Paging Professor Grey

[Panther_Gunn]

This has nothing at all to do with gaming, comic books, collecting, art, or anything else that we normally talk about, but I thought it was an interesting article for those of us (not me, though) that are steeped in academia, and while reading it I immediately wondered what Benton would think on the subject.

http://mashable.com/2014/07/22/avoid-the-ivy-league/

Language notice:  there is a very, very small amount of adult language in the article, like exactly twice, but thought I should give a heads up just in case.

[Figure Fan]

Interesting read. I was saying some of this in 2009 just before I decided to leave school. I strongly dislike the fact that education has become more and more about finding a job instead of learning and growing as a person. Even state schools are suffering from this mentality, though it isn't as extreme as the schools mentioned in the article.

[stumpy]

That article said many things - too many to comment on, really. But, I agree with a good deal of it. It's true that the admissions system has developed into a a highly-specific sort of academic resume check list. It's true that many colleges emphasize research over teaching for the faculty. It's true that many young people go through that system and come out with a very entitled attitude about what is owed them - a kind of "Okay, I wrote the essays and passed the tests. Where's my $100k/year job?" mindset.

I thought one of the better insights in the article is that many of these students at elite schools have never failed at anything and that's not necessarily a good thing, especially when so much of the success has come after carefully following a fairly uniform formula for how to succeed. The mindset that there is a certain set of things that ensures success and doing things differently risks one's sole chance to have a good life is sad. And, frankly, it's a dangerous mindset to cultivate in people who are supposed to be leaders. It promotes aversion to risk, submission to authority (those who say what the "correct" things to do are), and it fails to incentivize the most important type of diversity, that of ideas.

But, the article vague in some of its conclusions. There isn't any way to keep some parents from pushing their kids and wanting them to go to the "very best" colleges, no matter how that term is defined. There is no way to completely remove parental income as an important factor in educational opportunities, even if that were a worthy goal.

And, of course, education as mind-broadening endeavor is a good thing. But, there is also a real problem with students choosing fields of study that do very little to prepare them for their responsibilities after college. That's particularly an issue when colleges (irresponsibly, IMO) encourage students to take on mountains of debt that they won't be able to pay down. Graduating with $80,000 of student loan debt is manageable for the job one is likely to get with an engineering degree, not so much for some other majors. Students should go to college looking to learn new ideas, but they also need to understand that, at some point, they need to develop a skill set that someone else is willing to pay them to apply.

I would say that the most effective way to address some of the issues the author mentions is to get the word out to parents that raising another generation of students obsessed with having the perfect high-school resume for admissions, getting into the most elite college, and getting the perfect job on graduation are not necessarily the ways to give their kids a happy life. In other words, the more likely route to improvement may be to convince parents (who should be wise enough to think about this) that they are doing a disservice to their kids in training them to be neurotic and perfection-obsessed, bent on checking off the boxes needed to earn the mythical key to a good life.

[BentonGrey]

PG, that's a very interesting article, and one with which I find myself agreeing.  In fact, I'm teaching at one of those small Christian liberal arts colleges he mentions, and my experience does indeed support his conclusions.  I have the freedom to push my students to real thought and reflection that someone at a more prestigious university may not.  We have some of the same problems, though, especially with our premed students.  I've had more than one biology major weeping in my office because the B+ they earned in my lit. class might keep them out of med school.  It's an unhealthy environment we've created, and no doubt about it. 

That being said, Stumpy also makes a lot of really excellent points, and the solution is not a simple one.  The truth is, this is not an institutional problem, it's a cultural one.  We've defined success, culturally, as wealth and a prestigious job.  Little cultural value is placed on satisfaction and happiness, really.  In fact, my brilliant, accomplished friends who have chosen non-standard careers, like musicians, teachers, and housewives, generally find themselves looked down upon for choosing happiness and fulfillment over careers that are traditionally valued.  When every emphasis is placed on that end result, the career, then small wonder that everything else merely becomes a means to that end.  Academia has lost sight of sweetness and light, but that loss has resulted from a culture that has forced its participants into a very narrow definition of worth.  The better qualities of life are entirely subsumed in ambition and wealth, and that's very destructive.  It's also incredibly resistant to change, as any forces that threaten the dominant culture are eventually co-opted and commercialized, thus becoming further props for the very culture they original criticized. 

As teachers, there's little we can do about the broader cultural problems, but we can insist on rigor and holding to the values of a liberal arts education.  Many students will be resistant and resentful, but in every class there are those who will get it.  They'll carry that understanding out into the world, and maybe in time we'll build up enough folks who see more in life than a scramble for what they can get out of it.  Then we might see things begin to change.

[oldmanwinters]

Interesting thread!  I've seen that article making the rounds on my social media networks, but it's fun to see it being discussed here as well.  I've always thought that teacher investment in students matters far more at the undergraduate level than big name scholars, big money campuses, and big personal egos. 

[daglob]

I used to work at a tech school, and far too may of the students were certain that upon graduation they would be offerd a position as the head of somebody's IT department. They also believed that they would magically be able to get up and to work on time and finish projects before the deadline (which they insisted they could do if it really mattered, which it didn't for school).

[BentonGrey]

Yep, I've known those kids.

[thalaw2]

I used to work at a tech school, and far too may of the students were certain that upon graduation they would be offerd a position as the head of somebody's IT department. They also believed that they would magically be able to get up and to work on time and finish projects before the deadline (which they insisted they could do if it really mattered, which it didn't for school).

Yep, I've known those kids.

I taught groups of them for the last few years.  When I would ask what you want to do after graduation the typical answer from the males was "Boss" and we were at a vocational school and they could never manage to do any homework or even come to class on time., but of course the system pushed them through.  They paid for the diploma not the courses. 

I've changed jobs and next term I'll start teaching English literature in an IB program.  I would like to compare notes with Prof. Grey myself, but at the time I'm too busy to think of anything.  I just hope it'll be possible in the near future.

[stumpy]

When I would ask what you want to do after graduation the typical answer from the males was "Boss" and we were at a vocational school and they could never manage to do any homework or even come to class on time., but of course the system pushed them through. 

Students with that attitude are likely to have an unpleasant awakening if they actually believe 1) that they have shown themselves to be qualified for a supervisory position and 2) that people in those positions just laze about all day and order other people around*. The really sad thing is that they may not understand that there is a very satisfying sense of accomplishment in working hard, being useful, and getting things done. If they go out thinking that the only thing they will enjoy about working is getting their paychecks, they may be setting themselves up for a miserable time.

(* Of course, there are clueless and lazy Dilbert-style managers out there, too. But, for the most part, people get those positions because they are able to be productive, solve problems, and organize people.)

I will say, however, in the context of the linked article, that many students at these elite schools are actually hard workers. They are very competitive and some seem almost driven to prove that they are up to any task set before them.

[BentonGrey]

Yep, rude awakenings indeed.  It's attitudes like that which result in being stuck in dead-end jobs, desperately miserable.  Hopefully some of them will learn that lesson about fulfillment from accomplishment and be able to turn things around. 

[Panther_Gunn]

I know exactly how this is going to make me sound, but I'll continue anyway.   

Sadly, this sort of attitude of entitlement isn't such a recent occurrence, nor isolated to the school environment.  About halfway through my career in the military, I started to notice that we were getting new airmen coming in that fit into the "the world owes me a living" sort of mentality, and the normal scut-work that new airmen all have to do was beneath them somehow.  They weren't all like that (thankfully), and some grew out of it, but others were just perpetual problems.  That sad realization made me feel much, much older.


......what was I talking about?  Oh, yeah.....get offa my lawn!