>Two students asked if I was going to continue asking them about things they had never studied in the class.
I'm in grad school and people still ask this question after tests. Many of my peers expect only to be asked questions that have already been asked during the course of instruction, or at least ones that resemble them very closely. I think this is pretty good evidence that people are only in school for the degree and not for the skills and practice of thinking/wondering/exploring on their own.
This might have something to do with our generally rather antiquated public educational system that basically beats "wondering" out of students heads in favor of industrial education.*
*This is not true of all teachers or all schools systems, but it applies to much of my experience.
Sorry that I intercept, but that <em>there are</em> "people [who] still ask this question" is an indicator only for that <em>there are</em> people "only in school for the degree" but not for that people <em>in general</em> are "only in school for the degree". Then if so, what about yourself?
Not a bad question. I am absolutely in grad school for the degree. It is not, however, my first reason for being in grad school or even one of my primary reasons.
Much of what I am learning I could learn on my own by studying the books and thinkers my peers and I have studied in the classroom setting this semester; I know this to be true. The draw of graduate work (and any post secondary education as far as I'm concerned) is the opportunity to think alongside professors with a wealth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom in their particular field, and to think and discuss with classmates who share a similar passion to one's own. Learning completely on your own doesn't come close to the experience of learning from and with people who share one's passion for a particular subject.
So it's pretty disappointing when a rather large chunk of those peers don't seem to care one way or the other about real learning and application of knowledge, but only seem to care about the grade.
I'm in grad school and people still ask this question after tests. Many of my peers expect only to be asked questions that have already been asked during the course of instruction, or at least ones that resemble them very closely. I think this is pretty good evidence that people are only in school for the degree and not for the skills and practice of thinking/wondering/exploring on their own.
This might have something to do with our generally rather antiquated public educational system that basically beats "wondering" out of students heads in favor of industrial education.*
*This is not true of all teachers or all schools systems, but it applies to much of my experience.