When they encounter a new idea, they try to enter into it, to attach them- selves to it, to establish a kind of intimacy with it. If, for instance, they are studying an essay by a philosopher, they try to get behind the philosopher's eyes, and think along with him, following his argument step by step. These women soon learn that this way of knowing is considered out of place in the academy. Their teachers give them few opportunities to practice connected knowing and little tutelage in developing it. The system as a whole is geared toward separate knowing, forcing most of us, to be fundamentally separate in our teaching as well as in our thinking.
Many students yearn for a more connected form of teaching.
They want to connect with the material, its origins and the teacher as a person. From the perspective of separate knowing, the relationship between teacher and student should have nothing to do with learning, but, from the perspective of connected knowing, it clearly does. Researchers have repeatedly found that for women, the most powerful learning experiences in college occur outside the classroom and in the context of informal encounters with faculty and advisors. The women want their advisors to be objective, too, but objectivity has a different meaning for them. So you can help a friend make a decision that's right for her, in her terms.