Studying in a "985" college, Wang Jun often feels that he is in a "huge grass platform team". Peeling back the school's tall shell, some moisture spilled into the classroom, soaking half of his sophomore semester classes.
He majored in computer science, but the school required everyone to take some general education courses that had nothing to do with the major, and he was not interested, thinking that it was very "water", and he could also be water. In class, he will read books and study by himself, anyway, after class, he will find information and piece together an article, or memorize the textbook and prepare according to the scope of the exam given by the teacher, so that he can cope with the assessment.
Tian Peng, an associate professor at Hubei "985" college, has captured this psychology. "The kind of class that can easily get a high score and does not require too much time and energy may be defined by some students as a water class." But he couldn't recognize it. In his view, whether the curriculum is mixed with water depends on the teaching attitude and ability of the teacher - the attitude and ability are not up to the mark, and the course is not attractive, and it is difficult for students to gain knowledge from it, so it is called water class.
But after 13 years of teaching, he has observed that students now only want general education courses to be "better, less and higher".
Behind the phenomenon of students grabbing the back row, teachers interacting with each other, and lacking a sense of gain on both sides, the spatial and psychological distance between teachers and students is getting farther and farther away, which counteracts and exacerbates the tension between teachers and students.
In the midst of expectation and dislocation, it is difficult for the classroom to "water" and "gold", but is dialogue and understanding possible?
Water Class Survival Method
Two years ago, Zhang Nan graduated with a master's degree from a "985" college in Shanghai. During her graduate studies, she used "flipped classroom" teaching in some undergraduate classes, and she worked as a teaching assistant.
In these classrooms, the teacher cedes the initiative to the students. This group of freshmen were required to watch teaching videos outside the classroom for independent learning, group discussions, and then complete three or four group presentations and teacher-student interactive discussions in class.
She has met a responsible teacher, and the classroom is like a place for teacher-student interaction, full of gold. More teachers are "paddling" to get by. During the absence of teachers, teaching assistant Zhang Nan stepped on top and directly met with the students.
In the first class, she went to class on behalf of the teacher, organized students to divide into groups, and then assigned the topics confirmed by the teacher in advance. After everyone has formed a team, the group list is sorted out, and the first class is over.
Stills from "Basic Law of Genius".
But Zhang Nan's work is not over. Online, she has to supervise students on the teaching assistant platform to brush up on online classes. Offline, she has to pay attention to the progress of the group's discussion every once in a while, so as to control the direction of the discussion and not deviate from the "right track" and report smoothly.
Teaching assistants are present throughout, and teachers appear on the few debriefing days. On the day of the report, the teacher listened to the report, made a few simple comments, and then discussed with the teaching assistant and finally gave the score. At the end of the semester, Zhang Nan felt that these students "couldn't learn anything at all".
Ma Jie, an associate professor at a "211" university, had heard of such a class. Some teachers around me don't give lectures in class, and just let students make group reports, "from beginning to end, pre to the end, the teacher doesn't say anything". If there is a grade in the water class, it will be classified as a "level 1 water class".
There are many courses in the university, and teachers and students have their own ranking of course values. Students tend to pay more attention to professional courses, and non-professional courses are relegated to the hardest hit areas in their eyes.
Stills from "Zeng Boy".
"These courses do not serve real life and do not contain ideological content." In the view of Xue Qing of a "985" university, this kind of water course with low gold content is "not practical", and it is not closely related to the major.
For students, how to screen out a good course is crucial.
"Background adjustment" of the course is a necessary step for Xue Qing before choosing a course. After selecting a few courses of interest based on her eyes, she will go to the course selection mini program to take a turn and see the relevant evaluations. Classes that are given too low are discarded so as not to "leave a painful mark on the grade."
"In this (evaluation) system, the classes that are generally ranked in front of the row do not have attendance, have less homework, and give high marks." For a general education course with a score of only 2.44 points, the evaluation revolves around the keywords of "the teacher is more serious", "every class is named", and "the score is not high".
