Today's college students

Among those of us toiling in the groves of academe, there are a lot of wailings and lamentations about the lack of basic knowledge among our students.

To a certain extent this is true. I give my journalism students current events and general knowledge quizzes, and you would be surprised (well, maybe you wouldn't be) at some of the answers. Many thought our Civil War was in the 1700s, about a third had never heard of Watergate, and most couldn't name the state directly south of Wisconsin. They all knew the host of American Idol, however.

I have concluded that there is a larger problem, and it is articulated well in a famous quote by Will Rogers: "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. "

In my journalism labs, I always ask about their knowledge of computers and a few software packages. They all claim well more than adequate knowledge, but when faced with lab tasks, they are often clueless not only about how to do the task, but how to use the Help function to get the answer. Turns out that they can check their e-mail, MySpace and Facebook pages, but beyond that. . . .

Whether it's computers or content from textbook readings, they seem to think that a cursory reading and a loose grasp of the material is all they need. When I ask them questions that require some in-depth, critical thinking, they can't do it. They don't know how. The problem is that they think they know something if they have memorized facts, so they don't stretch their minds to make connections between Fact1 and Fact2. Why should they? They know at the highest level already.

I really think this is why I get the blank stares I get when I ask a tough question. It's not that students are dumber today, it's that they came to premature closure in their thinking because they came to class sure they knew it all.

The push for assessment, migrating up from the K-12 ranks, plays right into this. Assessment needs simplicity in measurement, so instruction becomes what's measureable, not what's right. If I were a wee bit more pessimistic, I would say that higher ed is near the start of a long decline, close on the heels of the decline we have seen in K-12. Sad.