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This reminds me of the quote that I think is attributed to Socrates...
Quote:
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
If I am not mistaken, we have had this issue for some decades now where we fear that students are dumb because they don't recall who Martin Luther and his 95 thesis is and that it started the Protestant Reformation. A big reason is we expect students to learn world history in what, two school years? For US history, you can spend an entire semester on the Revolution into the Constitution, an entire semester on the Civil War, another one on WW1 and into WW2 and and one on the Cold War into modern era. This forgets the post Constitution era and Grant administration and into progressive era. For World history, we skip over a LOT of things that are boring and unimportant (say post Roman Empire until the First Crusades.)
If a student needs or wants to know the facts referenced in the article, there are many ways available of finding the information. I've successfully navigated nearly four decades of life without knowing how Socrates died or who fought in the Peloponnesian War. Shocking, I know.
I guess that stuff would matter if you're a contestant on Jeopardy. Otherwise, I really don't see what difference it makes.
Also, the good professor utterly fails to make the point he's trying to make that these kids are "know nothings." They know plenty, just not some obscure references that matter very little these days.
What defines "cultural literacy" today includes much more science than philosophy and literature. It contains as much social science, ie anthropology, psychology, and sociology, as it does history -- and that history doesn't just include a sanitized, mythical version of European and American history.
I think it's important to learn the classics because it trains your mind to think deeply in contexts that may be unfamiliar to you.
Plus, everybody should learn Shakespeare for the inspirational quality alone. There is no modern literature that can compare with it.
But ask them some basic questions about the civilization they will be inheriting, and be prepared for averted eyes and somewhat panicked looks. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War? Who taught Plato, and whom did Plato teach? How did Socrates die? Raise your hand if you have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Canterbury Tales? Paradise Lost? The Inferno?
Who was Saul of Tarsus? What were the 95 theses, who wrote them, and what was their effect? Why does the Magna Carta matter? How and where did Thomas Becket die? Who was Guy Fawkes, and why is there a day named after him? What did Lincoln say in his Second Inaugural? His first Inaugural? How about his third Inaugural? What are the Federalist Papers?
The article is BS. This is the same-old, same-old that every older generation spews. The professor must be a Boomer, about to retire, because I and my Gen-X friends never studied that stuff, so he's not from our generation, unless he chose to specialize in the "classics". News Flash, prof: the world has moved on from the Classics! Nowadays there's global commerce, global information, global conflicts (not centered exclusively on Europe and Japan, as in an earlier era), there's terrorism, advanced computer tech to manage all the above. And global cultural knowledge is needed to help make everything work: an understanding of diversity abroad as well as diversity at home. There's global climate change to deal with in the sciences, affecting global economics and global politics. We need people with a broad vision and a multi-disciplinary approach to problem-solving.
And you're complaining that kids don't really know what diversity is? Give them a break, they only just got out of highschool. If they get a good 4-year education, they should have a clue, as long as you don't require them to spend all their time learning about the Peloponnesian War, and reading Ovid or the Canterbury Tales.
I am in my mid 40s, a Gen Xer like you. While I agree with you to an extent, some of that stuff is not commonly taught. I agree that most people have not read the Iliad, Canterbury tales for example. However some of what the professor cited is basic Western civ material. The Peloponnesian war for example is almost always covered, as is Plato and Socrates. Everyone should know who Saul of Tarsus is, they should know what the 95 theses are, and how important the reformation was. Guy Fawkes?? basic British history here, same goes for Thomas Becket. British history is very linked to US history, Americans should not be ignorant of our British roots, they made us who we are. Lincoln?? The Federalist papers?? My gosh no self respecting American should not know at least something about those topics. Remember these are kids in college, not those who left school at 18 to work in a factory.
Now I agree with you that they also need to learn about modern computer technology, modern global politics and economics and of course the sciences. However every good education should have a social science component, our history and culture is just as important as the other areas of study you mentioned. I also do remember being taught most of those things in school, other than reading the Iliad or Paradise lost. I do remember studying the Canterbury tales however.
The question is, how do we change them in a rapid method? How do we change the ones that have already escaped high school?
Daily in my diary, I paste pictures, mostly from movies and books, that relate to something that I wrote down. So, for instance, there is a picture of Elvira as I start up 4 dance classes, 3 nights a week since it relates to Cassandra Peterson's life before she became Elvira.
I developed this practice from an acting class where our teacher had us do acting journals where we had to paste pictures in that related to our thoughts, but I may have taken it much further than it was intended.
Now, perhaps this approach was just in me waiting to be awaken or perhaps it worked as well as it did because I was in high school in the Carter Administration. Assuming that perhaps it didn't, might this be a way to bring students up to speed?
Yes, because reading Dante's Inferno will get me that six figure job.
If you go to law school and become a lawyer, you will read and analyze so much - under pressure - that it will make any other reading you've done in your life seem like peanuts.
If you go to law school and become a lawyer, you will read and analyze so much that it will make any other reading you've done in your life seem like peanuts.
It's all good preparation.
Part of my life has been about "Here's the textbook; be up on the subject in a week.".
Quote:
Originally Posted by danielj72
.......Now I agree with you that they also need to learn about modern computer technology, modern global politics and economics and of course the sciences. However every good education should have a social science component, our history and culture is just as important as the other areas of study you mentioned. I also do remember being taught most of those things in school, other than reading the Iliad or Paradise lost. I do remember studying the Canterbury tales however.
That was one part of my life once where they gave me the book on dBase III and I spend the first week learning the language and then the next two weeks preparing a program for them that was needed. Granted, since I was not a computer programmer but an engineering college graduate, there were things I was trying to do which had I been a CS major, I would have known I could not do. I did, however, deliver to them a working program.
Best example of my life of where what I read became part of my work? We were doing a table top missile exercise where it was us and a Soviet task group out there hunting for each other. I asked the question of whether or not we set some of our defense systems in automatic. The obvious answer is "YES! If he shoots a missile at us, we want our systems to take care of it.". I submitted the counter line of thought where say the Soviet commander can afford to waste a missile down an axis where he believes that we might be. Will we make enough "noise" when we start defending ourselves to confirm his suspicions? From there, I was directed to research that question.......and the rest of that is classified.
In the opening, the border patrol sends out a wide radar beam which is useless for targeting. The blockade runner, down in a canyon, picks up the radar bean on their detection gear and they believe they have been detected, so they bolt, revealing themselves to the border patrol which takes them out of the picture with an indirect shot.
Etc, etc, etc
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 03-09-2016 at 07:04 AM..
Even when I know the answer, I divert my eyes---I do not want anyone to call on me. That's just in reference to what he said in the article. Honestly, if he comes across in person as pompous as he does in this brief piece, would you want to interact with him?
So, if I ask him about areas that I am pretty well-versed in, like biology and/or the clinical sciences, I will expect him to know all of the answers to my questions, because to me much of the information is common knowledge.
If his students know all of the answers to the questions he asks, what is the point in having him as a teacher?
Same old complaints...
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