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edwired » Blog Archive » I Know…Let’s Blame the Students

“Sometimes it seems to me that whenever things go wrong in college teaching, the first impulse of the professor is to blame the students. They aren’t prepared for class. They don’t want to grapple with the hard concepts. They don’t want to read what I assign. They do all their work at the last minute. And now, apparently, laptop computers in class have caused them to stop paying attention. We’ve all seen it. The student with a laptop who has clearly checked out of lecture. Is he reading his email? Is she chatting with a friend? Is he playing World of Warcraft? And then there are the other students peering covertly or openly at the open screen. I’m sorry to report that laptops aren’t the problem, nor are students. As Pogo said so many years ago, ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’”