You Said, “Have Fun!”

I used to teach a capstone course for future middle school math teachers.  At this teaching level, it becomes important to have a broad taste of the development of mathematics through history.  But no one (least of all me!!) wants to sit through a 2-week ‘unit’ on math history!
So, I’d ask the students to write a paper on an interesting math topic or person of their choice.  With good guidance, some logistics, and some creative grading twists, this collection of shared papers usually achieved the desired purpose.
Needless to say, students always worried about ‘what I wanted’ for the papers.  How many pages?  What about references?  Would writing/spelling count?  All the typical ‘student’ questions.
I always suggested they find a topic they could get interested in (I gave lots of suggestions), and find a way to share it with their fellow students in a way they would find interesting and would want to read themselves. Creativity was allowed – even encouraged.   My favorite phrase was to try to ‘have fun with the paper’.  I regularly had some great submissions.
One semester, a student turned in a paper that was considerably short of the mark.  It was sloppy and felt thrown together.  She hadn’t gotten much from the paper, and it was clear her classmates wouldn’t either.
Sub-par submissions weren’t altogether unusual, as one might expect.  What was unusual was what happened next.
My written comments to the student, and the ‘grade’ she received reflected her lack of effort and/or ‘results’.  She was unhappy about this, and wanted to talk about it.  Ironically, she didn’t dispute her lackadaisical effort or learning.  Instead– I swear this is true – she said, “You just said to have fun with it.  You didn’t say it had to be good!”
It was one of the very few times in my career that I was literally speechless.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  I honestly don’t remember what I said to the student.   I suspect that, whatever it was, she didn’t get it.
But that’s the point:  she didn’t get it, in general.  It later dawned on me that her view of getting an education was about checking things off a to-do list as rapidly as possible.  It had nothing to do with expanding her knowledge/preparation or growing.  Indeed, it had little to do with learning at all.
I don’t necessarily blame this student.  I confess this view of education is prevalent in most college (and other!) students.  Ironically – and tragically – I saw this attitude the most in future teachers, which this young lady was!  What does this say about the kind of environment that will exist in those teachers’ classrooms?
Moreover, what does it say about the attitude that must have existed in so many of these students’ classrooms as they came through the system at all levels?
I said I don’t necessarily blame the student.  Moreover, I honestly do not blame the teachers either.  If there is ‘blame’ it should go the nebulous system at large – and to us!  The system has subtlety created a dynamic where ‘getting educated’ means ‘finishing courses’ and ‘getting the piece of paper’, and then we assume, or accept, that this corresponds to meaningful learning.
Another of the big tasks facing education today is not just pondering how to re-inject the goal of meaningful learning into the process.  It’s actually to awaken and become aware that this goal has already been lost in the shuffle!  We can’t do the former until we recognize the latter.