“Students don’t read for class.” I’ve heard that many times from my colleagues. The students at the university where I work also second that. “Well, we want to read everything but…[cue individualized excuse here].” The lack of reading archaeology course materials is lamented by both faculty and students; nevertheless, it is something we all must work with.
We [archaeology professors] keep assigning readings to students even though we know they don’t read it all anymore. Students keep neglecting to do them. It was this way when I was a student. It appears to still be a thing.
Despite the reality that students don’t do them, readings are assigned in archaeology classes for several key reasons:
- It is important to stay current on archaeological research and much of that is published in texts.
- Reading is a critical life skill, especially since folks these days read more than human beings ever have.
- Knowing how to read (e.g. interpret text, glean meaning, and synthesize the conveyed messages) is critical to almost every career that requires a college degree.
- There will be even more text to read with the proliferation of generative AI. Syntheses of text is still text, and generative AI is going to make more text than has ever existed in human history.
- Finally, reading is good exercise for your brain. Reading for enjoyment has the potential to combat many of the worst effects of constant scrolling and consuming electronic media. Reading gives your mind a workout while also giving it a rest.
Regarding college classrooms, doing the course readings is a rite of passage for archaeologists. I’m not going to bull$hit you and tell you that all those thousands of pages of archaeology texts were worth it (they weren’t). But the act of reading for archaeologists has always been part of our craft. Learning how to read as an archaeologist really begins in college.
The importance of reading for cultural resource management archaeology cannot be understated, which is why the recent article in the Atlantic, “The elite college students who can’t read books” (Horowitch 2024) (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/) is particularly noisome. In this article, Rose Horowitch describes how undergraduate students at elite universities don’t read entire books anymore. Horowitch describes how college classrooms have adapted to the reality that incoming students do not read entire books because they don’t have to as high school students. Teaching these days emphasizes rapidly scanning snippets of texts to find the data that can be used to answer questions on standardized tests. This bleeds over into the college classroom. Courses that require students to read entire books find that students do not do this assignment.
Other scholars are revealing that, as a society, we don’t have the attention spans to effectively read for long periods of time. This is too bad for archaeology students who will be required to cover dozens of pages of text each week. Mix in the pressures of grade inflation, and you have college classrooms based on text skimming over reading whole books.
In my experience, I can say a large proportion of my students do not do the course readings each week. Both undergraduates and graduate students do not do the weekly readings, and they almost never read entire books anymore when I assign them. Before doing in-class discussion, I have to spend 10-15 minutes with them working in pairs to update those who did not read so we can have some sort of a discussion of course content.
Furthermore, both undergraduate and graduate students feel no shame about routinely coming to class without having done the readings. In the past students would have been embarrassed about coming to class unprepared. There would have been weak attempts to bull$hit through questions and feint that they were doing the readings. But today’s college students do not seem to have any adverse emotions about not having done their coursework. When I ask them a question, they just tell me, “I didn’t do the readings. I don’t know.” I guess this is honest and straightforward but it also tells me, “I don’t care about the tens of thousands of dollars I’m dropping on this education because I don’t think doing the readings is worth it.”
So, Horowitch is only partly correct. I think college students are fully capable of reading entire books and the readings every week. But they might not have practiced reading whole texts since elementary school, so they are out of practice. Also, nobody is holding them accountable. Since the other students in the class also don’t do the readings, there is a centripetal force pulling students away from doing the readings. Why read everything when nobody else is doing so? [Forget the fact that you are trying to get an education, which implies you are learning. Doing the readings in an archeology class is how you are learning about archaeology. Therefore, you not reading means you are not learning and you are not getting an education.]
What do we do about this?
I’ve long realized that: 1) reading is important to being an archaeologist, 2) archaeology requires a lot of reading, and 3) there is not enough time in the day to do all the reading an archaeologist should be doing. The key is to figure out how to speed things up. Cover more text in less time.
