Finding a Holistic Approach to Students’ Academic and Social Well Being
This café will ask participants the following questions[1]:
• What opportunities for personal development can nurture a student’s holistic growth and well-being?
• What kind of connections to campus can best sustain a sense of belonging and well-being?
Students’ holistic growth and well-being are linked to several factors, which can be in three main categories: the right supervision in teaching, research, and development; financial stability, and participation in social activities. I would want to tackle the aspect of ‘right supervision’ since one can presume that financial stabilities and engagements in social activities are essential elements for students’ concentration and performance in the classrooms. Hence, going forward on having the right supervision towards the personal development of students’ holistic growth and well-being, I strongly believe that the right mentor-ships must be in place at all times with regard to proper guidelines. Moreover, as the world is changing so is the need to adopt best practices in teaching, research, and development. For instance, if a supervisor tells his/her student to do an experiment that requires him/her to ‘turn stones into bread’ or to do something in the class of a non-linear polynomial(NP) hard problem, it may look simple enough from an external viewpoint and quite an interesting topic worth laying hands on. An atheist would seek to prove that if Jesus Christ could turn stones into bread, then it is about time to debunk and even replicate such an experiment without resulting in prayers while awaiting God’s miracles. It is often the same way that the very early homo sapiens until the present man would normally think towards several vigorous attempts to successfully fly, build planes to fly into the sky height, develop rocket-propelled engines to travel into outer space, etc. A curious student regardless of the level of his/her intelligence might develop severe mental health issue and/or make a decision never to return under such supervision when he/she realize that this experiment is a wild goose chase, not accomplishable within a twinkle of an eye, if not an insane experiment undeserving a good name. It is noteworthy that nothing is exactly so wrong in achieving targets like the one just described, attempting a Guinness world record, or doing repetitive research towards achieving the best acceptable outcome. However, what is wrong is having an extreme view that an attempt by the most brilliant mind with failure to meet the desired outcome, in the end, should face severe penalties. For instance, on June 22, 1633, Galileo Galilee was placed under house arrest for his discovery that the Earth was not the immovable center of the universe[2]. His scientific discovery at that time was against the orthodox belief of the Roman Catholic church. Worse still is that such penalties often lead to the avoidance of future attempts to have anyone else, who knows the circumstance surrounding the challenge, take the task and resolve it. This is in order not to fall victim to imminent persecution in the face of failure, one which tends to be a waste of resources.
Secondly, a sense of connection to campus can be best sustained by asking the right questions and solving them via the 5-why technique: when, where, why, how and what can be done. To illustrate this, permit me to use a real-world situation from a University. There was a Professor Y in the Mechanical Engineering department that would come to class and tell his students jokingly — “In my class, A grade is for God, B is for me and C is for the best ones among you…If you have other courses more demanding than this please drop my course before it is too late”. Meanwhile, this fluid mechanics course was so mandatory that if any student failed, it would be an automatic repeat or ‘carry-over’ to the next year. The professor was doing this for years, with few students to teach and grade simply because many students feared to take his class as they take turns to get their ‘carry-overs’ while some of them got withdrawn out-rightly from the University.
Why did the best students fail his course?
He teaches the recommended syllabus in class for undergraduate students, made to look simple with the recommended textbook but in the final exam, no one can solve his questions.
How was the mistake found?
The fact was that many of his academic contemporaries assume he was doing the right thing so far he was so good at his most important job — publishing many research papers with them. In one particular class set, there was a brilliant student X who for the first time had a ‘B’ grade in this course. The following year, more students passed Professor Y's course with a ‘B’ grade. It made the Professor feel unhappy. He approached the head of the department and informed him that smart student X revealed his exam because he was the only one that could solve his questions. He made sure that student X and a few others got rusticated for three years.
When was this problem solved?
The rustication of the smart student X and the rest afterward (about five of them in all) that passed his exam and seemingly ended his “B grade is for me” popular joke got many to start asking the right questions. The University administration looked more closely at the previous exams that Professor Y had given the undergraduate students in his class and looked at the many brilliant students that have never passed this mandatory course with a ‘B’ grade. Many of them had D’s ( the alphabetic grading system was A, B, C, D, E, and F). The next step was to ask these rusticated students and others to come forward and testify — many of them were so scared to go ahead since they feared the consequences while some had moved on to do something else with their lives. After much investigation, the graph did not make sense. And, just before Y could be called to answer the query; he left the University to teach at another University in another country. Meanwhile, the impact already left on the lives of many young students was more profound. In most instances, puzzles like this one can never get solved as is the case of how to turn stones into bread.
