Reexamining the 8 a.m. Class

Author: [no author name found]

Current students and junior faculty have not been around long enough to remember what was once Middlebury College's biggest course. It was called Art 101, and in any given semester it filled every seat in Dana Auditorium. Several of us taught it together, and it often required ten discussion sections.
One of the most interesting aspects of teaching the course had nothing to do with learning. It did, though, have a great deal to do with the present discussion about whether we should force more departments to offer 8 a.m. classes. Every time students registered for the course we had to beg them to sign on for the 8 a.m. discussion sections. In fact, the piles of registration cards for later discussion sections were always long gone before students would return to the desk and sneer at the 8 a.m. card pile. Sometimes, because the course regularly filled, students would take an 8 a.m. card and then make a personal plea to shift to a later section. We all knew about this strategy, so we did our best to go down the waiting list trying to entice students to take the 8 a.m. sections before talking with those lingering networkers. It was not, as your editorial impugns (Staff Editorial, "The Middlebury Campus", Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2002), that departments filled with lazy faculty members were unwilling to offer 8 a.m. classes. It was simply that students didn't want them.
Now, getting people to do what they don't want to do is sometimes an effective means of inducing human growth. But for any professor for whom student interaction constitutes an important part of teaching i.e. for settings in which materials are not simply conveyed by lecture student responsiveness is crucial. So, why would anyone choose to teach at a time when only, say, five to ten percent of the class really wanted to be there? This problem is especially insidious when those same administrators who are fingering faculty about the absence of 8 a.m. teaching will also gladly finger them at a tenure review for not satisfying the customer. If 8 a.m. classes are to be legislated, then, they should only be required of very senior, tenured faculty, or of administrators who, in general, teach less.
This is an important matter which is mentioned nowhere in your report ("Class Schedule Reconsidered, The Middlebury Campus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2002). Since students are now the consumers of that commodity which passes for higher education, I think we should take careful note of this fact. The last thing a business can afford to do is offend its customers.
So you might be wondering, in the setting I just described, why up to 20 percent of students on campus should have wished in any year to enroll in such a big class as Art 101. Well, it wasn't only, as rumor had it, because the course was a gut. In fact, we failed plenty of people who thought so. But it was the kind of fun and flamboyant atmosphere where you could just keep from failing (get a B-) by reading the notes that were posted after each lecture in good old university style. At the same time,, no one got an honors grade in that course without working hard (even in the 8 a.m. discussion sections), and everyone knew that handholding was out. Students had to make real decisions, and the decision-makers amongst them loved it. Those who required daily resuscitation went elsewhere.
To rejig and old saying, "those who know history are doomed to repeat it." So, here we are again looking at the issue of course selection for our clients and realizing that the shop is pretty empty when it comes to merchandise for those who don't fare so well at our bi-annual registration mixer. To offer lots more 8 a.m. classes is, no doubt, a very good thing, especially for the very people who don't want them. But since they don't want them, who will make good use of the choice? Here, the situation gets rather more complex--not only because consumers must themselves feel satisfied if they are to "like us," but also because a revised schedule would certainly provide (in an ideal world, anyway) many new possibilities for all of us.
What, then, do we do in the face of knowing this to be a good thing, and also knowing the reality? One answer is to apply the Law of the Lemming--that is, the Pied Piper rule which says that repeating and doing what others do becomes its own end (because mimicry, being an end in itself, always either goes nowhere, or take you to wherever you end up without your knowing it). It's called being busy for the sake of doing something, and we find it especially prevalent when we get around--either out of jealousy or sheer boredom--to micro-managing someone else's business. Another possibility, which is really an elaboration of this first one, is to reshape everything superficially so as to create the (usually false) impression that something has actually happened.
There is a third, if uncommon, possibility, and that is to do something that actually changes the dominant paradigm. This is an extremely rare occurrence in the world of micro-management because, as Nobel Laureate, Luis Alvarez once said, "our present scheduling procedures almost guarantee that nothing unexpected can be found." Though Alvarez was talking about scientific research programs and government funding for science, the comment might as well have been a reference to the over-inscribing of scheduling practices we have all succumbed to here on campus--you know, the rule that says that every department must have one, or two, or ten 8 a.m. classes, each with no fewer than eighteen students, who must get together at a faculty home at least twice a semester for pizza with no toppings.
So, instead of arguing back and forth for months on end about what each of us might be required to do at 8 a.m., why not think about how our "current scheduling practices" could be brought into line with one or two of the higher principles we are always going on about? Why not climb through the clouds and get a first look at all of those "peaks" we have yet to summit?
Think about it in the larger picture: what is the weakest part of our current system of scheduling classes? Or, to put it another way, in what respect is our current scheduling system most damaging? My view, anyway, is that a superabundance of programs during prime time viewing hours is far less disturbing than the way in which the schedule overall promotes social and environmental irresponsibility. I don't mean here that the absence of 8 a.m. classes encourages laziness among all of us, though well it may. What I mean is that the academic schedule, looked at more broadly, asks us to behave in ways that are socially and environmentally irresponsible.
Take Thanksgiving break, for instance. Every year many hundreds of our students drive home or fly to the ends of the earth for three or four days and then return to Middlebury for a week of classes, after which time those who have early or no exams fly home again. I am absolutely certain that every natural resource that is saved by all of the environmentally-aware members of our community who carry around plastic mugs--that every one of those individualized efforts to consume less--is not in total equal over an entire year to the amount of jet fuel it takes to fly just one student from Middlebury to Los Angeles for the turkey event.
Think now of what an expanded class schedule could do. Instead of structuring classes so that students come back only to go away again, we could, by expanding class times (8 a.m., evenings, whatever), actually increase available hours quite modestly over the semester to make it possible for those without finals to save the unconscionable levels of jet fuel wasted to get everyone home for the yearly food orgy. One might even hand out an Environmental Studies "Medal of Honor" to every student who behaves responsibly by scheduling his or her classes in such a way so as to offer the energy otherwise wasted to some noble cause.
And what of those who would still have finals and, therefore, not be in a position to end term a week earli
er than usual? Well, here's my simple solution. What we need to do is this: put on a college-wide Thanksgiving Feast--call it "Ecogiving," or invent another cute neologism around the word, "celebrate." But, whatever name you choose, make sure that everyone understands that the College's campus-wide Thanksgiving banquet will include not only good food, but paper and pencils at all of the place settings, or maybe laptops purchased through one of those grants we are always looking for. Either way, the important point is that, instead of engaging before chow in the usual prayer-of-privilege, we will do this: write a letter to mom and/or dad saying that we are very sorry not to be around for the food and football, but that we happily anticipate making up in excess for this sin when we return home in less than a week.
If we're going to talk about scheduling, let's do it right. Meanwhile, I remain yours truly, and as puzzled as ever.


Davied Napier is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology