By William Cornwell
Philosophy Department

Professors Kenneth Ardon of the Salem State College Economics department and Lorri Krebs of the Department of Geography agreed to watch this video and share their thoughts on some of the questions raised by it.

• Professor Ardon’s Response
• Professor Krebs’ Response

“A Vision of Students Today” is a four-minute-and-forty-four-second video by Professor Michael Wesch and 200 students from his spring 2007 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course at Kansas State University.

The video was shot in a large, arena-style lecture hall. Seated students, who appear to be in their teens and twenties, raise placards that usually give either factoids about how they spend their time in and out of the classroom or complaints about their college experiences.

Their comments paint a picture of students who do not complete most of their readings (and sometimes do not open their textbooks at all), who are bored during lectures, who think that standardized exams are not preparing them for life after college, who are frustrated by the cost of their education, and who are expending less effort on their classes than on being entertained (or distracted) by sundry electronic gadgets.

This article is part of ASpect’s May 2008 issue, Values in the Classrooom.