This is a piece I wrote for Fusion. It is a great magazine and well worth a read! Below is a transcript of this piece- Enjoy!
As I was teaching an online class recently, I sat in front of the screen watching six young people discuss the role of democracy in society. They were passionate and determined to try to find the answer. However, as I watched these young souls grapple with a profound question, I realised it was all for nought. Far from enlightening each other, confusion reigned.
This was because none of the participants in discussion had a firm grasp on the material. They were beginners in a complex topic, which they were not yet prepared to discuss. What they needed, instead of “debating”, was a mature understanding of the knowledge they had received only an hour beforehand. They needed more time to read and, more importantly, more time to work out what they thought.
Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. Lack of knowledge and conceptual understanding is a widespread problem in further and higher education. The rise of skills-based hiring has led institutions to see themselves first and foremost as trainers in the careers of their undergraduates. The movement towards transferable skills and away from knowledge accumulation represents a genuine shift in what a university is supposed to be for.
That new understanding is not only a problem in itself. It’s at odds with the increasing emphasis on “debate”, “civil discourse”, and other kinds of disagreement. These ostensibly ‘higher-level’ skills are worthless if the discussants do not truly grasp the underlying claims. Debating a subject before knowing it can lead to profound misunderstanding rather than enlightenment. The danger in prioritising skills is that it leads to a misalignment of expertise, where graduates, learn (at best) to write catchy posts and surface-level arguments, but cannot articulate what they really believe in. Skills without knowledge produces an empty vessel not worth the paper the degree is printed on.
We should not pretend that this is merely a problem within higher education or in Britain, where I live and teach. The fixation on aesthetics over substance in our public lives has bled into the academy and slowly transformed it. Debate over the right to speak on campus promoted the idea that quantity and variety of speech is a singular asset. Rather than focusing on the right to speak, we should have been focused more clearly on the quality of speech, which has been neglected.
Of course, students mimic the cultural attitudes of those around them, as do the faculty. So it is no surprise when debate surpasses careful study. My students are less interested in dissecting the finer points of Rousseau’s Social Contract than in having a half-hour discussion questioning whether he was a totalitarian. It’s not hard to understand why they prefer that to learning what Rousseau said, or even the history of the concept of totalitarianism. But it doesn’t offer them much benefit.
I admit that I have given in to pressure to please the student and guide them towards debates they are clearly not intellectually ready for. On the rare occasion that I interject with a question, I rarely hear a thought-provoking answer. More often, I hear nothing at all. Is this the kind of encounter that students are supposed to learn from?
In order to get more clarity about the role of “debate”, we need to think first about the purpose of education. Echoing John Stuart Mill, many liberals suggest the solution lies in a free marketplace of ideas. According to this logic, people can discuss competing ideas and, via free and open discussion, they will find the best answer.
Yet Mill did not offer this argument as a theory of education for children, or even university-age students. He was making a case about the extent of freedom for adults who were presumed to know something about what they were saying.
Mill also did not suggest that all opinions were equally worth hearing. Instead, he focused on unleashing the few who can spearhead progress. Mill’s defence of speech and thought was designed to sharpen people’s minds, creating a more honest and robust civic society. His point was not that we should listen to everyone. It was that we should not repress those who are worth listening to.
This model breaks down in the classroom, where students—by definition—know little about the material they encounter. I have seen too many polished performers spouting excellent rhetoric at the surface, only to have it fall apart when subjected to the slightest interrogation. It is not simply the student’s fault. Instead, they are victims of a wider pedagogical failure when thrown into the deep end without consideration for what they do and do not know.
When I have encouraged students to step back and engage in ‘close reading’, students themselves have formulated more valuable and critical questions. Close reading, the practice of examining each sentence line by line and evaluating its reasoning and connection to the broader claim, is a painstaking yet essential practice. This practice, when engaged with in the classroom, develops a stronger understanding of the author than a hundred ‘relatable’ but textually distant debates could ever do.
But in an era where reading amongst students is not only rare but increasingly considered a chore rather than a pleasure, this method is a difficult sell. Universities that focus on student satisfaction statistics will be unlikely to take the longer and harder route, even if it is better for students. Instead, reading lists are slimmed down and ‘modernised’ to include podcasts, YouTube videos, and shorter articles. Much like debates, which offer the froth without the substance, the wider intellectual undergirding of the university is creaking at the seams. These are not sincere efforts to uncover the truth or to honestly discuss very real differences. Instead, they are a competition in which the aim is to provide students with something they are satisfied with.
We should acknowledge, though, that universities remain constrained due to the funding models on which they rely. So-called ‘hobbyist’ research is actively being defunded and discarded. Instead of a wide array of universities designing their own unique courses, the future apparently lies in the centralisation of expertise at specific institutions.