When I was an undergraduate, I was having trouble keeping up with the required readings until I came across the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Course. Wood was a teacher who promoted speed reading using a layered reading technique. I believe layered reading will greatly improve the reading speed for anyone who can concentrate and clear their thoughts while reading. As a grad student, I remember being able to read about 100-150 pages of an archaeology book each hour, while also taking notes. I’ve fallen out of practice but am still able to read most archaeology articles in about 15-20 minutes while also taking notes. When I was doing CRM, I used to read books and articles while simultaneously adding what I learned to CRM reports. So, I used to skim read and write at the same time.
Wood’s techniques have really helped me process a lot of text in a short amount of time. This is why I teach these techniques to students:
Layered and speed reading will help students chew through text but will not get them to read for enjoyment. However, I believe speed reading will reduce reading anxiety and has the potential to help people think about reading recreationally. It will also help archaeology students actually do the readings which will help classroom discussion and expand their knowledge of archaeology. Reading, either recreationally or for work, is a critical for almost every career and speed reading will greatly improve anyone’s reading skills.
Will AI help us out?
No. Currently, generative AI will not help students or archaeologists adequately acquire knowledge about archaeology. Most archaeology texts are not openly available online, which is important for generative AI to have anything to generate. Yes, you can synthesize an article with AI but it’s not going to give you the detail to demonstrate your command of that text. As seen in the Apple AI commercials, you can scam your way through a meeting with AI but you can’t gain the knowledge necessary to have a nuanced discussion of an archaeology topic, which is a hallmark of being a professional archaeologist. AI is also not going to generate anything other than a basic summary of the content it can find on the internet, which does not help you differentiate yourself from other students. It just shows you’re more willing to let a computer think for you rather than learning how to think for yourself and defend your thoughts. AI can’t answer the questions from a CRM client or archaeology professor for you in the moment so you’re still going to look deficient as you scramble to defend your thoughts when asked a direct question about the content.
I am not saying students should not use AI in the classroom. Nor am I saying AI can’t help. High school students are clearly using generative AI on school assignments and they’re not only using it to cheat on assignments (https://digitalthriving.gse.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Teen-and-Young-Adult-Perspectives-on-Generative-AI.pdf). I also think today’s students need to learn how to use AI effectively. Using AI doesn’t mean students don’t think anymore. I think it means they are simply exploring a new medium that didn’t exist until recently and will become an increasingly important part of the workplace.
All of this has happened before. I recall my math teacher telling me, “You won’t always be carrying a calculator around in your pocket.” Well, now I have a scientific calculator on my smartphone. I also have access to videos that show me how to solve all sorts of equations. But that doesn’t mean I no longer need to think. Like archaeology, math is conditional. Math equations are designed to answer specific questions, but the human still needs to know what equation to use and when to use it. The same goes for archaeological methods. Not every method is suitable for addressing every research question. And archaeologists still have to write up a report of what they did and what they discovered. Boilerplate and AI will only help you do part of the job. The archaeologist has to take it the rest of the way.
Archeologists read for a living
I understand how and why archaeology students would not do all the readings for a given course. Life is precarious for most students. Also, they have more classes than just my archaeology class. Studying, work, and play take up a lot of time. I get it which is why I recommend students start practicing layered reading. Employing a layered reading approach to archaeology course materials will help each student cover more text than they were previously. It is also a critical skill for CRM archaeologists who need to read and write at the same time. Finally, layered reading plays to what today’s students have already been doing—skimming snippets of text to answer questions. It is also very suitable for folks with short attention spans; however, the ability to concentrate on texts will improve for those who practice layered reading.
Currently, archaeology students are not doing their course readings because they do not know how to read for college. It is also likely that cultural resource management archaeologists are not reading enough of the texts they are sourcing for their boilerplate. This opens their resulting work to scrutiny and does not help their knowledge grow. In the past, students and archaeologists may have had the time necessary to read everything they needed to demonstrate proficiency. Now there is more text to read than ever before. I feel like we all need to discover new ways to stay in the know in this world where there is more and more to know. Giving up on reading is not a viable option.
I’d like to hear from you. Write a comment below or reach out to me if you have anything to say.
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