a few can do better than that. But Path A students confirmed my sense that most if not most of my students could not trust the main concepts and big picture meaning of, say, a 20-page essay written for an educated but non-specialist audience. I have dealt with this problem elsewhere in my teaching, so I have dealt with it this time first a lot slowly. Our first reading was a journalistic moment; the second was an encyclopedia entry. We talked about reading strategy and discussed ways to tackle difficult texts. But still, I quickly reached their limit. Weekly reading quizzes and end-of-the-week writing assignments called “connect the dots” have shown me that most students just can’t.
Concerns about declining literacy in the classroom are by no means new. But what struck me in this moment was the degree to which Path A students were fully aware of their lack of education, how anxious they were and how betrayed they felt by previous teachers who assured them they were ready for college. During our discussion, students expressed how relieved they were when, toward the end of the semester, I released and uploaded audio and video transcripts for structured reading. They want help learning to read but aren’t sure where or how to get it. There is a lot of shame, embarrassment and fear associated with this issue. Competition should now be a priority for all of us.
I learned so much from our Path A conference. In one of the many light moments, for example, we all heard from other international students about how they think American students are “the bombs”. We had a lot of laughs this semester, actually, and despite the challenges, I really enjoyed the work. But knowing what work is, or needs to be, has never been more difficult. I want my students to see their world in new ways. They want a personalized experience without conflict and anxiety. I give questions; they want answers. Please be honest; they want points.
Like it or not, cutting deals with points means I’m stuck with the same profit structures that they are. But maybe that’s the real lesson. Sharing something in common, after all, is an excellent first step in building trust. Maybe even the first step in a new direction.
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