I have worked in higher education for more than two decades as an administrator. That means I have attended many, many meeting, so many meetings. This also means I know the things people say in those meetings, particularly the things intended to end discussion. As an example, I remember discussing flexibility with nursing faculty and being told "sure, as long as you are satisfied with an 85% competent nurse..." See what I mean? Or another example is “we have to prepare them for how stressful the workplace really is…” Setting aside nursing discussions and misplaced perceptions of the workplace, one of the other common “conversation enders” in higher ed is the notion of "rigor." This often comes in the form of statements like "we have to maintain our rigor" or the even more insidious "we can't lower our standards." These are deceptively seductive statements, and all too often get treated as truisms without any real examination. But let's go deeper.
It's a cliche to start with dictionary definitions, but in this case it applies. Dictionary.com says rigor is defined as "strictness, severity, or harshness, as in dealing with people.” This feels spot on for the “conversation ender" version of the word I run into in meetings. So often, it seems the people I talk to equate being rigorous with being difficult. And by difficult they rarely mean intellectually challenging. They simply mean hard. Hard as in an overwhelming amount of work, or confusing directions, or even the infamous trick questions. Maybe it’s rooted in some protestant work ethic or something else similar, but it doesn't land home for me. In my observation, this faith in difficulty leads to a belief if everyone is succeeding in a course or program, rigor is lacking by definition. That can't be right.
I am an educator by training, so I know my Lev Vygotsky. For those of you less geeky about education than me, Vygotsky studied child development and learning, and is credited with an idea we call "the zone of proximal development." The idea is essentially the Goldilocks version of educational theory. People learn best when they are intellectually challenged, but not overwhelmed. The learning can’t be too challenging to even begin, or so basic as to make it boring, but just like Goldilocks' porridge, the learning is "just right." That is the zone of proximal development, and I wonder how it relates to our current misuse of rigor. My interpretation of Vygotsky is we should design learning so as many people as possible can succeed. This does not align with how I see rigor interpreted. My observation is rigor is typically defined as coursework being “hard” enough that some people will fail, and it is often accompanied by sentiments such as "those that made it, know they really earned it." Rigor all too often equates to hoop jumping.
At this point you may be wondering what the problem is, particularly if you find hard work to be valuable in and of itself. But even if you do, I think there are problems. What makes a class "hard work?" All too often, it boils down to the amount and type of work assigned. I think back to my undergrad days and remember being warned about which classes were loaded with reading etc. Far less often did you get warnings about content being difficult. And this is where “rigor” starts to intersect with poverty and with resources. If we raise the “rigor” of a course by piling on work to make it "harder", we start to erode the most precious resource of time. Our students in the crisis of poverty do not have the amount of time available many other students do. College is built on a model of being the sole focus of the full-time student, and it hasn't been that for a long, long time. But we still privilege those with time and resources by making the amount of work synonymous with the rigor of a course and making things complicated rather than mentally challenging, because those are not always the same thing. Think about online course shells looking different in each class a student takes. What learning occurs there, or does it just eat up time due to confusion? As we all become more equity-minded, it is worth shifting our focus from "rigor" to "learning." How do we create the conditions for students to engage in learning within the zone of proximal development?
So, I'm asking you to let the statements which used to end meetings become the beginning of conversations. Challenge conventional wisdom and say "let’s think deeper please.” Ask “what are we trying to do here?” Are we creating extensive and confusing work so that some students will complete and “succeed” and others won’t and “fail”, or are we trying to design learning in a way that opens the door for all. We know our current structures and practices don't serve students in poverty (and other excluded groups) very well, so it would seem logical we need to do things differently. One thing we could do immediately is revisit this idea of rigor and see if it is serving us as intended. Is success only valuable if someone else fails to achieve it? Do we define rigor as being intellectually challenging in an environment where students can succeed, or do we define rigor as simply meaning a course or program is too time intensive or confusing for certain people. If we decide it’s the latter, we know who those certain people who fail are all too often. I know what I believe, and I hope you will join me in letting the clichés that often end our meetings become the beginning of working towards real change.
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