Studying alone, really alone

A fringe benefit of reading Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (2011): one can assemble from the book’s data and conclusions a to-do list for genuine learning in college. Arum and Roksa find that students who learn the most in college do three things: they take courses with professors who have high expectations and require much reading and writing; they talk to professors during office hours; and they study alone.

I think that Arum and Roksa have it right, but I think it's time to rethink the meaning of alone. When I walk through my college library, I see student after student studying sort-of alone: stopping repeatedly to check messages (most likely texts and tweets and updates) on a phone that is always within reach. There might be especially urgent reasons for any given student to have a phone out and on, but I doubt that emergencies account for the scenes I see again and again.

A student whose work is constantly interrupted by messages from the world beyond the library, who studies (or tries to) while anticipating the arrival of those siren songs, is never really alone, and never really paying attention — partial attention being, I would argue, a form of inattention. A better to-do for greater learning: study disconnected. Alone, yes, but with beeswax in your ears — in other words, with your phone silent and out of sight. A phone is hardly the only obstacle to attention: the mind provides distractions enough of its own. There’s no need to supplement them.

Related posts
A good place to study
A review of Academically Adrift

[Arum and Roksa studied the academic progress of students who began college in Fall 2005. Thus these students did much of their work before the massive growth of Facebook and Twitter. In Odyssey 12, beeswax protects Odysseus’ crew from the song of the Sirens. Odysseus, ever curious, has himself tied to the mast so that he can safely hear the song.]

On learning and games

Pamela Paul on learning and games:

“Imagine if kids poured their time and passion into a video game that taught them math concepts while they barely noticed, because it was so enjoyable,” Bill Gates said last year. Do we want children to “barely notice” when they develop valuable skills? Not to learn that hard work plays a role in that acquisition? It’s important to realize early on that mastery often requires persevering through tedious, repetitive tasks and hard-to-grasp subject matter.

How’s this for a radical alternative? Let children play games that are not educational in their free time. . . . Then, once they’re in the classroom, they can challenge themselves. Deliberate practice of less-than-exhilarating rote work isn’t necessarily fun but they need to get used to it — and learn to derive from it meaningful reward, a pleasure far greater than the record high score.

Read it all: Reading, Writing and Video Games (New York Times).

ClockSaver

I just updated my at-work computer and lo: Fliqlo and Word Clock no longer work. But there’s still ClockSaver, a free screensaver for Mac. I can vouch that it works with Snow Leopard; I don’t about Lion and Mountain Lion.

“Do the work”

A member of Professor Charles Kingsfield’s seminar for second- and third-year law students has just given a report using two props — a piece of “eastern erotica” and a Playboy centerfold. Kingsfield’s response: “lively, energetic, entertaining, . . . also overlong, ineptly researched, and quite shallow.” The props, says Kingsfield, are merely “a smoke screen” to conceal shoddy work. He then gives the student this advice: “Do the work, and you won’t need to do the dance.”

Do the work: yes. I’m reminded of the justly celebrated Rule 7.

These bits of dialogue come from a second-season episode of The Paper Chase, “Spreading It Thin,” which aired on June 15, 1983. Yes, the DVD is at Netflix.

Two more Kingsfield posts
How to improve writing (no. 42)
“Minds, not memories”

Facebook CEO likes paper, pens

Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, talking with the New York Times:

“I probably shouldn’t admit this since I work in the tech industry, but I still prefer reading paper books. (In Lean In , I also admit that I carry a notebook and pen around to keep track of my to-do list, which, at Facebook, is like carrying around a stone tablet and chisel.)”

Related reading
All paper posts (Pinboard)

A poem for the day

I like what the poet David Schubert said in a letter to a friend: “I’m going to buy my edition of Yeats tomorrow, for he does belong to the ages although he knows it too well.” But he does belong to the ages, all of them.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Patrick, or, if you must, Paddy. Not Patty.

The name Leddy is Irish.

Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, March 16, 2013.]

Somewhere in that “‘Job Jar’” is a slip of paper that reads Draw collar. Or Prooflook.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

“Art by cell phone”

At the Picasso exhibition: Oscar’s Day No. 208.

On joining a museum

Elaine and I had never considered a membership in the Art Institute of Chicago. We live at a great distance, and we visit just a few times a year. But as a helpful fellow at the ticket counter pointed out yesterday, just two visits a year would recoup the cost. A membership for one gets us admission for two, along with a magazine, a 10% discount on purchases, safe passage to the Member Lounge (with free coffee and tea), and, yes, a totebag. We have promised not to fight over the totebag.

There are some great things at the AIC now. Among them: an enormous Picasso exhibition, an exhibition of Chicago immigrant and migrant experience in art (with a woodcut by Elaine’s great-uncle Aaron Bohrod), Irving Penn’s chewing-gum-on-pavement photographs, and work inspired by or made in collaboration with poets (Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers FTW). And the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art is back.


[Kylix (Wine Cup). Greek, Athens. Attributed to the Workshop of Nikosthenes. 530/520 B.C. Terracotta, decorated in the black-figure technique. Anonymous loan.]


[Pablo Picasso, White Owl on Red Ground. Vallauris, March 25, 1957. Red earthenware clay, decoration in engobes, knife engraved. Private collection.]

An unexpected benefit of membership: running into a old friend and colleague—in the Member Lounge.

Perhaps you too should join a museum.

A related post
Word of the day: apotropaic

[Descriptions verbatim from the AIC information cards.]

Overheard

“I think you could laser-focus it a little more.”

Related reading
All “overheard” posts (Pinboard)