In this way, the water class class is often only the time when the roll call and the content of the exam are marked, which can best cheer up the students.
Stills from "When I Fly to You".
For the water class without naming him, Wang Jun will skip class directly, and he has to go to the water class, in order to cope with the attendance, students who don't want to go to class start to find a "stand-in" substitute.
Substitute groups are hidden. In order to avoid the group being "one pot end", the students directly threw out their needs in the learning exchange group, idle second-hand group and other groups, and the stand-ins rushed to hear the news.
Xiao Ya, a graduate of the "211" college, has been a "stand-in" more than once. Three years ago, when she first entered the industry, almost every day, students would find someone to substitute for her, "someone would find someone to take several classes a day". When she goes most diligently, she can earn hundreds of dollars a week.
Substitute pricing is not transparent. She speculated that the market price was "20 yuan for a class (45 minutes)". If you help answer questions, add 10 yuan at a time, and she has also seen the "black slave price" of "5 yuan a lesson (50 minutes)" in water class on the Internet.
Stills from "Basic Law of Genius".
Substitute teaching is more like a transaction, and the specific cost depends on the buyer and the seller. Xiao Ya usually pays a high price of 25 yuan for a class first, leaving some room for bargaining, and the transaction price of two classes is controlled at more than 40 yuan. She once met an "employer" who was looking for substitute teaching for the first time, and the price of two classes was 45 yuan, which was the envy of her friends.
She thinks that such an income is good and cost-effective. Substitute teachers can earn money while passing the time; With a little money, employers can spend their time on things they think are more valuable.
However, substitute teaching is a "high-risk" behavior, and if it is discovered by teachers, it is inevitable that students will fail the course and have a demerit. More often than not, Xiao Ya's luck psychology prevails, and "the average teacher will not remember the student's face".
A touch of sadness, a place of frustration
The reason why many classes are water courses is because of students' preconceived prejudices, such as ideological and political courses and history outline courses, and the course attributes are enough for students to mark them with "water".
But once in a history class, she was tired from self-study, Xue Qing raised her head to relax her shoulders and neck, and accidentally bumped into the teacher's sight. In a trance, she read a touch of sadness.
She knew that the teacher was not "paddling". On the contrary, he carefully prepared the courseware, tried his best to get rid of the boredom, and did jump out of the textbook for more in-depth expansion.
Frankly speaking, she had a moment of inspiration in this "water class". But the teacher's efforts failed to stir up too many sparks. In the audience, there is still a head under the pressure of black.
Stills from "Zeng Boy".
She felt sorry for the teacher, and no one paid attention to her enthusiasm. It's just that, under the pressure of heavy schoolwork, it is "difficult for her not to really treat it as a water lesson". Like other students, she couldn't afford to spend time in this "useless" class.
Time is spent where it is more useful. "The university's GPA system requires us to polish the GPA of each course and to pursue maximum efficiency." She said that grade points are related to future education or work. "If you don't maintain your GPA well, a lot of planning will be a problem."
Last school year, Xue Qing's GPA ranked 18th, in the top 20% of her major. This is in exchange for her ultimate pursuit of "efficiency" and "effectiveness". To achieve higher grades, "you have to sacrifice some water lessons."
Wang Qinfen's intentions were "sacrificed" in this way.
Stills from "Basic Law of Genius".
She works in a secondary college in Shanghai, which focuses on teaching, and in her first year of teaching, she devoted herself to teaching with enthusiasm. Looking at the bottom of the evaluation score and the "crusade" of the students, she fell into self-doubt.
She "didn't want to take water classes more than students" and struggled with how to take a good class. It was not enough for her to spend two days polishing the content of the two classes, and it was normal to prepare for the class until eleven or twelve o'clock in the evening. Even for major electives with fewer credits, she deliberately incorporates fresh industry cases to make the course content as close to life as possible.
But the class is still her one-man show, and the students are silent, "only raising their heads when they are focused". She tries to get more students to participate in the class, such as taking attendance in each class, stepping off the podium to pick up students to answer questions, reminding students to look less at their phones, etc., even if the attendance rate and head-up rate do not directly affect her salary.
