COLLEGE LEARNING AND TEACHING - STRUGGLING WITH IN THE TENSIONS

It is common in higher education for learning to become a mercenary ac tivity. 'Learning' is sought in order to obtain rewards that are taken to be external to the learning itself (e.g., grades, jobs, recognitio n, etc.). The diverse influences-institutional, political, economic, p ersonal, etc.-that push education in this direction are many and compl icated In this paper, we focus primarily on how college teachers, who are not satisfied with mercenary-like learning, can approach the chall enges of encouraging more personal and passionate learning among their students. Particularly, this paper focuses on a common situation whic h arises when students are invited to become move personally involved in their learning. The general structure of the situation is: (1) a ne w, perhaps even startling teacher intervention is introduced which is intended to initiate a change; (2) the students and teachers are not a ccustomed to the new practice and uncomfortable tensions arise; and (3 ) both teachers and students struggle to overcome the tensions. We arg ue that one of the major obstacles to successful change is a tendency to attempt to resolve the tensions that arise when interventions are t ried by finding some way to overcome the tension completely. This atte mpt to overcome tensions completely tends to reproduce the very proble ms it seeks to escape in the first place. Insights into this problem a re given, and some ways of approaching it more successfully are discus sed.