"I have never let schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

University of Tennessee

Once the grades and diplomas (standardization and control of students) has expired at UT, FREEDOM will finally grace the classrooms and students will no longer feel pressured to do:

• work, activities, assignments, etc. that will not benefit them intellectually, spiritually, physically, emotionally, etc., and
• they will no longer feel stifled or captive in a classroom by a professor who could care less about whether they learn or not.

Back to the subject at hand, the "education" (or lack of) at the University of Tennessee. One thing I could never understand was, why our instructors would never let us have class outside when we had warm weather. Our instructors must have thought that if we were to leave the four-walls that we were being instructed in, we would no longer pay attention or "learn" anything, but that's assuming that either one happened in the first place! I guess they felt that by keeping us in the classroom that we would be more likely to pay attention.

What is the deal with the classroom—the 4-walls attitude towards education? Why do so many "educators" (used loosely) believe that if a class is taught outside the 4-walls that "learning" cannot be done or that the class will not pay attention?

...I feel trapped sometimes within the four walls sitting at a desk next to my fellow "inmates"...

I don't know, I just don't get it. Sometimes I want to tell my professors, "Look, if you haven't noticed already, no one in this class is paying attention.   Why don't you let us out early?   If we haven't been paying attention yet, do you really think that we are going to start within the last 10-15 minutes?   If you think that (more)

Last Modified: 13 October 2006 EST