As a result, after a semester, the course was given a low score by the students, ranking in the bottom 30% of the college. These low scores point to strict classroom management, and some students have left messages accusing her of being "nosy".
Stills from "The Day of Chasing the Light".
In the new semester, she "learned smartly" and simply stopped caring about students. "The class is only for the performance of the supervisor, and the students can listen to it or not." For the same course and similar teaching content, sometimes "play the video and paddle the water", but "the evaluation goes directly to the top few". After figuring out this pattern, Wang Qinfen felt frustrated.
Last semester, Tian Peng also got the "lowest score" since he started teaching, and was planted in the same class as another teacher with ten years of teaching experience. He was a little confused, but "I didn't have the time to study why." Teaching is not his professional focus.
"Scientific research is under great pressure for the so-called famous school teachers." According to his observations, faculty tend to devote themselves to research outside of teaching, off-campus careers, and even family business. No matter where the heart drifts, "teaching will never be the focus of professional teachers".
According to the assessment, Tian Peng will take 72 class hours this semester. Converted into courses, it is 2 undergraduate courses and 1 graduate course, and it is easy to meet the standard. Just after the class, it is far from meeting the assessment standards.
Stills from "Zeng Boy".
Universities strive for quantifiable numbers. No matter how well the teaching is, it cannot be quantified in a short period of time. In terms of teaching, there are usually only formalized work such as "teaching competition awards, education reform project project awards" that can be turned into specific indicators. In the end, "as long as you have a clear conscience and don't mistake people's children, then the class will be almost finished."
Teachers and students unconsciously reached a certain consensus. Students need the teacher to "release water" to make up some credits, and the teacher needs the students to "cooperate" to make up the workload.
The impression that few people operate
Wang Xuanyan is used to coming to the classroom early to choose a seat. A comfortable seat for her to get through the lessons.
The front row and aisle seats are usually given expectations by the teacher, such as the microphone that is suddenly handed in front of her, and the teacher's gaze that is expecting the student to speak, which is the "high-sensitivity zone" that she avoids.
The last row of conspicuous bags belongs to the "Touching Fish Zone". When encountering some strict teachers, they will let the last row sit forward.
Therefore, she usually sits in the corner of the last three or four rows, trying to stay out of the teacher's line of sight.
Stills from "When I Fly to You".
In fact, no matter where the students sit or what they do, Wang Qinfen standing on the stage can see it clearly. She is very "sensible" and does not interrupt, and the questions during the interaction will only be thrown at the students in the front row, and basically only they will respond. She expects responses from her students. The lively classroom atmosphere can make her more and more energetic, on the contrary, the dull class will only peel off her desire to lecture.
"I'm thankful for the kind of people who sit in the front row of every class, and sometimes I make eye contact with them and I feel like I can go on. It's hard to talk about it if everyone doesn't look up. Those eyes were her motivation to continue her lessons.
It's just that the classroom is getting bigger and bigger, and in the face of dozens or hundreds of people, Wang Qinfen can't remember the faces of all the students more and more. What's more, after the whole class, few people raised their heads.
The low score experience in the first semester made her realize that classroom management should not be too strict, "it will not help them, but it will lead to conflicts between teachers and students", and it cannot be completely absent, "too loose, students think your class is too watery". To this end, she set up a speech bonus link, answering questions to add 1 point, a total of 5 points. Occasionally, she would give extra points to students sitting in the front row in front of the class. This method does have some effect.
Stills from "When I Fly to You".
He Qiulin from a college is happy to add points in this form. She is one of the few activists in the classroom. She always sits in the front row when she encounters water lessons that are recognized by her students, catching the teacher's gaze and actively interacting with them, even when she feels that the lessons are worthless.
The front seat urged her to listen to the class, and more importantly, it could raise her impression score. After class, she will actively ask questions to the teacher, not really to understand any knowledge points every time, but to "brush her face" in front of the teacher in exchange for high grades.
