EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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Edith Kurzweil:
It seems to me that once more we're getting into the
discussion among the academics, and the students are falling between the
cracks. I wouldn't know where to locate Rutgers University, which has
a bit of everything. Certainly students know absolutely nothing about
some of our debates, but some of them don't get much of an education
as a result. When they're being led into liberal education in a state
university, we're trying to pull them up to an elite level, but we're edu–
cating students who are essentially undereducated when they come in.
They are not aware of the discussions that are taking place in what we
might call the higher realms. These take place among the professors.
What the students take away is something else. And simplification is
rampant, on both sides.
Jean Elshtain:
I taught for fifteen years at a non-elite school - a big
public institution, the University of Massachusetts. Students come in be–
wildered, seeking some kind of identity and then, in a sense, are pushed
into an identity by some faculty telling them how they are to be defined.
That's the word I hear when I go to different campuses, when I see en–
claves where students are bristling with suspicion of one another and are
being encouraged in this by at least some of the faculty some of the time.
And what suffers is their education. They come in with educational
deficits, and more stupidity is being promoted.
Edith Kurzweil:
Yes, I can testify to that. When I look at the tran–
scripts of some students about to graduate I see that they've had black
women's history, that their literature requirement was fulfilled by black
women's writing, and so on, and that they have not had a single course
in either European or American history.
Abigail ThernstrOln:
The kids come in knowing so little, and with AI
Shanker being here, I'm not going to give all the reasons. But it seems
to me that is the problem.
Edith Kurzweil:
Well, this is what we've come here to discuss. These
are the problems. Is there anything we can do about them? AI Shanker
has been writing about some of this in his column.
AI Shanker:
Since Abigail just mentioned one of the reasons, let me just
say that what happens in elementary and secondary schools is largely de–
termined by the standards set by higher education. Perhaps a good way
of looking at this is to go back to just after the turn of the century,
when some of the elite colleges approached Andrew Carnegie and told
