Class Attendance: Something That Can Be Substituted
Before discussing this issue, ask yourself a question£»as a student, have you ever deliberately skipped a class? Or if you are a teacher, have you ever encountered any absentees from your classes? It seems a sure bet to me that ninety nine out of a hundred answers are yes. Since absence from classes is ubiquitous in colleges, first class ones such as Fudan University are of no exception, so much so that for some students, juniors and seniors in particular, the rate of class attendance of a whole semester is lower than 1/5, which makes imperative in any academy the discussion of the necessity of lecture attendance. As for my own part, classes are something that we can do without.
The major support for my opinion, as singled out by some interviewees during a campus survey, is that some teachers,knowledgeable profs as they may be, are indeed so poorly equipped with lecturing skills and that it is their monologues that are driving the most faithful students out of the classroom. The dry, droning sermons make the students present drowsy and stifled. A majority of them, in the cradlesong of the lecturer's murmurs, comfortably fall into a slumber while the others,though managing to stay awake during the preachment, are absent minded and daydreaming. It's now easy to come to an estimation that attending classes becomes a waste of time and energy, which otherwise can be utilized to bear good fruits by studying independently, as well as an inefficient way of learning.
Secondly, modern technology has expanded the boundaries of classroom to such larger extent that the abounding various sources of information may sometimes substitute the traditional classroom instruction. The CAI epitomizes this new trend of education, where students, who have outgrown the period of being fed by teachers, can handily go on with their own quest of knowledge instead of settling for the monologues of teachers.
Moreover, as it's often cited in other articles, "Real knowledge comes from practice." The time is long overdue for us college students to try our hands in the big society. However, increasing time of class-attendance amounts to decreasing time of social involvement. Confining to classrooms all day long,students are rendered dull and unsuited to the world lying in front of them after their graduation.
Obviously, some college professors are excellent and their classes lively and intriguing. On the whole, though, academic lectures are of little use and interest. So should we require class attendance? Of course not !
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