Is listening to a book ‘cheating?’

[Igel]

7. Exactly. It's a badly worded question.

I have students who listen to their readings in class. They can't decode. But the goal is to get them to pass a test over the content of the book--generalities, like who did what to whom? What's the characterization of the hero, who's the antagonist. They don't read the book at home, and they get what they need to pass the test.

They rather like it, because they don't really have to focus much.

Some have problems because when they listen and pass over the text they don't go back. It's hard to find the right section, it takes time, it's more awkward. So they don't. Or they listen with half an ear and get it muddled, and to unmuddle it they rely on the teacher, word of mouth, or they guess. Too hard to find the key portions on tape so resolve their own confusion.

This is called "student centered" but notice that the students wind up unable to be in charge of their learning, to figure out what they did wrong and fix it. It does improve test grades, and since that's what passes for real learning for many educationists and even professors, hey. It works. Principals like it.

But when they get to a science class, all that excellent reading they think they've done is useless. "The temperature of the 100 C seawater gradually decreases 50 C. This takes 25 minutes." Then find the rate of heat loss, etc., etc. And they quickly read through and have no idea what any details are. They don't reread, because they're not used to it. They get it wrong because they can't perform close reading of a non-fiction text. And, in fact, when it comes to research later in the year they struggle, because they need to find examples and justify their interpretations. But all they've done is listen for the gist, for the big picture, and then they're asked to look at the nitty-gritty details and can't.

They conclude they're just bad a science, because they're grade-A readers (literally), even if they really haven't read much. They're cheated.

It's even worse when they run into some other kinds of readings. Something that's deeply satirical they completely miss. They need somebody to interpret it for them, to provide intonation and phrasing, because they don't catch the hints, the clues, that something's amiss.

It helps the poor students graduate; it cheats the poor students the most, though.