Harpers

My first thoughts are: holy cow that was long. Towards the end, it was definitly loosing my attention. However, I do have to say it was much easier reading than previous things. However, I do have quite a bit to day about it. Starting with part I: As lite entertainment for bored college students. I though this was mildly funny, thinking of liberal education as lite entertainment. I think it greatly sums up his ideas though.

His first point that caught my attention was "I don't teach to amuse, to divert, or even, for that matter, to be merely interesting...I want some of them to say that they've been changed by the course." This sparked a thought that I've never given a second glance. I have long why teachers teach, even back in elemetary school. I remember being quite young and wondering why some teachers even wanted to teach because it seemed that they had no will to be there. However, I have never really thought about what teachers wish to get out of class.

The author beleives that americans are "devoted to consumption and entertainment" and they lack a passion to learn. I can relate this to myself, I feel that I am in college/school in general to gain a degree, but not because I actually want to learn.

There were many points about how most "students seem desperate to blend in, to look right" and that "this is a culture tensely committed to a laid-back norm." I would agree with this, it seems today that even those who wish to be indiviuals or unique emminate a perticular style. They are trying to be different from the norm by fitting in with an exisiting group, for example goths. They wish to be different by fitting into this preexisting group, thus trying to blend in.

Another point that resonated with me was "it's my generation of parents who sheltered these students, kept them away from the hard knocks of everyday life, making them cautious and over fragile, who demaded that their teachers, from grade school on, flatter them endlessly so that the kids are shocked if their college profs don't reflexively suck up to them." I can empathize with both sides of this. On one side, obviously I was raised by these "overprotective" parents. However, my parents never expected my teachers to coddle me, they expected me to earn my teacher's approval. This means that I see those students around me in class who are guinuely shocked when teacher's don't spoil them. Personally, I think these people need to grow up.

I think it was interesting that he said that universities are constantly upgrading and updating their schools to attract the "best" which he defines as the smartest and richest. Considering the examples were new dorms and gyms, and UNC has done both of these in the past year alone, it was interesting to contemplate if they were doing this just to attract the richer students.

Also, somthing else that I haven't thought much of was how the humanities majors are becoming increasingly less popular, therefore they are softening their grades and relaxing requirements in order to attract more students. This made me wonder if the less popular degrees really are "easier" to obtain. And does this really attract people to these majors?
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While the author makes a great number of other valuable and interesting points, we're going to skip on to II. As a weapon in the hands of the restless poor. Personally, I found this to be less relevent to me, and therefore less interesting... but it contained valid points none the less.

The author created a type of school in responce to a prisonor's belief that the "moral life of downtown" was the problem and that "no one could step out of the panicking circumstance of poverty directly into the public world." I think this is best explained by his speech given at the beginning of the class. This was "You've been cheated," I said. "Rich people learn the humanities; you didn't. The humanitites are a foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, for learning..." He went on to say how humanities will make you rich, but in terms of life, not money. Also, they paid the student's subway fare, took care of their kids, fed them, but in exchange, they would make them think harder than ever before.

A final thought on this reading was the very end, when it showed that the school worked fantastically. Most of the grads were in college, the rest working full time.



One of her points was about how catelogs and college websites use to have pictures of professors in classrooms and now they are all of students living without adults around and a resort life style. These are some pics from UNC's website.