Statistics is killing me! I have been told my professor is the best statistics professor we have, but I find his class very frustrating. His class consists of a 2 hour lecture, where he reads his notes to us. The combination of the nature of the material, the lack of stimulation in the class, and the uncomfortable chairs makes it so hard to pay attention. For a class being offered by the school of education, I would have thought the instruction would be better. Where is the active learning? The activities? The engagement? I mean, really: who can sit and listen to someone drone on for hours about statistics and stay engaged?
On Friday night it snowed. Not a terribly large amount of snow, but enough to be substantial. Temple Prep did not cancel Saturday morning. However, very few students actually showed up - certainly not enough to have band rehearsal. So, I did an impromptu lesson on rhythm...
... and it was awesome! It was one of those lessons where everyone was picking up what I was putting down. I managed to explain rhythm in a way that the students were able to both understand and apply to the performance of music! Score! Who wants to buy my rhythm book? I haven't written it yet, but I will need your money upfront. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
For Teaching Music in Higher Education, we were required to subscribe to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Each week, I am to read an article from the chronicle and report on it to my class. This week, I read an article entitled, If Students Have Time to Get Drunk, Colleges Aren't Doing Their Job. The article is about the alcohol abuse issues which are rampant on college campuses across the country. What made it worse was that the cover photo of the article was a picture of a University of Maryland student, wearing University of Maryland apparel, shotgunning a beer. The article raised some very important points with which I agree.
- Underage drinking and alcohol abuse are getting out of control on college campuses.
- Alcohol abuse is leading to an increasing number of rapes and sexual assaults.
- Underage drinking is the cause of many tragic car accidents and resulting fatalities.
- Illness and death caused by over-intoxication.
The author cites research that says that modern college students spend less time on their studies than their predecessors and reasons that if colleges would keep their students busier with school work, they would have less time to abuse alcohol. The author ends the article by saying that when his own daughter is old enough for college, he will send her to a school that has the reputation of being "where fun goes to die."
This article presents an interesting moral dilemma for me. I realize the detriment of underage drinking, but as an undergrad, I did my own fair share of underage drinking. On the one hand, I recognize the tragic results that underage drinking often come to. But, on the other hand, does it make me a hypocrite to condemn something I willingly took part in and still have fond memories of? I am also not sure that the author's proposed solution of more rigorous academics will solve the problem. Students who are going to drink are going to do it, whether their curriculum is rigorous or not. As I learned in Child and Adolescent Development, exploration and experimentation is a natural process of adolescence. Also, overly rigorous curricula may end up causing burn out, stress, and depression in students and cause other traumatic practices to occur. Well, as is completely obvious, I have no answers to this problem. Thoughts, anyone?
In other news, the Boyer Ballers kickball team is now 1-1. We had a really great first game, winning 8-6 or something like that. But this past week, we got completely destroyed... 42-10. Gack! We are going to need to practice!
Anyway, that should wrap it up for last week.
Future Doctor Mitch, out!
