Of teaching and reading

The reading habits, or perhaps abilities, of university students is often a topic of debate and discussion these days. Professors are wondering if the students are reading at all or as some would pose more provocatively, are they even able to really read. I too worry about this in the world of declining attention spans, dependence on smart phones, reliance on questionable internet content for information, and tools for quick summary generators. But I also wonder about the role of the professor in this moment.

In this debate on students and reading, when professors talk about the problem, by and large, they talk about students in social sciences and humanities, or at the very least, talk about courses in those subjects. As someone who teaches a general education class, and an engineering elective, I find that framing problematic. Why is it that we assume that reading is, or should, only be an expectation in humanities and social sciences? Why should science or engineering students not read deeply? Do we not expect our scientists to think critically, develop an ability to engage with open ended problems, question their assumptions, challenge their conclusions, or more significantly learn to appreciate creativity? Assuming that science and engineering students only need to understand numbers, equations and figures is both inaccurate and naïve. Additionally, we should hope that all students, regardless of their intended field of learning and practice, will turn out to be citizens who live by the ideals of integrity, decency, kindness and respect. Reading alone may not create ethical citizens but not expecting them to read is certainly going to make things worse.

So now, the question I want to focus on is: what happens when we ask students to read? I have long been interested in this question – and this past semester I tried to incorporate more reading in my upper-level engineering class that focuses on engineering approaches to improve refugee health. Not only would I assign readings (from a variety of academic publications and long-form essays) ahead of class and ask them to write short pieces of reflection in class (which was graded), where they had to write on paper and could not use computers, I also told them that for extra credit they could read one of four books. Three out of four books were fiction (they all focused on refugees) and the fourth one was a memoir by a Pulitzer Prize winning author (also focused on displacement and return).

I bought the books for the students (which they had to return after reading), and to get extra credit they had to come in person into my office and discuss the book. I would ask them lots of questions about the themes of the book, the imagery, the nature of dialogues and the characters, and the questions were fairly diverse to ensure that they had actually read the book and were not relying on an AI-summary that they had memorised. The experience was extraordinary. Nearly two-thirds of the students took up my offer of reading a book, and every single discussion was nuanced, rich and often touched on personal experiences and ideas. There were times when the students disagreed with my analysis and pushed back, and there were instances when I took notes for additional books my students recommended during the discussion. My experiment went so well this year that I am going to make this as a permanent part of this course.

I recognise that not all classes are the same and that my students are perhaps a self-selected group who know what they are getting into. I also know that I have created an incentive for students to read (and in the case of pre-class readings, a penalty for not reading). But that is exactly my point – given the world that we live in, with distractions and declining attention spans all around us, are the professors doing all they can to get students to read?

Some of my students were avid readers, others hadn't read a book in years. But by the end of the experience, everyone who read a book seemed eager to pick another one right away.