The Dumb Old Professors and the Wise & Brilliant Bored Scholar

Katie Farnam is a senior journalism major at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, TX. In the midst of the Iraq war, Katie decided to write an editorial in the North Texas Daily about how bored she is in class. She writes:

“I have been bored out of my mind during classes, forced to contemplate my next meal or watch dust bunnies form around the floorboards of various NT classrooms.”

The most obvious response might be that Katie is, perhaps, one of the army of re-animated corpses that populate too many classrooms in America. However, if we believe Katie’s own evaluation of herself, she is a nearly brilliant student stifled by the ineptitude of her dumb old professors who fail to engage her vigorous intellect. Again, she writes:

“I have come to the realization that I'm a student who loves to learn. I enjoy school and strive to excel at it. But even my vigor for learning cannot outweigh the tediousness of some of the classes at NT and the professors who teach them.”

Katie then goes on to tell her dumb old professors what they are doing wrong:

“This is an impassioned plea for you to approach your classes with excitement and fervor. Respect your students' attention by preparing material that will intrigue them and give the subject matter value and meaning. This does not equal a PowerPoint presentation recited verbatim from slides or a lecture straight from the textbook. Please, make your students' time in class worthwhile. We pay a lot to get our degrees from NT and it would be nice to get our money's worth.Not only is it your job to care about your students by coming to class with enthusiasm, it should be your natural response as an educator. Forget about tenure or politics for a second and think about your mission as an instructor. You are responsible for molding your students' minds and using your hours of research and service to enrich your teaching material.”

Again, there are some obvious responses:
Katie is at UNT to be educated, not entertained.
Education is often hard work.
Seldom do truly engaged students find dust bunnies more entertaining than even the dullest PowerPoint. After all, knowledge is knowledge no matter how it comes to one. So maybe, just maybe, Katie ain’t as jonsing to learn as she thinks she is.
Perhaps Katie’s parents gave her opinions too much attention growing up.
Or, Katie is one of the legion who would be better off watching TV, because this is where her sensibility truly lies.

It’s silly to suggest that, among the seventeen million plus college students in the United States, all of us are simply (v)idiots programmed to 30 second sound bites and incapable of concentrating on anything not presented to us with a soundtrack and new camera angle every two seconds. Nevertheless, here’s Katie – ostensibly about to enter one of the most intellectually challenging professions – venting about the way knowledge is fed to her ravenous nervous system.

Perhaps it is time that professors learn to write documentary screenplays and then hand the entire semester over to the Discovery Channel, or, better yet, to Spike TV, YouTube, or Matt Groening. Perhaps it is time to end the era of modernity and usher in the era of cyber-life. After all, we must concede that not all professors are dynamic performers, rather, they are experts in their fields. And for many, this is simply not enough – case in point: Katie Farnam.

It is also interesting to note that, since education has become more and more expensive (thanks George!), students are treating college as a consumer product and seem to feel that the learning experience can be applied to the supply side of Americana. Students are now customers and they want their money’s worth, if not the brains that go with it.

Good luck to Katie in the exciting world of journalism, where every story is a killer.