"Impression points are such things, even if the students are deliberate today, I don't think it hurts." Tian Peng understands this behavior. In his opinion, the advantages of students "brushing their faces" in front of the teacher outweigh the disadvantages, but "now they don't even want to manage the impression points".
Some of the students he has taught are still in constant contact after graduation. Today, there is no interaction between teachers and students in the classroom, and there is no separation between teachers and students. There was no movement in the course group except for the teacher's announcement. Often at the end of the course, the group is disbanded.
Stills from "The Day of Chasing the Light".
Alienation seeps into the minutiae. In the past, on the premise of paying remuneration and not squeezing students' time, Tian Peng once asked students to help edit textbooks and do project topics, and undergraduate and graduate students enthusiastically signed up. And now, he threw the same olive branch, and only one or two people were willing to reach out and take it.
It seems that teachers and students only maintain the relationship of "well water does not interfere with river water", and it is difficult to go further. Occasionally, Tian Peng would wonder: If an unfamiliar student asks the teacher to write a letter of recommendation to study abroad in the future, will the teacher agree? And how to write it?
Misalignment
However, the past education did not teach Xue Qing how to communicate with teachers. It seems that when the teacher goes to that station, he has his own authority. "It's not that he puts on a show, it's just that he naturally thinks he's very powerful." Xue Qing didn't dare to rush forward.
When you don't understand a small knowledge point in class, you need to consult the teacher, and she will make a draft first. She must have conceived the statement in advance, listed the questions one by one, and rehearsed them in her mind a few times in advance before she dared to take that step.
For some important issues, she prefers to contact teachers online. This way, she can go through the text in the chat box sentence by sentence, double-check that the expression is appropriate, and make sure it is correct before sending it. The Internet is like a protective mask that makes her feel more secure.
This mask is also used in the classroom. In an ideological and political course last semester, the teacher used online classes to ask questions, and students only need to use their mobile phones to speak and answer questions in the form of barrage, and they can get the usual points. The barrage emerged, and several interesting barrages popped up from time to time, making teachers and students laugh.
Stills from "Together Through the Window".
"(Online speaking students) will be more active, and those who dare not speak will also bubble up on the barrage, because they are not afraid of making mistakes on it." Xue Qing likes this kind of eclectic interactive scheme. However, how you interact is not the most important thing. "If it's a water class, I hope the teacher won't look for me, forget me, and don't interact with me." Xue Qing hopes that the classroom itself will change.
If you ask, between teachers and students, how should they have a good class? A dislocation can always be felt.
He Qiulin hopes that the school can upgrade its classrooms to provide more practical courses. For example, when she majored in digital media, her homework required filming and editing, and the teacher only lectured on theory in class. She had to pay out of her own pocket and spent more than 10,000 yuan to sign up for off-campus software training courses.
What she wants to acquire is not only to teach more practical skills, "including how to behave in society, or knowledge that can really be applied in life", skills on how to stand in society.
Stills from "Together Through the Window".
Ma Jie understands the practical psychology of students. He also thought about teaching students more practical content, but later found that the students' foundation was too weak, so they still had to go back and teach theory first. He believes that theory and practice complement each other. There are too many examples to prove that practice without theoretical guidance is blind.
Tian Peng once tried to teach with the thinking of a student. He knows that many students care about grade points in order to go on to higher education. For this reason, he brought a copy of the postgraduate examination questions of his major to class, and he received the highest head-up rate in the history of that course. The eyes of the students in the audience sparkled, but it didn't take him much time to sort out the past papers.
It was a pity for him that the students were extremely pragmatic. "A lot of knowledge may not be immediately and directly related to students, but in the rest of life, who knows what kind of inspiration and thinking it can bring?" He sees it as a loss.
Sometimes, Xue Qing also reflects on whether her definition of water lessons is accurate.
She knows that some of the courses are "not badly taught by the professors, it's just that we really don't pay attention." But in the whirlpool of meritocracy, "I will still choose this state in the end". She didn't dare bet.