Thursday, February 1, 2007

the intellectual commons of the classroom

Is the classroom for everyone or only for some?

Are all students, in some sense, free riders on the knowledge of the professor? In some classrooms, it surely appears to be so. He nods at everyone's point, but then follows up with his own interpretation. I take notes on the intelligent things he says that seem appropriate for a ten-page paper. There are times when students have nothing original to add to the subject. Heavily-cited research papers exemplify that students ought to look to the opinions of others before their own.

Is it free riding when we develop a classmate's or professor's point that we found interesting? Not plagiarizing, mind you, but running with a phrase that we realized we agreed with, or that sent our argument in a different direction. Or is this only free riding when nobody takes an interest in your ideas?

How can one truly write a "creative, free piece" when the professor ultimately makes the judgement and assigns the grade? There appears to be a limit to the amount of intellectual property that a student can contribute to the commons within a classroom. Without grades, perhaps, there would be more freedom and less emphasis on an "absolute" response. Yet grades also provide a motivation and sense of competition. Our responses become self-serving, as Rheingold discusses in Chapter 2, striving to be more articulate than those of our peers. The better we define and defend our thoughts, the better chance of receiving a higher grade. If our thoughts happen to build with those of our classmates, and together we reach a greater understanding, that's excellent. If not, then we could care less about the grade they receive, as long as ours is higher.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

Haha! I love that, and I totally agree. I don't think I'd work half as hard if GPAs didn't exist. It's shameful, but it's true.