Student Anti-Intellectualism and the Dumbing Down of the University addresses a recurring theme. I'm getting close to wrapping this up and moving on to my next topic (school reform).
Trout cavases the college scene to find out that a lot of college students don't want to go to class or do class work. I'll give you a minute to collect yourself. Trout does finally touch on the reason, but not fully. More people are going to college (60% according to the article go on to some form of college), standards are lowered, profs inflate grades to get good reviews and tenure, and no one seems to want to learn.
I don't think it's anti-intellectualism. I think, once again, too many people are in college. Sure they might have the aptitude, but if the sole reason you're in college is to get an employment certificate, you will not care about intellectual pursuits and I can't blame you. It's not anti-intellectual, it's non-intellectual.
Well, folks who know me know I intend to put my kids through private school. The more seniors I meet, the more I'm convinced the public schools in my area (considered "good" because they're above national averages) would not prepare my boys for college. If we can get them in, I want them to go to Covenant Christian Academy. Fractions in kindergarten, Latin in third grade, rhetoric, Greek in ninth grade, and average SAT scores above 1,300. If we can't get in, they'll do what I did. Catholic school for 12 years. Trinity is a little better than the local public schools. Kids average about 70-100 points better on the SATs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. SATs are only one measurement and a limited one. You got a better way to evaluate schools?
1 comment:
This is pretty much what's happened in Korea. The competition to get into the top universities (Seoul National University is their Harvard) is extremely fierce with most parents willing to spend a bundle on extracirricular education. However, the Universities did not rise to the challenge and in 2002, 13% of the students accepted to Seoul National University opted to go elsewhere. I believe at the time that it did not even crack the top 50 universities in the world.
So, Korean education is focused entirely around getting a job and going to the right college is the best way to ensure that you have the connections to get the job you want. Not the education, the connections. In all fairness, these kids work their little asses off to get there (average of 12-16 hours of schoolwork per day, with another 10-16 hours on Saturday ... and when it's finals month it increases to about 18-20 hours per day).
Koreans, as a people, tend to be pretty extreme about things and education is no exception.
I can see the merits in a private education given your posts here and my own experience in public school and teaching in a private academy in Korea.
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