In theory, this approach could work. Sharing models of expertise could provide institutions with new learning models as new technology emerges. At one of my former institutions, the library was connected to various other institutions in the region, providing students with access to additional resources. We could cultivate stronger relationships through multiple institutions, thereby bringing together pedagogical expertise, creating centres of excellence more immune to marketisation and competition. This would help institutions resist pressure from below to adopt a ‘friendlier’ curriculum and tutoring model. Not only can institutions group to create specialised centres of research-led teaching, but there could also be changes to the marking systems, delivery methods, and the form that teaching takes at higher education institutions.
The lessons of such experiments are likely to require big changes, though. Generative AI makes the essay system increasingly untenable, since AI detectors are not only unreliable but also expensive. Universities should acknowledge that grading as a hierarchical exercise has fundamentally failed.
There are some appealing alternatives. I am aware of one module at a UK institution that uses a consensus model of grading. The marking criteria are discussed in the first session and developed over the term. This exercise is repeated as the students and tutor use a system of mutual accountability. At the end of the semester, the tutor and the student review the criteria together and discuss what they felt they did well and what they could have done better.
Mirroring a performance review in a professional setting, as opposed to the traditional model of seminars and essay writing, such a model demands concrete performance throughout. It develops the students’ willingness to be held accountable outside of a hierarchical setting. It fosters an understanding of what university is really about by continually and honestly assessing what students bring to the table. Not only is the student held accountable for their performance throughout the semester, but this also prevents instructors from wasting their time poring through mountains of AI-generated content.
Universities should also consider alternative methods of assessment. At one of my old universities, there was a focus on quizzes to ensure the development of knowledge before we began discussing the scholar. The quizzes ensure informed discussion on key points of each text and generate an incentive for a depth and breadth of reading across the course. Multiple forms of assessment beyond an ‘end of term’ essay ensure that AI cannot hijack grading, as well as incentivising a deeper reading of the material. The quizzes delivered in the first ten minutes of the seminar ensured everyone read the week’s literature as the quizzes were worth 20% of the overall grade.
There has also been a shift in one module at a UK institution towards co-writing with faculty. This helps develop a genuine research component and gives students insight into what academics actually do. Rather than relying upon aggregated essays, seminars construct a space where thoughtful discussion a piece of shared work can take place when examining current research on the topic. This adoption allows students to make time and space for in-depth research, as opposed to the superficiality of debate.
Methods of assessment, therefore, need to be considered not merely in their own light but as having a knock-on effect on the classroom mentality. If universities alter their assessment practices, they will witness changes in behaviour within the classroom as students adapt to the environment for success. It is unlikely that we can replace grading with a qualitative assessment altogether. Byt we can re-imagine how we assess to cultivate a stronger appreciation for the subject.
Changes can also be made beyond grading and assessment. Too often, we accept silence or allow answers we know are ill-thought-out to pass us by. A new teaching pattern is being developed by one scholar at Cambridge, focusing on so-called ‘nasty questions’ rather than the usual polite chat. Using Wittgenstein’s philosophy, this scholar frequently challenges his students in small tutorials. Suppose students realise they will be interrogated in this fashion, sooner rather than later. In that case, they will conduct adequate preparation for the in-person examination and take time to think through their logic.
As an undergraduate, I attended a seminar in my second year that was run in this manner. The lecturer was sharp and did not allow you to bullshit your way through. Only careful and considered discussion was permitted. Initially, the fallout was significant—attendance dropped off, and my fellow students grumbled. Yet, by the end, we were left with a cohort where every seminar was a genuine pleasure to attend. That seminar also included a performance rating, worth 10% of the grade, which further incentivised attendance and participation. There is little reason in light of the move to further specialisation and decreasing competition that universities could not develop a ‘nasty questions’ model across the system more commonly.
At a larger scale than the seminar, we may look at Michael Sandel’s lectures at Harvard as an example of a more rewarding path of this form. Sandel’s lectures are legendary and well worth a watch for any educator. They do not follow a debate pattern, but rather an open Socratic dialogue built on unpacking arguments. Students are involved but not pitted against one another. Intellectual rigor is not lost, and students are encouraged to explore such questions using classical philosophical devices.
We may also consider the use of technology beyond the classroom. I have used a virtual lecture in an MA course to give additional space for a two-hour seminar. The virtual lecture, instead of being delivered an hour before the seminar, was produced and accessible a full five days beforehand. I made a deal with my students: I was happy to put more of my time into creating additional content if they were happy to come to class razor-sharp. The trade-off worked as my students produced fascinating and well-researched essays, which received high grades.
Relying on student contracts with tutors has led to an increase in cheating when implemented. However, when this is accompanied by changes to the assessment model and a profound shift in classroom standards, I have found that it has worked wonders for both the substance of discussions and the grades earned by my students. True, this was at the MA level, where students are already a little more invested than the average undergraduate. But they could be modified for the undergraduate level.
All these suggestions are already being implemented, albeit sporadically, by various institutions and modules. Nothing is stopping the growth of such delivery in lectures and seminars. Indeed, universities which are fighting for survival must realise innovative methods are necessary to ensure their survival. If we stand still, then like the dinosaurs, we will become extinct and deserve to be so. A commitment to free speech and “debate” may be well intentioned. But it won’t help address the real problems in higher education.