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Monday, April 23, 2012

The Decline of the Humanities





Hat tip PJ Media

Since I began teaching college in 1995, I have seen first-hand all the horror stories I was told during my government career about what is happening in our universities. Education has taken a back seat to indoctrination. It is hardly surprising that most of this takes place within the humanities and social sciences though one enterprising math teacher at California State University at Northridge by the name of David Klein has managed to work Israel-bashing  into his math classes. And it is not just in the United States, but also in Canada as Janice Fiamengo writes in this article in PJ Media.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/can-the-humanities-be-saved/

Of course, my field is teaching English to non-English speakers, but when I was teaching at Northern Virginia Community College, I also taught drug education for a couple of terms to American students. Grammar, punctuation and spelling were part of the overall grade. It was amazing to see the term papers some of them turned in. You would have thought they were written by my ESL students. How sad. This is an example, however, of how something has to give when you are so busy making students feel good about themselves at the expense of providing real knowledge.

Of course, the operative question to ask a professor as he or she is telling you not to believe what your parents, your pastor, the media, or your government is telling you is why you should believe what our professors are telling you? That is guaranteed to get you an A, right?

Right?

7 comments:

Miggie said...

That was one of the most depressing and true articles you have posted.

The damage the liberals have done to this country is incalcalcuable. Vote for Obama and the meltdown will be accelerated.

Anonymous said...

"This is an example, however, of how something has to give when you are so busy making students feel good about themselves at the expense of providing real knowledge."

It's called "social promotion" and while it would be nice to hold kids back who are functionally illiterate, you will never see that kind of support from administration. Ultimately, high schools are trying to get their graduation numbers up - whether the kids actually SHOULD be graduating or not.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

Good point all.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

Good points all.

By the way, Blogger is now losing the entire content of the first post, when a commenter logs in.

If your comment is longer than three words, be forewarned, and copy.

Findalis said...

I find it amazing that in all Universities in the US they have remedial Math and English classes. I have always felt that if you cannot do the work, you are not ready for college.

One can learn to write correctly and understand Mathematics. My own children never needed these remedial classes when they attended University.

Squid said...

It is sad but true that the "humanities" in local and state universities now host far-left or even Marxists to teach their craft. This type of education comes down to indoctrination, which is the documented aim of the Progressives and Marxist professors. Fortunately, many aware students steer their friends and unsuspecting students away from these zealots.

Another statistic came out the other day on Fox News, revealing that humanities graduates are having a very difficult time finding employment. If you go to the university to learn "hard science" you have no problem in securing employment.

Sad!

Squid

Gary Fouse said...

SQUID,

FOR YEARS, THE BUSINESS WORLD HAS BEEN TELLING THE UNIVERSITIES THAT THEY ARE SENDING THEM KIDS WHO ARE UNPREPARED. IT HAS ONLY GOTTEN WORSE.