Natalie Wexler wrote an article titled The College Kids are Not All Right (2 June 2024).
« Reports from professors point to an alarming decline in cognitive capabilities, even at selective institutions… College professors are reporting that their students are no longer capable of reading or writing the kinds of complex texts that used to be routine assignments. »
« One [article] that appeared in Slate in February, written by a college professor named Adam Kotsko who has been teaching for over 15 years, described his personal experience. While he used to be able to assign around 30 pages of reading per class meeting, he wrote, in the past five years, “students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding.” »
« A media studies professor at Wellesley College—a highly selective institution—says he’s had to reduce the amount of reading and writing he assigns. »
« A biology professor at Davidson College observes that students are no longer able to synthesize and summarize information the way they used to, even needing explicit instruction in how to take notes. »
« A professor at the University of Notre Dame told the Chronicle of Higher Education that the real problem is that the textbooks and academic articles students are asked to read are boring. Maybe instead of assigning such tomes, professors “should consider presenting information through other forms of media.”
This recommendation echoes the rather startling statement put out in 2022 by the National Council of Teachers of English: “The time has come to de-center book reading and essay writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education,” it declared. Speaking and listening are also forms of literacy, the NCTE asserted, and they are “increasingly valued.” »
« The complexity of a text should stem from the complexity of the ideas it is trying to convey. If we limit students to simple texts—or to forms of oral language that are less complex—we’re preventing them from developing the ability to grapple with or originate complex or nuanced thoughts. And the answer to boring textbooks isn’t to have students watch a video instead. It’s to assign reading that is both engaging and challenging, and ensure students are equipped to read and analyze it.»
« One simple step in that direction would be to ban smartphones from the classroom, or maybe even from the entire school day. »
« Some commentators in the articles point to ineffective instruction in phonics, and others to the practice of “teaching to the test” by mimicking the format of brief passages followed by comprehension questions. Several attribute the latter phenomenon to the Common Core.
Given the timing, it does seem like the Common Core has something to do with it. While there’s some evidence that the issue has been around for a while, Kotsko dates the trend to the last five years. States started adopting the Common Core standards in 2010. So students who started college in 2019 and later are the first generation to have been exposed to Common Core-influenced instruction for most or all of their K-12 schooling. »
« Writing instruction can also address college professors’ complaints about students’ inability to summarize or synthesize information, or even to take notes. »
« If the best and the brightest college students are struggling to absorb or produce complex, lengthy text—and thereby also struggling to engage in nuanced, rigorous thinking—that’s a problem that will likely extend well beyond the confines of their leafy campuses… It’s about whether they, along with their peers at less selective institutions, will be cognitively equipped to lead and participate in a democratic society. »
Natalie Wexler is the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System–and How to Fix it (2020) and co-author of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (2nd edition, 2024).
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