Why Are Our Undergrads Struggling?

"Comprehending the books assigned in class can be a real challenge for them. I notice this when I ask students to read a passage out loud in class. I’m surprised when they stumble over commonplace words," writes David Livingstone. (Shutterstock)

Commentary

The season most university and college professors dread is now upon us: grading season. As I begin to wade through my stacks of essays, I can expect to find some good essays, the occasional stand-out piece, and no shortage of middling to downright bad ones. This year might be particularly challenging.

More than in previous semesters, students have come to my office worried about how they will do, not just in my classes but in university generally. This isn’t true of all my students. I have some very good ones, of course. But the number who are struggling seems to be growing each year. More than one has said high school has underprepared them for first-year university.

To be fair, technology and social media share the blame. Smartphones are distracting, and their constant use means young people rarely read books or even magazines anymore. They have lost, if they ever had, the attention-focusing habits formed by sustained reading of complex material. Comprehending the books assigned in class can be a real challenge for them. I notice this when I ask students to read a passage out loud in class. I’m surprised when they stumble over commonplace words. Because they read so little, their vocabulary is stunted.

A National Endowment for the Arts report back in 2004 already detected a worrisome decline in reading among university-aged students in America. It predicted “literary reading as a leisure activity will virtually disappear in half a century” and with it will go vital skills needed for civic culture. Advanced literacy cultivates important capabilities, such “focused attention and contemplation that make complex communications and insights possible.” These are not “qualities that a free, innovative, or productive society can afford to lose.” And yet we seem to be losing them. Our fractured political discourse could be a symptom of this loss.

Are our high schools repairing this loss? I’m doubtful. Beginning in 2014, British Columbia shifted its entire curriculum to something called “21st Century” learning, which is code for a pedagogy that claims to teach “thinking skills” without having students learn much content. A student is somehow expected to learn to think critically about history without necessarily needing to know in much detail what happened in history.

In 2018, one high school teacher told me the new English curriculum in B.C. would make it possible for students to not have to write an essay or read a novel for up to two years. The provincial diploma exam in English was also replaced with a literacy test worth 0 percent of a student’s final grade. The test doesn’t examine their ability to understand a novel or poetry. When I looked through the literacy test materials, it seemed to me the readings selections were pitched at a Grade 9 level, not Grade 12.

A student in my office recently told me that his Grade 12 English teacher decided to abandon the unit on “Romeo and Juliette” because the students found it too difficult. The major assignment was a “compare and contrast” essay on a topic of their choice not necessarily related to anything they read in class. Thankfully, not all teachers lower their standards. But teachers who don’t may, ironically, be putting their students at a disadvantage.

How might this affect first-year university students? A 2019 report co-authored by sociologists J. Paul Grayson (York University) and James Côté (Western University), among others, discovered that “41 per cent could be classified as at risk in academic settings because of limited levels of basic skills, and 16 per cent lacked almost all the skills needed for higher learning.”

Faced with this reality, professors can maintain the standards appropriate for university-level academic work, though doing so can come at the cost of students’ mental health—an increasing problem on campuses. High standards can also mean lower enrollments as students shop around for easy A’s. Professors murmur with colleagues whether assigning challenging readings will result in fewer “bums in seats” and attention from the university’s bean-counters. Is it better to give out a few soft A’s to save the program, or stay the course and go down with the ship?

Grayson and Côté’s study reports what the English teachers in B.C. predicted in 2018 would happen: High schools would not be adequately preparing their students for the challenges of university. It’s grading season and, unfortunately, from what I’ve seen come across my desk so far, I’ll have to consider giving the high schools a failing grade this semester.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.