A Few Ground Rules

It is easy to critique education but very difficult to actually solve anything. Part of the reason is that education is just hard. It is a lot harder than most people outside education realize. But I also think part of the reason is that while many of us want to improve education and have good intentions at heart, we are on different wavelengths. We have differing underlying assumptions that get in the way of our having constructive conversations.

To that end, I want to identify four major perspectives I have about higher education. I want to use this entry to build my most general "lens." I would like to think that the points listed below are such that a reasonable person, anywhere on the political spectrum, could give at least some buy-in.  This is not an  all-inclusive list. It is just a general outline of the "playing field" as I think we need to see it. 

• Let go of the “good old days.”

Stop lamenting how much better things used to be. 


I am as guilty of this as anyone else. I criticize students and talk about how things used to be much better. Students worked harder. Students knew more. Teaching was more satisfying!

However, I have doubt that these “good old days” existed as we remember them. If I am honest to myself, I have to admit that when I went to college I was the sort of student that these days make me wince. I would not want a class full of my 18 year old selves. I was not alone. There were a lot of smart kids at my school, but they did a lot of VERY dumb things.

I don't think that students are getting worse. They are just getting different; in the same way we were different than the generation that preceded us. And if that is the case, as teachers and administrators, it is up to us to understand how and adapt accordingly.

I am a writing teacher and one of my basic rules is: “You can't blame your audience for not understanding what you have written.” If your audience doesn't understand, it is up to you to find a way to communicate things more clearly. I feel the same thing applies here. It is easy to point fingers at the students and say: “We are doing everything right. The problem is with them.” Except maybe it is not.

This is not to say that there are some problematic differences. There are. I just mean that different does not have to mean worse. .

• The problems with higher education are EVERYONES fault.

Even if we get past blaming students, there is still a lot of finger-pointing going on.

For instance, we have the Right pointing out how the “liberal” academy is failing; how so much of what it has attempted has not worked. And to an extent they are right. A lot has not worked. Or it is not working relative to the price students pay. At the same time, we have Progressives criticizing cuts, claiming that things would work fine if we would only fully fund them. And to an extent, they may be right as well. Cuts have hurt. Cuts have prevented many students from getting ahead.

The reality is, everyone is partially correct. It has taken all of us to create a mess this big (including students when it comes right down to it).  I think we should all just accept the fact that, regardless of perspective or political leanings, some of our ideas are good and some not so good. I don't mean this as a critical judgment as much as a simple statement of fact.

Which leads to the next point...

• We need to be real.

Most Isms work better in theory than in reality. We can't be blinded by our own ideals.

This applies to everyone up and down the political spectrum. I am not saying we should give us our ideals. I am just saying, we can't be so tunnel-visioned that other ideas can't even be considered.

Similarly, as I noted in my first bullet, the world is changing and we are not going back. Too many of us adhere to perspectives that are more appropriate for a different world. We are not going to be go back to a 1950s curriculum. Similarly, considering current Federal debt levels, we are also not going to get complete educational funding. If you believe in the value of an old-fashioned education, good for you. Home-school your kids. If you want higher education to be free, good for you as well. Please solve our huge budget issues.

Problems must be solved in context! Theory is great, but there is this thing called reality, and in the end, reality will win out.

• Recognize that education supports the status quo, but “status quo” does not mean blind adherence.

While I think education can help individuals get ahead and can help social advancement and social equality –  education (at all levels) is also about preparing people to participate in our society. Students have to be indoctrinated into societal norms. They have to learn how to act and behave. And I agree with this.

However, there is good and bad indoctrination. I worked at an open admissions professional school and many of our students were wholly unprepared for academia or any sort of professional career. They were not ready at both the intellectual and emotional levels. They just needed to grow up. However, they were paying their tuition, so we tried to help them as we could.

But there were times I felt more like a bronco-buster than a teacher. I felt like the cowboy who rides wild horse trying to pacify them.

Sometimes the students may indeed have needed to be “broken.” (The student who never does his work isn't doing himself any good.) But there is breaking good and breaking bad. At times I wasn't sure which I was doing.

The breaking good is making the student aware of the world and their place in it. Giving them both practical skills and critical thinking skills that allow them to navigate and negotiate the world. To make then independent agents who can have a say in their own lives.

The breaking bad is indoctrinating students into the system. (Think Dead's Poets Society.) The students are again taught how to behave, but they are taught how to behave because that is how the system needs them to behave. They must be well-behaved cogs in the machine. They learn their place. And they learn their role in life. And that is that.

I worry that even with the best intentions, too often we end up programming students to be passive cogs rather than proactive individuals.

I am trying to sidestep here the question of “What is the purpose of higher education. I don't want to debate (at least right now) whether colleges should create citizens or employable persons. What I am trying to get at transcends these distinctions. Regardless of the ultimate purpose, all of us in higher ed are playing a part in perpetuating society – it is a de facto outcomes of schooling. The question is: are we creating cogs or independent beings? 

There is a common theme in all of the above points – critical reflection.

I find it ironic that a major focus of education is teaching students to be critical, reflective thinkers. Yet all of the items above are a call for educators to think more critically. What concerns me is that I suspect most people would read this entry and think: “Oh, this is not about me.” I think my point is actually, this is about all of us. And I include myself. I know my own critical thinking skills have improved over the years. For the longest time I thought I was a terrific critical thinker – only to discover how much I wasn't seeing; how many of the things I was certain about education were probably wrong. I think I have learned more in the last five years than I learned in my first 15 years in academia. I also think I realize I know less. (Cue the sound of one hand clapping.)