The point is that this class appears to have absolutely no educational value. I think of it as kind of like the educational equivalent of really cheap beer: it’s really gross but you’ll drink it if it’s the only option because it satisfies your need for an alcoholic beverage, even though it’s just empty calories and has no nutritional value whatsoever.
In my sociology class, called Societal Problems: family and gender, we answer study questions about the readings and hand them in every Tuesday. Recently our professor handed back one of these prácticas, and as she did she started telling the class about the very original and interesting answer that I had to one of the questions, and then, as if I hadn’t slouched down in my chair enough, she told me to read my response out loud to the class (full of oh-so-guay Spanish students).
In my práctica I talked about how the culture that has been created by men and for men maintains an unattainable and contradictory fantasy of the “perfect woman.” This isn’t something I came up with myself – it’s a very basic part of domestic violence psychology. But when I finished reading it my professor said that she found it to be a unique and “curious” idea, that she thought it was different and strange – she didn’t seem to be able to get over how very “curious” it was and kept repeating the word curioso. I spent the rest of the class wondering whether or not I should be flattered. Later I told a friend about it and she immediately said, “Oh, did you analyze something?”
And she’s absolutely right. How curious indeed that I should make connections between what we’re reading in class and – oh, I don’t know – anything else. All the more curious that I have an opinion about what we’re studying. And that I chose to express it – that’s just downright loca. The more I understand what’s going on in my classes, the more I realize that I actually wasn’t missing as much as I thought. I think I was expecting that the frustratingly incoherent gobbledegook that I was trying so intently to decipher was some kind of elite-American-University-style analysis that was only exacerbating the already-exhausting language barrier.
Nope. Turns out the professor lectures, the students usually go to class and sometimes listen, and then they dutifully regurgitate the lectures in test or essay format. I felt incredibly elitist and arrogant when I found myself wondering if that even counts as a class. But it’s not that these students aren’t intelligent or capable of thoughtful analysis – it’s just that class is not where this creativity is expected to be engaged.
School is for learning concrete facts, formulas, data, etc. You learn what you need to know for your real-life job. None of this off-in-the-clouds reflective contemplation hosh-posh. Just like nobody drinks beer for its nutritional value, Spaniards don’t go to university to exercise their creative analysis.
