College Students Aren't All Illiterate

Creating a Culture of Literacy and Effort at Christian Liberal Arts Universities

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

In the last week it feels like everyone has been reading this article by

Hilarius Bookbinder

on college students these days. It’s an enlightening and alarming read. Here are some of his observations:

• “Most of our students are functionally illiterate”

• “They also lie about it”

• “Their writing skills are at the 8th-grade level”

• “Students are increasingly less capable and less willing to put in the effort [to study math]”

• “My average student missed two weeks of class”

• “Students routinely just vanish at some point during the semester”

• “They can’t sit in a seat for 50 minutes”

• “They want me to do their work for them”

• “[They] pretend… to type notes in their laptops”

• They are indifferent

• “They are absolutely addicted to their phones”

I encourage you to read the entire article. He concludes in the following grim, but perhaps realistic way:

We can’t expect them all to burn with the sacred fire we have for our disciplines, to see philosophy, psychology, math, physics, sociology or economics as the divine light of reason in a world of shadow. Our job is to kindle that flame, and we’re trying to get that spark to catch, but it is getting harder and harder and we don’t know what to do.

While I am very sympathetic to Bookbinder’s experience and concerns, my own experience has not been so hopeless. I teach at a medium-sized Christian liberal arts university, Oklahoma Baptist University. I certainly have taught some students who were indifferent to their education and addicted to their phones and who didn’t do the reading. I’ve caught my fair share of plagiarizers over the years. And I have seen a decline in readiness for college, especially since the COVID-19 epidemic. But on the whole, my experience has been more positive than Bookbinder’s. More of my students do the reading, attend class, show interest in their education, and recognize that it’s a bad thing to be addicted to their phones. Whereas Bookbinder can’t get his existentialism class (which sounds awesome by the way) to bring their books to class, my English majors always bring their books to class and are ready to participate. Even in my general education classes, students typically bring the text we’re discussing to class.

Now, perhaps this different experience is because I’m teaching at a private school rather than a public university. I’m certain that has something to do with it. But I think another reason is that we as an institution have a shared telos for education which we try to convey to students and which many students buy into: the end of education is wisdom that is used to glorify God and for the common good of your neighbor. And given that telos, the process of education becomes meaningful and the sacrifice required of education becomes worthwhile. I think Christian colleges and universities can become institutions that stand out and preserve the pursuit of wisdom by leaning into a strong telos that motivates education.