In John J. Macionis’ essay entitled “Student Passivity” the author sets forth an opinion that in today’s classrooms, students are often passive participants in the learning process due to several factors.
Macionis blames the advent of television, lack of parents who encourage their children to learn, a student’s apathy and even the school system itself for this state of affairs. But are these truly the reasons that modern students seem to be disinterested in their classes? I believe that there are additional factors which Macionis does not consider that cause student passivity: high intelligence and general fatigue.According to Macionis, one student in his first year of college is quoted as stating that many students “never challenge themselves past what is absolutely necessary”. Instead of putting the blame on students who sit in class passivel
...y, perhaps the onus should fall to the instructor. There are many very highly intelligent students who attend college in order to further their learning, however when they begin a class with high expectations of doing so only to find the subject matter reviewed being that which was already learned in high school, they tend to “tune out”.Passivity is not necessarily apathy, rather it could be considered boredom in students who are not being intellectually challenged.
Further, today’s students are often required to work while putting themselves through school. Carrying a full load of classes in addition to working a full-time job does not create the ideal situation for learning. Often students’ time is overextended due to jobs and other obligations, such as taking care of a household. Extended periods of long days and nights spent between a job and a class
schedule combine to cause fatigue which may be mistaken for passivity.As Macionis points out, the study by Karp and Yoels (from Macionis, 1976) finds “that only 10 percent of class time is devoted to discussion”. When a student is either bored due to the lame content of the class or tired from attending to his/her other obligations, it is no wonder that in the absence of lively and spirited discussion they appear to be passive about learning.
Reform is definitely required to encourage students to participate in class but such action should address all the reasons student passivity exists.
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