Friday, June 06, 2008
The tragedy of higher education
I have written about my late father on many occasions, including particularly his view that professionalism, in a professor, requires not just an actual open mind, but an apparently open mind. He told me once that the highest compliment he had ever received from a student came from a smart radical activist in the seventies who told him at the end of the semester that he had no idea what my father's political opinions were.
Old school, that. What happened? In the best essay about the transformation -- degradation is a better word -- of higher education in the last forty years you will read in this lifetime or the next, Alan Charles Kors explains.
8 Comments:
By 
antithaca, at
Fri Jun 06, 10:51:00 AM:
I have to say, every history professor I've encountered (at Cornell not Princeton) was excellent. I am pretty sure of one professor's "leanings" only because of the goofy hat he wears...even then, it's less about politics than humanitarianism (not pacifism) for him.
So, I get what Mr. Kors is saying. I've seen it. I just don't think it's as bad as the picture he paints would lend one to believe.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Jun 06, 12:16:00 PM:
When I was an undergrad, I had one such history teacher. A relatively young, pretty woman teaching American History 1865+, (a mandatory class) and a bona fide communist. The entire course focused on poor, miserable, immigrant workers exploited by heartless tycoons and East Coast capitalists, and lynchings, lynchings, and more lynchings of blacks.
Nothing about settling the West. Nothing about advancing technology. Nothing about World War I. A couple of days on World War II. A few days on the Cold War, focusing on American support for 'reactionary and oppressive' regimes in the 'so-called Third World.'
Everything was about poor exploited masses, the Great Depression, (portrayed as irrefutable evidence of the failure of capitalism) and American moral inferiority.
I remember quite clearly one of the days spent on WWII.
"American soldiers were responsible for more wartime atrocities than the Japanese."
She had a straight face and even voice. She was completely serious. I looked around. Everyone else was dutifully writing this blatant lie down. Poor kids thought they were receiving an education.
I slammed my notes, stood up, and walked out. I think I ended up with a C in that course.
University of Texas.
By 
, at
Fri Jun 06, 01:25:00 PM:
... it starts in elementary school now, which has become an education-free zone even in good towns.
The idea that you need a 'higher education' and have to spend good money (and lots of it) is troubling when you consider the garbage your kids have to parrot back to pathetic professors. The only academic freedom is held by the prof, not the student.
By randian, at
Fri Jun 06, 03:38:00 PM:
To fix this problem you've have to shut down the malign influence of the teacher's unions in primary education. I don't see it happening. City and county governments whine about them a lot, but they don't actually care how much they cost or how bad their performance because it's the taxpayer's burden, not theirs. If a taxpayer yanks their children from the public schools in disgust, so much the better for the education bureaucrats.
By , at
Fri Jun 06, 07:18:00 PM:
He's even better in front of a class room...he requires one to think- for one's self ( unlike the solipsisms Barry and Michelle are peddling ) ...delighted to see my advisor still firing on all cylinders and gratefull for this post- as I missed the WSJ today.Kors , regrettfully , is a rarity in "the grove".thanx
Penn,class of '72(another koolaid swamp)
By , at
Sat Jun 07, 10:56:00 AM:
I suspect that ones chosen field of study is driven in someways by their politics. The Education and English were very left. The Engineering and and to a lesser degree the other sciences were more right.
By Ray, at
Sun Jun 08, 05:07:00 PM:
I'm less bothered by the political agendas than the generalized lack of rigor I encountered in my humanities classes at Princeton, really.
It was exceptionally rare (almost unheard of) for a preceptor to challenge a student to defend a stance with data, or logic. Precepts turned into gigantic "I feel that" orgies, punctuated by long moments of silence when the preceptor brought up some piece of reading nobody had done.
It was hard to take my humanities classes seriously, for the most part.
By , at
Mon Jun 09, 12:11:00 PM:
I clicked through to your old post about your father and found this:
"The test of intellectual maturity in a given individual is whether he/she treats controversial problems in a detached, rational manner, or whether he/she approaches them in the emotional spirit of a moral crusade. A student of the latter type is likely to be less mature and more prone to accept uncritically the teachings that confirm his/her prejudices."
The last line is not just true in an academic setting. I struggle myself with a desire to believe what confirms my already held views and dismiss what doesn't. The ability and willingness to really hear what "the other side" is saying is a great virtue. Your father sounds like a remarkable man.
