Ivy League miseducation (BBC - July 25, 2014) #Harlem Education News: Columbia University in the City of New York EXCERPT: In a lengthy article in the latest issue of the New Republic, former Yale associate professor (and Columbia graduate) William Deresiewicz says that the prestigious private colleges dotting the US, particularly in the Northeast, are creating a class of entitled zombies. The author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to Meaningful Life, writes: Our system of elite education manufactures young people who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what theyre doing but with no idea why theyre doing it. Ivy League colleges and their ilk, says Deresiewicz, have created an education-industrial complex that processes the children of privilege from cradle to diploma and beyond. Private and affluent public primary education, test-prep courses, enrichment programmes, volunteer service projects, international travel, music lessons, sports activities - all the high-cost building blocks of the perfect college application - put crushing pressure on the upper middle class and their offspring. . . . Visit any elite campus across our great nation, and you can thrill to the heart-warming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian and Latino businesspeople and professionals, he says. His solution is to democratise higher education, freeing it from the stranglehold of elite colleges and the crushing debt that such degrees often bring. High-quality public education, financed with public money, for the benefit of all: the exact commitment that drove the growth of public higher education in the postwar years, he writes. In the meantime, he says, parents should consider sending their kids to public universities or small religious or liberal arts colleges where they can be challenged by a more authentic diversity of experiences. . . . The website IvyGate solicited comments from current Columbia students and, needless to say, they werent particularly thrilled with the article. Deresiewicz does a fantastic job of ignoring the reason why security (not wealth, not fame, SECURITY) has displaced cultivating the mind as the number one takeaway Kids These Days want from college, Alison Herman says. The Great Recession ripped away the mental, and often material, safety net thats necessary to prioritise Learning to Think over, say, learning C++. College shouldnt be this way, Deresiewicz writes. Instead of four years of career training, it should be preparation for a thoughtful, well-examined life.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 17:19:28 +0000
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