Part 2 of Education discusision
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Originally Posted by CorpMediaSux
Choices have to be made. What’s really important about the various sub-studies courses is they allow you to expand and specialize so that the things that are left out of the big survey are included. What’s the beef here?
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An American student should graduate from college with a foundation that highlights the commonalties of all Americans while recognizing the contributions of all the diverse perspectives, while promoting the best and the foundation of what makes America great. This means raising standards and demanding more from our students. At the same time I do not believe that college is for everyone. Trade schools and technical schools need to be expanded and reworked so they produce individuals ready for the market place in their chosen field. Everyone should have access to those trade/technical schools before they graduate from high school -- if they chose to go there.
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You don't use a quota system or some "equal weight" system. To keep courses from becoming too large you create sections based on time periods. Colonial American Lit. would be largely about the writings of a bunch of white guys. Early American Lit. would still be largely about a bunch of white guys, but it would include the writings of Frederick W. Douglass, Booker T. Washington.
There are dozens and dozens of African American, native American and women writers who wrote in colonial and early America. Why should they be excluded from this course you’ve proposed?
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As you said, choices have to be made. You choose the writers who influenced American history and those who influenced those who affected American history or American Literature. Joseph Campbell tells a story of how when he taught at Sara Lawrence he would give a required reading list to his students. Some time during the semester someone would eventually stand up and ask/complain that the required reading was too demanding. He would laugh and tell the student that they had their whole life to complete the required reading.
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Also Booker T. Washington is turn of the century so not sure why he’d be in “early America.”
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Yea, I noticed that after I posted it. I think you know where to put him.
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It would make American Lit. a much more demanding subject. I believe this should be the approach at the undergraduate level.
It IS the approach at the undergraduate level, it’s called choosing a major. If you want to specialize in the areas you’ve proposed then you become an English major. But there have to be courses for non-specialists so they can fulfill their humanities requirements.
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American Literature and American History should be a requirement for graduation -- an integrated American Literature, an integrated American History. A student should be told by their teachers what they need to learn. Students should not choose the basic requirements to fulfill some humanities requirement.
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And really in depth courses in early colonial literature are too advanced for students who are just getting out of highschool. You have to actually KNOW the history of the era in order to really delve into the literary offerings of people at the time.
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American students who graduate from high school should have a strong and deep knowledge and understanding of American history. Particularly of its founding. How many American students are required to read the Federalist Papers? They should be in required in High school.
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I might also add. You would have to greatly expand funding for humanities in higher education in order to afford all the specialists you’re planning to hire to teach the thousands upon thousands of students at any given university who need to fulfill their requirements by taking one of these specialized 101 courses you’re proposing. Currently, any number of professors can teach the early America historical survey. But if you have to offer a colonial America, early America, post civil war America history survey each semester you triple the number of professors you need to teach those classes. I LOVE the idea and, I might add, this is how its done in the Ivy League. Republicans, however, hate the idea as they continue to slash budgets for big state schools.
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Obviously not all Republicans hate the idea, since I am a Republican. Also I do not believe that this would require more money. What it would require is actually a lot harder -- a complete restructuring of the educational system and a raising of standards. Look at the endowments of all of the top ten -- most of them have enough money to pay for all of their own students tuition from the interest of those funds with enough left over to pay for the costs of running the school. The amount paid out for the administrations of nearly all our state schools should be cut.
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Sadly women and African-Americans also look at a white guy taking African America x or women's history with suspicion or as an oddity.
You are correct. Sometimes those classrooms aren’t so comfortable for white students. It’s not really comfortable being in the minority. Maybe it’s a good thing to take that experience and try and understand how minorities feel every day.
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R i g h t
all minorities feel oppressed
every day by evil white guys. Again, I am a human being. Until people identify themselves as a human being rather than a hyphenated race or ethnicity there will be problems between races and ethnicity's.
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But in my experience quite a few white students feel quite comfortable in those courses. Some are even more militant than my black students.
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White guilt does that.
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So the question is WHY do you feel uncomfortable?
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Ah ... when did I say I would feel uncomfortable? There you go again, projecting your own ideas about white guys on to me. Actually I would find it very interesting and I wished I had the time and money to do take such courses. Of course, I would probably make others in the class uncomfortable if and when they start making the extremist claims found in the literature of women's studies and African-American studies.
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The degree of sensitive needed and the scope of knowledge required would require the full Prof. to do some actual teaching rather than an assistant doing it for them.
Wow are you sure you’re not a liberal? Teaching assistants exist because our education system refuses to hire enough full professors to teach all the students in an undergrad institution.
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Remove the outdated tenure structure, replacing it with a review board that insures academic freedom, and require full professors to focus on teaching rather than the writing in academic journals. I understand the need for the science to focus on research and with that writing in academic journals, but the humanities and literature, not so much.
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Spoken like someone who’s never had to do it. I’m sorry but as a person being trained to be professor, I just really don’t have any patience for your flippant descriptions of the education process. You really have NO idea how difficult it is and the kinds of choices that have to be made. Seriosuly..you don’t.
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You may be right. Then again, I do not accept "I can't," "Its too hard," "That's impossible." A negative mindset is never able to accomplish anything. To do anything, you must believe it is possible first.
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No. That's on our education system. It is important for all Americans to learn the perspectives of all historical events. Since you are so keen on questioning the hidden agenda, reread your words in the above quote. Do you notice how you create a duality that is inherently based on race and the premise that white men are evil oppressors, even today?
Pay closer attention. I was talking about the different way whites and African Americans interpreted different moments in American history. The revolutionary period, great for white men, not so great for enslaved people. Civil War, exciting time for freed slaves, less exciting time for defeated southerners. Reconstruction, an era of white KKK terror, or an era of white vigilante justice. Both were very real perspectives and both should be part of a history course.
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What you just wrote was a better way of presenting your own perception of the different ways different people interpret different moments in American history. What you had written reflected a not so kind, inherently racist way whites interpret certain events in American history.
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How exactly should I talk about those periods in history. Only in terms of “liberation” of the revolutionary period, that’s not the whole story. Should we only talk about the south’s defeat? That’s not the whole story. Should we only talk about the KKK as heroes to white southerners? That’s not the whole story.
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I completely agree with you that the whole story needs to be taught. Which is why I believe the humanities, literature and history should be desegregated.
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PHEW! This is a good conversation. You don’t let up huh. You are of course totally wrong and look forward to your response.
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Yes, I am enjoying this one also.
I look forward to your response, even though
you are totally wrong.
Nothing like a short little response.
tashi deleks,
M