College Audience

It was at the Cafe Intermezzo that my best and worst days happened for some 5 years of my life.  It was there that my worst sin was ever revealed to my college friends.  It was there that I learned to be "exclusive" to the point of stupidity.  It was there that I laughed, drank coffee and spent entirely too much money.  It was there that I learned to love the Wall Street Journal.  It was there that I was part of the learner, artsy, intelligencia, Prairie Home Companion crowd.  It was there that I asserted commentaries on all aspects of life of which I knew relatively nothing to anyone who would argue.  It was there that I discovered politics and discused economic theories that I only studied for one quarter.  It was the best of times. It was, seemingly, the least physically productive of times.  It was important times for my life journey.

Collegiates are a curious set of young adults (and sometimes lifetime students!).  The true college student will entertain any new learning at least for a time.  Degrees convey credibility.  Grades are relevant.  Deadlines are real. Teachers become professors and are infinitely more intelligent than Dad.  Discipline, at least in its minimum form, must exist.  Duty is found in completing the basics.  Choosing a direction is forced, at least, by the Junior year.  The college student either wants to learn so that he can eat or so that he can learn - either way, he is at college by his choice (even if it is a choice forced upon him by the economics of desiring continued support from mom and dad). 

At the same time, social life is monumental.  Parties abound even if they are simply with a small band of college friends.  No longer dreaming about the day of freedom from parents, the collegiate now has total freedom and usually falls into wreckless abandon of schedule and discipline, at least until the first bad grade.  Even the geeks gather for nights too late filled with video games.  In the midst of friends, intercampus ministries and groups, not to mention sports and concerts, the college student learns to manage social and work lives. 

The college student knows most certainly that there is still a home.  She isn't really grown up yet.  Laundry becomes an excuse to see those parents from which they once longed to be free.  Dad becomes smarter somewhere around the second year.  Mom is usually lifted to unrealistic heights for all she provided that the student must now provide.  Home base exists.  Financial bailout exists.  The college student is on their own with a safety net. Like a high wire walker with a tether and net, they learn without the worry of death.  There is a mentality about the college student.  It is a special time.

The College Audience is much the same.  They are at a critical time of learning and life.  They arrived at this point simply because of time.  They have grown spiritually through their teenage years and had to decide to go to work or college and they chose to learn first in college.  Don't miss that fact - they have chosen to learn more.  The college audience wants to learn, will test and try out most every theory and teacher, is looking for quality teaching and is learning the balance of Christian social life and Christian learning life.  They are "on campus", hanging out and came to move forward and grow.  They are not so critical of the prepared teacher and expect a safety net that does not demand that they entirely provide for themselves even though they will live as if they do. 

The wise teacher identifies this audience as people who really want to learn, who really haven't mastered any particular learning discipline, who have moved out of the "teenage years of Christianity", who are settling in for the long run, who are preparing to be successful in their spiritual life and who have chosen to do all of this primarily through learning.  They are willing, able and, most importantly, paying students.  There is "money" on the line - they have bought in and either expect their dollar's worth of education or know they need to succeed because they are accountable to learn truth. 

The teacher of the college audience can:

• Try out new theories and stretch the boundaries of their student by proposing ludicrous ideas as learning traps because the college student should learn to begin to apply wisdom, argue and critique.  Topics that might have proved too difficult and confusing to discuss with the teenage audience are now fair game because the college student can be engaged in discussion.
  
• Rejoice because the Socratic method of teaching/learning is back.  The teacher can ask questions and use the difficult process of answering to teach the student.
  
• Issue greater challenges that require more time because this student has placed themselves in a life situation where "college" comes first and they have made time for the learning process.
  
• (And should) show up at the coffee shop for a bit of free form discussion on the hotest topics of world news as it applies to Christianity.  The teaching should hold up outside the classroom and on the quad.
  
• Tell the students that they are wrong because the students came to learn and expect to be corrected by the teacher so that they will be able to give the right answer and apply the right truth in life and work.  There is no politics between the master teacher and the student.
  

The wise teacher will not thwart this bold, expressive living that talks more than it knows, lives bigger than it is and often finds itself overcommitted.   With great excitement, he will carry them to adulthood in a structured method so that they can find true independence.  He will not expect this audience to know everything about the "real world of work" but will accept them as heady, young learners.  The teacher of the college audience needs to remember that, without concrete schedules and goals, the beginning college audience will not show up prepared for class, if they show up at all.  Instead, many of them will fall into wreckless abandon to the social, gabbing, interactive part of the college audience - learning nothing but talking about everything.  The teacher of this willing, but seemingly independent crowd, needs to make sure that he prepares them toward a definite ending point for the On The Job training of real Christian living.  After all, they cannot stay in class forever.