A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education

[lifeofbai]

William Pannapacker, i.e. "Thomas H. Benton," has come out with another gem in The Chronicle:

"A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education, Part I"

Comments

[pauldeman2pt0]

Looking forward to Part II. I read Part I last night in the paper version of the Chronicle and also thought it was a gem.

[sensaes]

"Teaching becomes a distraction from the activities that are most highly rewarded."

Hence the rallying cry of moonlighting private research contractors in academia: Shiny, not whiny!

[inkmark]

The patterns of selection and resource allocation-and the rising costs of college education-are not driven by educational needs so much as they are the result of competition for the most enjoyable and least difficult four-year experience, culminating in a credential that is mostly a signifier of existing class positions.

This, pretty much.

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the next one. :)

[jkndrkn]

While there are some cited statements in this article, many of the paragraphs starting from "Here are some reasons" read like unsupported assertions to me.

Re:

[annieover]

Can you go into more detail on what you find to be unsupported?

[jkndrkn]

On re-reading the article, it seems that perhaps the entire article is summarizing points made in Arum and Roska, but the sentence "I have presented the issues affecting undergraduate learning as a list..." made it seem like the author was representing the "Here are some reasons" points as original statements. I'm guessing this is not the case. I'm just used to a more rigorous citation standard ^_^

Re:

[annieover]

Thanks. : )

[libwitch]

Dear gods, I can't agree with the first statement enough - the number of students I see coming through that can't even compose a sentence, much less a paragraph, is terrifying. Every time I hear an policy statement talk about the US having a k-16 system, I just...laugh at the absurdity of such a statement. There is such a gap between what high school and colleges demand, its crazy.

[lifeofbai]

*nods*

It's the same for math too. I teach recitation for a math class that many students take to fulfill gen ed requirements, and there are a number of students who have a very weak foundation in fundamentals. Most of them can understand the general concepts but have difficulty with the more basic stuff (like dealing with negative numbers, arithmetic, and elementary algebra, etc.).

[annieover]

Much of what Benton says here applies to the grade schools and the high schools. The teachers are public servants, and many interpret that to mean that the teachers need to make the students and the parents happy. I've seen many, many parents go to the principal's office because they don't like that the school is teaching a liberal agenda by covering evolution, union history, the Civil War, complex and challenging literature, and environmental issues. Many high schools and grade schools are also being hampered by the idea of education as a market with customer-students.