What Students Like

The students, indeed, were happy; all students are when they are being given the facts, any facts, which they may later recite singly or in combinations on examinations.  Unfortunately, it is often that class which concentrates on data, regardless of how extensive it may be, which the student feels “he got most out of.” Bright students  are keenly aware that when a professor opens a lecture with a statement like, “Lear has often been accounted Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, but without some knowledge of the Elizabethan Playhouse its triumph remains obscure,” they are being told the answer to an examination question which reads: “How is some knowledge of the Elizabethan Playhouse necessary to an understanding of Shakespeare’sLear?” Intelligent students suffer from this abuse more than others because they are not only responsive but singularly adept at memory games. They are, however, capable of a much more demanding and exciting kind of education.

The Darkling Plane of Poetry by Frank Nelick