What did the smart student X do to break the Professor’s record?
The smart student X had a Ph.D. lecturer that was his senior at Cambridge. X told him about the problems he was facing in Professor Y’s Mechanical class. X was someone that studies widely while going to the library and was always ahead in-class lectures because he stayed back over the holidays and long breaks. In the process of brainstorming while seeking the assistance of his senior to tackle this hydra-head course problem of Professor Y; they discovered that the questions that Professor Y gave them in his class were taken from an advanced level course for masters and doctoral students in Cambridge not meant for undergraduates. Interestingly, Professor Y was once a graduate thesis student at Cambridge. Of course, the long spell was broken in the sense that the root cause was identified. The Ph.D. lecturer at Cambridge helped undergraduate student X understand this advanced course well enough to pass and merit an ‘A’ grade. However, since ‘A’ was for God as Professor Y often jokes, he could only give a ‘B’ to X in order not to be told he mocked God. It may have been a hard decision for Professor Y to make. On the other hand, Student X was pleased that at least he made the ‘B’ as a record never broken before and that he had many of his sad classmates to congratulate him. The following year, other students approach student X to help them out, and since X was always happy to share his knowledge, he provided tutorials to assist them while doing so in good faith. Later on, this ‘do good to your neighbors’ would get him into big trouble with Professor Y.
Where did it end?
It is important to know that psychopaths often do what they know how to do best based on their previous bad experiences with a parent, a caregiver, a broken relationship, a teacher, and other connections, which have shaped them into who they are i.e. a mean person with the desire to inflict pains on their unknowing victims. Unfortunately, in most establishments, issues of abuse may not be detected on time until after many years when much damage could have been done. And, the worse part is that fallen victims given their age and level of maturity at that time, are not able to come out boldly and talk about the issues they face because of fear of being stigmatized and the aftermath backlashes from those who have always believed in the so-called ‘infallibility of the gods’.
The first way to solve this problem is to admit that it exists, and there are psychopaths among us like every other ailment with a name and when and where there are noticeable trends without equivocation call the concerned person to order and educate him/her. To cut a long story short, Y would go to another University in another country(South Africa). After a series of similar incidences, the program director at this department called him and told him “…please from our experience, you risk endangering your life and others, because here we do not teach our students to fail”. About this time, South Africa had just gotten out of Apartheid and there were still the vestiges of violence on campus and elsewhere. Anything that could precipitate hate was closely monitored and nipped in the bud early to ensure that peace exists within and around the academic community. Professor Y sent an apology letter back home to his previous University’s head of department, and students when all seems too close to rebuff.
Second, a balanced approach is always a good solution by ensuring that students understand the courses they take and are exposed to real-world applications with links to the many theories they are to learn as well as push them toward creative thinking. For instance, some Universities are dropping final examinations since they see it as not the best way to administer an IQ test. Steve Jobs(1955–2011), Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk were school dropouts due to various circumstances beyond them. These very people who may have attempted suicide due to a nervous breakdown from societal backlash at their time on campus, while enduring no more campus education with stony silence, overcome their pains and achieve unprecedented breakthroughs. Haplessly, we only get to hear their stories when they become world-famous. However, what about the many untold forever lost in history? Also, a student in academic research should merit a pass if he/she has published his/her work and then had his/her thesis defense reviewed by three externals from different Universities who are in a related field, and maybe one of such reviewers from an unrelated field might find some value in the research work. Recently, I was opportune to attend an entrepreneurship program in which a lady said while she was struggling to get her papers accepted by the reviewers, her practical lab discovery gained her unprecedented recognition. She would eventually quit her postdoc to face her fast-growing business. If a brilliant straight ‘As’ student fails unceremoniously, then pertinent questions should be asked. It should include looking at the records, and asking why he/she should have failed. Was something overlooked that should not have been? Who else might have been a victim of this decision? How far back has similar incidences been occurring and can they be rectified?
In conclusion, since creating awareness and diplomatic dialogue can help address many significant issues including the above questions and the real-world illustrations; I firmly believe retaliation does not help. To break the psychopathic cycle; we must seek a holistic approach through continuous education, reconciliation, and prevention of recurrence as well as trying to forgive if not forget.
References
[1] Ideal Cafe — Enhancing health and well-being at Concordia(2017). http://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/main/2017/11/23/idea-cafe-enhancing-health-and-wellbeing.html. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
[2] Galileo is convicted of heresy. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-accused-of-heresy.Retrieved April 2, 2019, from This Day in History, April 12.
Disclaimer: Sections of this article contain names, characters, places, events, and incidents that are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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