Thinking About Thinking

It is easy to think in the "no duh" realm, but challenging to break out of that box and think for one's self on a higher plane, thoughts that, perhaps, no one else has had. For me personally, this week has been challenging as I don't believe in putting all my eggs into the skill 'n drill basket at the college level. The textbook is the jumping off point, not the end of the rainbow. Students, on the other hand, need the security of knowing that if they read the textbook and complete all the assignments therein, a "good grade" will result.

If it were that easy, there would be no self-help books on the bookstore shelves as everyone would own a dozen!

Thus, when I work with writing students, I spend fully a third of the semester on the thinking process, encouraging students to come up with several ideas, discard those that won't work, keep what might work, and then do the hard work: create an outline that clearly delineates a beginning, a middle, and an end. If a student cannot visualize the basic structure or realize what the main idea of the entire essay is and where it's going to end, no amount of writing time, effort, and energy is going to turn the idea into anything worthwhile.

In one of my current reads, J.D. Robb's latest, Fantasy in Death, Roarke makes the following observation: "You never know what you might find when you're looking for something else, do you?" (317) Of course, this one sentence captures my writing philosophy: instead of living in the land of I Can't, how about visiting the land of What If once in a while? What if you pick up the pen, the pencil, the laptop and just start writing? What if you think of 8-10 potential ideas from within, rather than limiting your choices to one from the list in the textbook? What if you dare to live differently, think differently, respond differently than the other students and stand out by being outstanding? What if you just do it, instead of talking yourself out of it?

College is about going beyond where you are; if you are content to replicate past school experiences, both the successes and the failures, why waste the time, the money, and the energy to attend college? You already have failed the course if all you can do is what you've always done. At the college level, students are more often rewarded for original thinking than they are for playing it safe, but safe is so much easier! Most of us feel far more comfortable on the well-traveled path than we do taking the unknown road through the woods (thanks, Robert Frost, for allowing me to bend your words to suit my needs).

Adult students are more inhibited by the fear of failure than younger students because youth allows us to make mistakes, laugh at ourselves, and then move on. At the adult level, fear of being judged inadequate by a classroom instructor can be devastating, especially if the student has always been successful in the past, both in the classroom and in a career. There is a deep-seated resentment of the college professor, the "know it all" who thinks s/he can tell an otherwise successful adult that on this paper, s/he needs to rethink, rewrite, and resubmit for a better grade. Students seldom realize that before one becomes a college professor, the individiual first has to spend quality time in the classroom as a student; after all, very few college professors do not earn both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree, and it is becoming more common to also complete the requirements for a doctorate. You can't walk away from too many classes that are too hard and still achieve those higher levels of educational accomplishment.

Believe me, the college professor who has all A's is a rare individual because we all have our individual strengths and weaknesses. We choose to enhance our strengths and turn them into earnings potential, but to get there, we also have to conquer our weaknesses. For me, it's always about the math! I know I would understand it better were math to be taught in English, but using mathology to teach the subject is as effective for me as using ancient Hebrew! To accomplish my professional goals, however, I had to include successes in the math department, and I did. I grew up believing in whatever it takes is what it takes, so that's how I live my life.

It's the half-way point of the semester. Far too many students are walking away from the weeks they have invested in the coursework and the list of reasons for that decision is long. In the land of What If, the approach would differ: What If I worked with a tutor? What If I showed up for office hours? What If I dedicated two uninterrupted hours to learning what I don't know? What If I did whatever it takes to make it to the end of the semester, rather than giving up on myself?

As the stress enters the stratosphere, it is time to rethink, to think outside the box, to burn the box and see what happens without the usual safeguards. Take a step forward: you never know what might come of it.