Making Learning Matter

We’ve got to get better at talking to students

In a recent newsletter, John Warner articulated a problem I’ve been mulling over for quite some time now:

“The challenge is to convince students that there is a genuine benefit in the struggle of learning as something distinct from the steady forced march of schooling. How do I convey the genuine value of thinking when the cultural message of the moment is the opposite?”

If higher education is to have any meaningful future at all, we have to find real answers to this question.

The way I see it, alternative grading is designed to make space for the struggle John talks about and can at least help students begin to see the “genuine value” of what we do beyond a grade. When the primary goal of completing an assignment is no longer simply getting an A, we can start to explore other possible motivations for engaging. When students are rewarded for productive failure, rather than punished for imperfection, they can experience struggle as a necessary, even positive, part of learning. When we minimize grades, we can start to uncover and invest in the true purpose of an education.

Unfortunately, I think minimizing grades may be a necessary but insufficient condition for any true reimagination of purpose. Alternative grading can open the door to a new way of thinking about school, but unless we convince students that what we do in school matters, to them and to others, they’re still essentially engaged in a box-checking exercise.

I don’t think, in general, higher ed does a great job of explaining why what we do matters. This is currently causing big problems on a structural level, as the public, by and large, doesn’t understand the devastating social effects that may result from massive cuts to university research funding.

But it also causes big problems in individual classrooms. Sit in on almost any general education course at 8:00 a.m. on a Friday in late April and you’ll see what I mean. Students, if they show up at all, don’t want to be there. They don’t get why they have to be there. They don’t get why the homework is so hard—and so very, very boring. They don’t get why they shouldn’t just ask ChatGPT to do all their assignments because, honestly, who cares, this isn’t related to their major, it won’t help them get a job, they won’t remember any of it in six months anyway.

So, for a long time, I’ve been lamenting that we don’t talk enough with students about the value of work in our disciplines. We should devote more time to exploring how this knowledge operates in the real world! We should explicitly communicate its benefits not only for students’ future professional lives but also for their personal lives, and for the world at large! We should give them a self-transcendent purpose for learning! We should show them that what they learn has real, tangible meaning beyond the classroom!

I came to these conclusions partially in reflecting on my own education. I still find it stunning that I did three degrees in the discipline of English literature without anyone ever bothering to engage me in a discussion about why literature is important or why we study it the way we do or why we study it at all. Answers to these questions were sometimes implicit, I suppose, in my coursework, but mostly I puzzled them out on my own.

So, obviously, I think we should be doing more of this work in our courses. But it’s not just that we should be doing it more. We should also be doing it better.

Here’s what I mean. When I ask people to share why they think learning in their discipline matters, they consistently say things I find beautiful. They believe that their classes can help to form curious and interesting people who ask intelligent questions about the world around them. That their assignments can help develop self-aware critical thinkers, engaged problem-solvers, and well-informed citizens. That by learning about history, biology, anthropology, poetry, engineering, etc., students can become thriving individuals who make the world a better place. I’m almost always moved when I listen to teachers express the dreams they have for their students.

And then I put myself in the place of your average eighteen year old sitting in a first-year intro course. Is this a person who is interested in being interesting? Do they want to develop a curious disposition? Is this someone who is excited by the prospect of self-discovery and critical awareness (do they even really understand what those things entail)? Do they want to solve the mysteries of the universe? Will they buy the argument that Geology 101 is going to support their individual thriving and their efforts to make the world a better place? In some cases, yes! In many cases, probably not.

Maybe the problem isn’t that we’ve failed to talk to students about the purpose of learning in our courses but that we’ve failed to talk about it in ways that actually make sense to them. So, what makes sense to students?

Here’s something that doesn’t: selling our courses by insisting that the skills and knowledge students build will make them more employable. We’ve been trying this for years, and it hasn’t worked. All that message does, as John has observed, is create a system that runs on “indefinite future reward,” the idea that students have to be miserable now in order to get what they really want later. And it assumes that what they “really want” is a job—preferably a high-paying one. Hardly inspiring.

