Write This Down! These words leapt from the pages of Scripture this morning, echoing one of the discussion themes from yesterday’s dialogue group among faculty. As Cathy described a classroom experience where a student maintained crossed arms and a blank stare throughout her presentation, never once attempting to take any notes on information they would need to be successful in the course, I experienced a You, Too? moment. That very morning in a nutrition class, only a handful of students even made the effort to retrieve paper and pen as I covered material for a quiz. As content about food-borne illnesses spewed from my lips, a portion of my mind is thinking, “Why aren’t they Writing This Down?” And unless I actually speak the words, “Write This Down, it’s a quiz question!” it appears to me that many students are under the impression that they will learn the information through osmosis. 

Perhaps I’m just old school to think that taking notes with pen and paper is an effective system for learning. After all, the t-shirt I was wearing as I left campus yesterday was from homecoming 2001 which makes it older than most of my students; however, I’ve read the research that supports the importance of following the advice “Write This Down.” It’s proven so effective a method that if a student poses a question to me and they don’t witness me writing a note to myself, I recommend they email me about it to follow up. My memory is not to be trusted these days! Ask me Denise’s phone number from 1980, I’ll spill those digits with no effort, but ask me why I walked into the room, I’ll be the one with crossed arms and a blank stare!

As I struggle to discern the best approach to guiding these Emerging Adults into cultivating essential life skills, like the Habits of a Flourishing Life, perhaps I should be sharing Revelation 21:5 in class, “Write This Down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true” (NLT) or even more appropriate from the Message translation, “Write it all down.” Recognizing that students do not have the same long-view perspective as their professors, how do we bridge the Generational Gap and impart to them the importance of taking notes, not just in a class to score well on a quiz, but as a foundational skill for life? Rarely do I leave any type of meeting without notes to jog my memory later. Even my smartphone is not intelligent enough to tell me what I need to know if I don’t make a note in it of what I need to know!

Wrestling with the dilemma of how to encourage students to Write This Down is not an issue I take lightly, although I may joke about it in order to laugh rather than cry, it is a serious concern that I raise as we engage in equipping students for future success. And although we did use Dr. Google to answer a Smurf question in our dialogue group yesterday, as educators we know that our colleagues, pastors, and mentors are preferred sources in learning what is “trustworthy and true.” Whether students believe it or not, we are not trying to fill their heads with useless knowledge. Just the other day I was able to recall facts from my Arts in Western Civ class from the early 90s to answer a crossword puzzle clue, and you know why? Because I took notes, I obeyed the mantra to Write This Down and now that knowledge is coming in handy. I feel smart and successful when I’m able to solve the entire puzzle without any hints, and I desire for my students to experience this confidence as well.

Now that I’ve vented that struggle, please help me arrive at a solution. What strategies do you think will be effective in encouraging Emerging Adults to consider the importance of using pen and paper to Write This Down? Please share in the comments below.

Reference:

Collier, W. (2022, April 21). “Really Alive.” Our Daily Bread. Retrieved from https://odb.org/US/2022/04/21/really-alive