The Classroom Without Reason

National Association of Scholars ^ | April 27, 2009 | Douglas Campbell

[SLB]

This is long, but worth the read.

[maica]

Powerful, eloquent and very depressing.

[FlingWingFlyer]

That’s the problem with our colleges and universities these days. You are expected and, in some cases, required to think a certain way. That’s the way it is in most Communist countries. If you don’t go along with the agenda, you are an outcast. A freak. Someone who needs to be disposed of.

[ryan71]

I don’t think our universities will ever recover.

[bgill]

Where does such thinking in university students come from? The answer is that it comes from the university itself.

Perhaps to an extent. However, but this ingrained single-minded thinking comes from like-thinking parents who send their kids to school in that particular environment.

[Never on my watch]

Well worth the read.

Colleges and Universities are now (and have been) a cauldron of toxicity. Combine ignorant, celeb-worshiping Utopian kids with ivory tower self-important elitists and you create useful idiots willing to surrender our freedom.

[SLB]

Colleges and Universities are now (and have been) a cauldron of toxicity. Combine ignorant, celeb-worshiping Utopian kids with ivory tower self-important elitists and you create useful idiots willing to surrender our freedom.

You are right on target.

[Lucky Dog]

In by-gone years, a liberal arts education consisted of studying the trifecta: logic, grammar, and rhetoric (math was correctly considered a part of logic). To master these topics, one studies the works of the giants of philosophy who, quite literally, created and developed these topics.

Logic required one critically examine the premises of an argument with the strength of their connections to any posed conclusion... by its very nature the core of "critical thought."

Grammar was taught as not just the "rules" of constructing sentences, but as proper way of expressing concepts and thoughts. Without a command of language, the manipulation of abstract symbols (words) to arrive at correct conclusions is difficult, if not impossible.

Rhetoric was studied, both, as way creating emotionally (if, perhaps not logically) convincing arguments and the examination of and avoidance of being trapped into unduly accepting emotionally convincing arguments.

These are the topics and skills that still be at the core of education, not "indoctrination."

[ikka]

I don’t believe I could function in such an environment... the urge to just go “BAAA-BAAA” and bleat like a sheep at such people would be too strong.

[giobruno]

Ah, that was the university experience I recall quite vividly; it was a daily nuthouse of misplaced sentimentality, bad ideas, childishness, and race-class-gender, race-class-gender, race-class-gender. All those idiots running around pretending to be oppressed between beer bongs, basketball games, and 4 hour workdays. Sigh.

The author has is exactly right, especially the part about having to read the most odious and indefensible books to become a “better teacher.” Remember, a whole bunch of professors of education (or some equally specious degree)supposedly read those books thoroughly and then actually recommended them as essential texts to give to other teachers as a criteria for moving along the academic ladder.

[ikka]

Trifecta? Or trivium?

[RobRoy]

I’t applies teeth to what I say to young people: Of education, knowledge and wisdom, the least is education and the greatest is wisdom.

[OneWingedShark]

>It applies teeth to what I say to young people: Of education, knowledge and wisdom, the least is education and the greatest is wisdom.

Wow - I like that. It’d make a great tagline.

[70th Division]

This guy is one in a million. I got his back. WHAT? Teaching a kid to think? What a novel Idea.

[Landru]

>>Where does such thinking in university students come from? The answer is that it comes from the university itself.<<
"Perhaps to an extent. However, but this ingrained single-minded thinking comes from like-thinking parents who send their kids to school in that particular environment."

Yes, perhaps; but, I have to wonder if there's not more to the real story, here.
Consider this behavior: "The class was silent for a moment. The young woman began to sob and yell at me, 'You can’t say that to me!'".
The other examples cited all share a common thread, irrationality.

Anyone whose been around have to eventually ask: what're these types under the influence of?

Twisted reasoning wit the accompanying distorted response(s) are anything but normal; and, I for one believe what's at the core is a very simple explanation.

Being drugged up on something is #1, upbringing a close second.

[RobinOfKingston]

Large corporations prefer to use H-1B visas to hire foreign engineers and computer technicians. H-1B workers increased threefold during the Clinton administration, ...

Those are the first couple lines from the article just under this one on FR's index page, "How Young Engineers and our Economy are Betrayed."

What universities in this country have done is nothing short of criminal. Indoctrinate, rather than educate.

[Lucky Dog]

Trifecta? Or trivium?

@#%& spell checker!!! Why can't they come up with one that corrects a group of letters to what you meant to type.

Good catch... You are correct it is trivium. Unfortunately, my collegiate encounter with grammar did not correct my dyslexia nor dramatically improve my proofing skills.

[denydenydeny]

“Well Doug, you have to respect her feelings.”.....“A lot of us feel the same way she does,”

A university that teaches that "feelings" are just as relevant as facts teaches nothing.

[SLB]

Teaching a kid to think? What a novel Idea.

That is why we homeschooled.

[wombtotomb]

The very reason this administration wants cradle to grave education for free in them.....