September 24, 2004
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Topic: Waiting for the watershed
Every person I meet, who I tell, “I just wrote a book about college,” immediately grows excited. On Sun., I’m grabbing dinner and a drink w/ one, possibly two professors, who I’ve never met, but who are interested in talking to me. Another friend of mine, who is a senior, just so happens to be taking a class about education reform. The professor she says, is discussing many of the ideas in my book, about how school serves to mold people to become functional cogs in the wheel of society. I’m hoping to meet that prof., to start attending that class (for free, while everyone else is paying $3,000) to contribute like i never did in a college class before, and hopefully to see if my book can be incorporated into the class.
I’m learning a bit more about this college. I met w/ a dean to discuss my idea for a 3-credit course to send students to do an outward bound south africa course. The first thing i noticed, was immediate skepticism, rather than any curiousity as to what the program was about. The dean’s primary concern was the academic reputation that the school must uphold when giving credit for a course. It revealed to me a rather inhumane approach to education, however, while education is the aim, it is evident that the universities job as a degree distributing institution is compromising the educational experience of students.
Students are made to jump through hoops in order to receive a degree. They must be a student for four years. For those four years, they must take a number of classes, which cuts into the ability of students to pursue non-academic experiences. For those four years, students must concern themselves with grades, with majors, with distributions. Students who want to go abroad for a semester are limited in where they can go by the university which has determined what programs have the reputation of being highly academic (although, the truth of what students go abroad for couldn’t be farther from what the university would like).
In the years to come, i hope to attack this problem on two fronts. First, on the high school level, I want to begin a campaign to have high school graduates take a gap year or two before college. I can’t see any strong arguments against such an experience by either high schools or colleges, it’s now just a matter of encouraging and promoting the experience.
The second way to confront the problem of higher education is to continue to do as I am now, exposing higher education for its true value, rather than its perceived value. To encourage students to take time off and think after college.
In the long run, any hopes to strengthen the collective education of this country, to ensure we have thinking citizens, to ensure we have thinking journalists, and thinking politicians, will require first, that we have thinking schools. If we can’t have schools question themselves and change, than war, poverty, dirty politics, cynicism, apathy, and other problems of today, will continue to be the problems of tomorrow.
Comments (5)
you think wu is helping me to become a cog in society? somehow i doubt that as i will graduate will much knowledge of things that have no place in the working world. the only thing that i have learned from uni are things about myself and how i overcome problems. i suppose that’s good, but i wouldn’t consider myself ‘marketable’ moreso than any other student… and i can’t see how i’m being trained to be a cog, when i could’ve become a physical laborer with much less effort and many more rewards (so far) which would also seem more appropriate for society.
I suppose the colleges want academic results so that they can more $$$$$$$$$$$$
The difference between a student in uni and “a student of life” (i define a student as life being someone who has access to learn all the information that a uni student can learn, without being attached to an institution), is that a student at uni is there for a degree. The reason you attend Wash U., is not solely for an education, but also for a degree that is recognized as meaning something in the working world. That is why I say, school is gearing you toward becoming just a part of society.
WU is interested with admitting students who they believe, in turn, will one day make a lot of money, to give back to the university. I’m not saying it’s their only or prime objective, however, as much as providing you with a certain education, they are stearing students to become a certain type of person after college.
There’s even a category in the US news and world reports, about avg. starting salary of college grads. That’s why they promote the career center and traditional jobs, instead of other opportunities like travel, freelancing, activism (again, i’m not saying they’re extreme, it’s just the way the school leans).
good luck…it does take the time to build the relationships but you can move the mountain in time…
I’m going to be attending a voluntary-simplicity/simple-living meeting next week, at which the speaker will be Gary Lamb, a Waldorf high school teacher who teaches an economics course on social responsibility. Anyway, I thought of you because he is developing a gap-year course. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say about the responsibilities that should be involved in education.