The results of these anecdotal experiments represent one source of great frustration for preceptors at Princeton. They suggest that too many students do not read outside of class. Of course, some of the comments by grad students on recent Daily Princetonian articles about teaching reflected the impression that students don't read for class, either: "Many undergraduates don't tend to do the reading or display much curiosity;" "It's very hard to lead a discussion when students haven't read;" "Sometimes making uninterested students who haven't done reading talk ... is like pulling teeth."
But the problem lies not only with a few students who come to class unprepared. It would probably not be an overstatement to argue that many of today's graduate students skipped classes as undergraduates, showed up without doing the readings and looked for shortcuts that would let them spend more time outside the lab or library. But as graduate students, their experiences of reading reputable literature are usually not limited to that required for their coursework or research. In this, graduate students are unique. In the television and internet age, more people all over the world prefer a cursory look at a screen than browsing through an 800-page book, and for many, research no longer entails going to a library.
This global affliction has also reached Princeton. As a permanent denizen of Firestone, I often find myself in the company of keen and curious undergrads, sitting at their desks or carrels surrounded by books. But from a preceptor's perspective, it seems that most students would still come to class showing meager interest in anything that involves substantial reading or spending time at the library. This obviously affects the overall quality of precepts.
Admittedly, students should not be solely blamed for the ailments of teaching at Princeton. Surely, there are intolerably boring preceptors with a poor grasp of the English language. Teaching can also be quite unrewarding for grad students. It demands long hours, pays almost nothing and is sometimes underappreciated by the professors themselves. That too many students do not read enough, however, dwarves all other teaching predicaments.
Why is it so troubling? Well, to start, not reading produces bad writing. True, one can still become an exceptional writer without having read one good work of fiction, but from my experience this is not likely. After teaching three classes and consulting other preceptors, I believe there is some correlation between students who write poor papers and those who admit most of their reading is done online. When one grades papers, too many of which have preposterous structure and style and grammar problems, easily detectable to the untrained eye of a non-native speaker of English, one is left all but flabbergasted. If our school is among the best in the country, it is quite daunting to imagine the situation elsewhere. Beyond the college level, not reading has very serious implications: It creates an ignorant and illiterate society whose members do not have the curiosity, patience or ability to explore the endless treasures of a library such as Firestone or even to enjoy a day at the museum.
Partly acknowledging this problem, the University requires all freshmen to take a writing seminar. But even the most diligent writing instructor cannot pull rabbits out of the hat for those students who have not developed healthy reading habits since childhood. What else can the University do? First, it could encourage students to use libraries more often beginning their freshman year - a goal that can easily be attained by assigning simple research tasks as part of every class' requirements. It could place a greater emphasis on participation when computing final grades to give students an incentive to read.
And it could ask its professors and preceptors to be more meticulous when grading papers - not to fight grade inflation, but rather to teach students how to better express themselves in writing. From my experience, too many teachers believe paying attention to writing itself, as opposed to ideas and methods, is a waste of time, or simply not part of their job. Others are just too lazy to do it, yet students usually appreciate a teacher who spent some time on their paper rather than just scribbled a grade on the last page. This means more work for professors, preceptors and, of course, students, but for anyone who cares about education and the future of our society, the alternative is simply unacceptable.
Yaron Ayalon is a graduate student in the Near Eastern studies department. He can be reached at yaylon@princeton.edu.
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