Focusing on professional benefits to students can also cause us to make some, frankly, bullshit arguments about the nature of our courses. My writing class isn’t really meant to help them become “better communicators in the workplace.” If that was my goal, I would just teach them how to write emails rather than wasting all this time on essays. Students perceive, rightly, that what we’re doing in most classes is only indirectly related to what they might be asked to do in a job. (As it should be! Education is not merely job training!)

Additionally, when I say we need to get better at talking in ways that make sense to students, I’m not saying that all our courses have to be connected to whatever the kids are into these days. While I support courses on Taylor Swift or Game of Thrones (I know, my references are already dated), I don’t think every class has to have pop culture appeal or to engage with the media students are consuming. For lots of instructors, this would be completely inauthentic—and students can smell inauthenticity a mile away. Unless it’s a real connection that’s of real interest to the instructor, students simply will not buy it.

So, what kind of pitch about the purpose of our courses will work for students? What kinds of things might actually convince them to engage in the always difficult, often frustrating, occasionally tedious, but ultimately rewarding work of learning?

Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

A week or so ago, as I was mulling this over, I came across a piece of student-facing writing that struck me as a potential exemplar for those of us thinking through these questions. It was written by high school teacher and learning designer

Trevor Aleo

and published on his Substack Becoming Literary:

Teaching Genre Theory

The piece is a kind of introduction to genre, through the lens of design analysis, for 9th and 10th grade students. It doesn’t start off with an explicit pitch for why students should care about genre. But it does manage to convey complex ideas about the topic (Bakhtin is referenced!) in ways that I think suggest the significance of understanding it.

I’ve been trying to articulate what I think might be compelling about this piece for students. Part of it is immediacy: it starts with two quick examples of genre conventions in horror and action movies, instantly connecting the larger topic to something that is familiar to students—authentically, without pandering. The piece is also super specific and concrete. Every time Aleo introduces an abstract concept or bit of theory it’s followed closely by an illustrative real-world example.

Interestingly, I think the piece is compelling in large part because it seems to be aiming not for a big student epiphany but for a series of smaller realizations—things that make you go “Huh!” It’s not saying, “Join me on this journey to become a better critical thinker and self-actualized individual!” It’s saying, “Did you ever think about how the music you listen to every day reveals something about how fans like you see the world? That’s pretty cool.”

Further, it invites students to carry the awareness they’re developing into their everyday interactions:

“Next time you see a TikTok video, read a college essay, or watch a horror movie, look beyond its obvious features to what it’s actually doing socially. How does its content reflect community values? How does its structure serve its purpose? How does it position you as a reader or viewer?”

And at last, in the final paragraph, it turns to an explanation of why all this matters:

“Understanding genres through design analysis gives you tools to become not just a better communicator, but also a more critical participant in the many social contexts where genres operate.”

Aleo’s pitch about the purpose of learning here looks like many of the ones above. But it comes at the end of the lesson, not the beginning, at a point when students are better prepared to understand it. They have a sense of what being a “critical participant” in the world might mean. They’ve seen examples of what it can look like. They understand why it matters.

I recognize that this pitch probably won’t appeal to every student. One of the hardest parts of this is that students are not a monolith, and what one student will find compelling will not compel another. Worse, there are some students—not most, not many, but some—who will remain unconvinced by any pitch we make. We cannot, on our own, dismantle an entire structure that constantly tells students that learning is not important, or that it’s only important insofar as it generates a profit for you or somebody else.

Still, with consistent effort, I think we can move the needle for many students. They can start to see how doing this work could be extremely fulfilling, how it might help them help others. And once that seed is planted, who knows what good things will grow?

What are your favorite ways to pitch the value of learning to students in your discipline? What exemplars have you found? Please share your insights in the comments.