Was It Something I Said?

On the first night of class (three weeks ago) at least 60 people showed up. At least a third of them were not registered, and hoped to add the class to their schedules. The teacher wanted to limit the class size to about 40, but was persuaded to accept over 50. He predicted that many people would drop out, and suggested that they do so as soon as possible to make the class less crowded for the rest of us. Over the next few meetings, a few people disappeared.

Our first test was scheduled for tonight. (As it turned out, the teacher had accidentally left the tests behind, so it has been rescheduled for Wednesday.) This was the turning point. Out of the original 53, about 30 showed up. What an improvement! Now each person has a better chance to participate in the class, and much less likelihood of being stuck doing exercises with someone who lacks interest. I also have a better chance of getting the seat I want without having some twitchy character sitting in front of me and flipping his or her big hair at me all evening.

I overheard a boy talking about his fear that others would think he looked foolish as he walked around campus looking for the classrooms. I can remember being that self-conscious in high school, feeling almost as though I couldn’t walk across the room because people must be staring at me. Now I know that hardly anyone is likely to give a thought to another student passing in the crowd. It never occurs to me that someone will think I look silly (and if I found out that someone did think so, I wouldn’t care).

It’s fun to be around so many people in their early 20’s. Most of the “kids” are polite, a little shy but friendly. Everyone is helpful, sharing notes and books, asking questions. They have sweet, fresh faces, and lots of energy. Many of them are full-time students, sometimes with full-time jobs. They have been in school nearly all their lives, and are practiced at taking notes and forming study groups. Despite a high level of anxiety over tests and grades, they seem optimistic and eager to move forward. They have wonderful goals, careers to begin, places to go.

A huge problem faced by a large number of students in my class is comprehension. I’m not talking about whether or not they understand Italian. I’m talking about the ability to process and understand information in general. A lot of the students have a terrible time understanding the instructions for the simple practice exercises in the book. The instructions are printed in the book and spoken by the teacher. There is usually an example in the book, which is also spoken by the instructor, and sometimes performed in unison by the class. Most of these exercises are very simple and repetetive. Even so, the non-comprehending students just don’t get it. They either freeze in their seats because they don’t know what to do, or they attempt to do something completely different from the assignment, because it’s the only thing they can think of. They require a great deal of coaching from the teacher to perform correctly, and even then some of them seem not to understand what they are doing.

Again, this is an area in which there is generally an age-based difference. While there are several young students who display a high comprehension level, those who do not comprehend instructions are always young. I believe this is attributable to two factors. The older students have worked in the outside world. There, they are likely to have encountered many different ways of doing many different things, and to have been exposed to situations where they had to learn new skills quickly. They are also more likely to have received some education in high school, instead of facing the ever-worsening conditions that now make our public schools nearly useless.

My grades in high school were terrible. For me, school was an undeserved prison sentence, and I was just waiting to get out. My grades reflected my attitude. Even so, my high SAT scores would have made it possible to get into a reasonably good university. But I didn’t want to go.

A couple of years later, I changed my mind and decided it was time to earn a degree. Now, instead of involuntary servitude, school was something I had chosen as a way of reaching my own goals. I was still under 25, but had the experience of living independently and supporting myself in the real world.

The girl who had gotten mostly C’s and D’s all through high school now had a 4.0 average. It didn’t require any extraordinary effort. The difference came from two facts. (1) I was doing something that interested me, because I wanted to do it. (2) School is much, much easier than work.

It is (2) that I think of now, as I do my homework.

It becomes obvious fairly quickly that there are two kinds of students in the class. The “traditional” student is young — usually under 25, according to most universities — and is pursuing a degree. The “non-traditional” student is older, often significantly older. Some also plan to earn degrees, but many are there simply because they want to learn something.

It appears that very few of the younger students are studying Italian because of a serious interest in Italian. They are in this class because they must fulfill a foreign language requirement in order to graduate. Most of the older students are here because we actually want to be able to speak and read Italian.

Differences in motivation are clear in the students’ demeanor and behavior. There are some who are focused and eager, who do not only the assigned exercises but also those that were not assigned. There are others who seem to be half asleep, unable to keep their minds on what is happening in class unless they are being directly addressed by the teacher. Of course, many of the younger students are attentive and enthusiastic, but they are also easily distracted.

Several students ask questions that would never occur to me. They want to know in minute detail what material will be on the tests, what format the test questions will take, how long the tests will be, how often tests will occur, etc., etc. I don’t think much about the tests, except to look forward to the first one as a measure of how well I am doing in this class.

After a taking a couple of brief extension courses in “Conversational Italian” and listening to uncountable hours of tapes and CD’s, I knew that my next step had to be a “real” Italian class. I needed organization, supervision and discipline. I needed a teacher to explain the exceptions and ease me into the idioms, someone who would force me to practice verb conjugation and guide me to the next level of language acquisition.

I had high hopes.

It had been a long (long, long) time since I attended college, and there was much I had forgotten about that experience. There is little value placed upon the time and energy of students. Getting information is not easy, and nobody cares how many long lines you have to stand in, how many different buildings you must walk to, or how much time you have to spend navigating convoluted telephone menus. There is a lot of paperwork, much of it silly.

The various extension courses and seminars I had attended over the years were designed with a different mentality. No matter what the subject, they were intended for working adults whose focus was obtaining some specific knowledge or skill. Whether taught by professional teachers or working professionals in the relevant field, they stayed on topic and packed a lot of information into a small amount of time.

The world of academia is somewhat different. More than half the first night was consumed by administrative matters. Taking roll is extremely important. There was a long stream of students who apparently had trouble finding the classroom (it was in an unexpectedly obscure location), requiring the teacher to go over the roll book many times. There were many students who had not managed to enroll before the class was filled, now hoping to add it, requiring the teacher to decide just how many students he could manage (fifty), and, of course, generating more discussion and paperwork. Many potential students had to be turned away. There was a lot of discussion about the textbook, its availability (not a problem), and its outrageous price ($132 at the student store, $104 on Amazon).

We did have time to speak a few phrases in Italian. We also spent time looking at a map of Italy and learning some historical facts. During the next few classes, the teacher spent some time telling us about the origins of certain words, or talking about various aspects of Italian culture and history. Unlike the extension students, we are not here to load up with purely functional information and leave. We are here to be educated.