Taking the "Edu" Out of "Edu-Tainment"

I left work about five today, and I walked across campus to the busstop. I heard tinkly music and smelled something slightly sickening yet weirdly enticing.

There was a carnival going on. On campus.

A motherfucking carnival.

I actually rubbed my eyes. It was still there: bumper cars, a dunk tank, live music, cotton candy, a mechanical bull.

A motherfucking mechanical bull. To quote Simon Tam: "This must be what going mad feels like."

Now, it's not that I'm anti-carnival or anything. Some of my best friends are carnies.

I'm just stunned that classes haven't even started yet, and already, already there are university sponsored events to...to what? to relieve the tension? the boredom?

I know I sound like crotchety old Mr. Buzzkill (my nickname in junior high, incidently) who doesn't want anyone to have any fun. That's not so, and I think that university sponsored events are great. But the students have some "activity" going on all the time. Like summer camp.

It's infantalizing. And they love it.

The students - whether they know it or not - deserve to be treated like adults. Instead we treat them as though we are worried that they can't handle free time. These are bright and motivated young adults, and we treat them like children. Then we're puzzled when they act down to our expectations.

But I think what concerns me most is how this signals the secondariness of academics. Extracurriculars, internships, community service, even leisure take precedence over academics. Now I am a big fan of all these things, but I think there's a really valuable lesson that we're not teaching the students: life is choices. If you want to be on the school paper, write a novel, be in a band, and serve soup at the homeless shelter, then you've made choices about how you want to spend your time.

But they don't see it that way. I have students frequently say to me something like: "I really want to take this class, but I have lacrosse practice at the same time. Can we set up another time? And you can tell me what I missed?"

Huh? Um, no. You need to make a choice.

But the even more damaging consequence of the perpetual carnival atmosphere is that it makes studying seem, well, boring. The slow and patient and silent work of scholarship can't compete with a carnival--with a constant carnival.

Yeats says it better than I ever could:

How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no Solitude?
So the crowd come they care not what may come.
They have loud music, hope every day renewed
And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.



p.s. I had so much fun posting sexy tree poems last week that I created a blog for sexy tree poems! If you think of a sexy tree poem, let me know.