Twilight of an Idol?
In a recent piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Frank Donoghue asks, “Can the Humanities Survive the 21st Century?” His answer, as many in the humanities will unfortunately not be surprised to hear, is pretty pessimistic. He tells a gloomy story of the disproportionate funding for, especially public, universities coming from corporate investments in scientific research and development, and this, coupled with the practical demands of students and parents for market-driven vocational training, has significantly disincentivized humanities education. These major factors, perhaps with a few others, Donoghue argues, have led to the steady decrease over the last 100 years in administrative support and student demand for humanities programs, which has resulted in the increased marginalization of the humanities in general. However, Donoghue’s final prediction was the most interesting and reminded me of another rather pessimistic prophet. Donoghue writes:
So, will the humanities survive the 21st century? My guess may surprise you, in light of the trends I’ve just rehearsed: Yes.
Intelligent popular novels continue to be written; the nonfiction of humanists who defy disciplinary affiliation (Thomas Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell, and Garry Wills, among others) will still make best-seller lists; and brilliant independent films (like Slumdog Millionaire) will occasionally capture large popular audiences.
The survival of the humanities in academe, however, is a different story. The humanities will have a home somewhere in 2110, but it won’t be in universities. We need at least to entertain the possibility that the humanities don’t need academic institutions to survive, but actually do quite well on their own.
The thesis that the humanities will become increasingly privatized seems to parallel the “secularization thesis,” which has recently been criticially reconsidered by scholars of all stripes. The “secularization thesis” predicted that as enlightened rationality spread, religion would retreat from public life into the private world of individual belief kept alive in local communities that would perhaps fund particular moral convictions, but would no longer, for example, form the foundation for universal ethical principles or political systems.
There was, however, a more radical secularist. Friedrich Nietzsche thought that overcoming “God” meant overcoming the very idea of “humanity.” On his view, normativity itself was predicated on at least the necessary fiction of a moral lawgiver, and in order to truly dispense with the ghost of a dead God, we must live a life beyond good and evil. Aside from ethics, though, all the human sciences ought to be called into question after the death of God, since the very idea of the “human” has long been defined in relation to the divine. No doubt his famous quote from The Twilight of the Idols, “I am afraid we cannot get rid of God because we still believe in grammar,” has caused not a few English teachers to think twice before leaving religion (or grammar) behind.
In light of the fact that significant theological commitments were woven into not only the founding of universities in Medieval Europe, but also the establishment of many modern, American universities, which were started to train preachers, Nietzsche would certainly not have been surprised to see the power of the humanities wane as theology faculties withered. So, if Donoghue is right, are we merely seeing the market-driven decline of the humanities, or are we witnessing the twilight of an Idol?
“The humanities will have a home somewhere in 2110, but it won’t be in universities. We need at least to entertain the possibility that the humanities don’t need academic institutions to survive, but actually do quite well on their own.”
This doesn’t strike me as “privatization” of the humanities so much as “popularization.”
I know a lot of academics don’t like popularization because they claim it dumbs down or distorts Great Literature (rent “Clash of the Titans,” a truly dreadful remake of a truly dreadful original if you want to see that in action).
But I’ve always felt that humanities academics could help save their own disciplines better if they took a more popular approach. Maybe this has changed a lot since I was in school years ago, but the attitude then was, “This is Great Literature. Are you good enough to read it?” One of the reasons I’m not an academic is because I think the attitude needs to be more, “This is Great Literature. It was written for you. Let me help you understand it.”
Hate to say it, but “The Simpsons” makes frequent references to history, art, music, and literature, and has long been the wedge I use to get my kid interested in these things. He read “Beowulf” after Moe the Bartender, in some medieval themed episode, looked at Marge’s horrid sister Patti and said, “Uh oh, somebody call Beowulf. Grendel got back in.”
I agree with Jean. On the one hand, I do believe that most academics truly love their subject and are excited by it, but too many also revel in the idea that, rather than sharing their special access or insight, average people couldn’t possibly understand it. What results is a conversation among the elect, frequently incomprehensible to others and often enough actually intended to exclude others. “Dumbing it down” could also be rephrased as “making it plain.” I am often in the position of having to make complicated subjects comprehensible to people who know much less about them, and “making it plain” is usually an enlightening exercise — as I find that my “theories” frequently need further examination in order to stand up to scrutiny.
I really agree with Jean and Barbara.
My undergraduate experience was that there is nothing more exhilarating than reading a wonderful novel or poem, and nothing more joy-draining than over-analyzing it in order to write a ten-page paper about it. I can only imagine what the thesis or dissertation process must be like for folks who elect to pursue it at those levels.
Film, television and stage are three categories of the arts that seem to me to be extremely vibrant: commercially viable, a lot of talented people eager to be involved in producing the art, large audiences to consume them. Enduring, artistically significant works continue to be produced in these areas. All of these areas, I believe, would welcome more investment capital, and not every company and individual involved is making money, but overall, both artistically and commercially, they’re thriving.
What is the role of humanities departments in advancing or sustaining these arts? Certainly, it’s possible to get better at one’s craft, whether it is acting or lighting or cinematography, through formal study, and these vocational fields need competent instructors. But I’d think that’s not quite the same thing as humanities study. It seems to me that, by and large, film, television and stage would continue on their trajectories whether or not state universities offer courses in film study or something similar. But maybe I’m missing important elements.
In college my class (I don’t remember the exact course) read The Ambassadors by Henry James. Often in class (not just this one), the teacher had a difficult time getting students to voluntarily say anything, and that day she was trying to get somebody to say something — anything — about The Ambassadors. So I volunteered and said that I had found the beginning slow going, but that it had picked up for me and I found the last part of the books suspenseful. The teacher said, “Yes, well, it’s generally considered that The Ambassadors deteriorates into melodrama at the end.”
Back in the 60′s the administration of my little university, headed by a great dean who had been a chemistry teacher but loved the humanities too, attempted to strengthen the general education curriculum. That meant more science for English majors and more humanities for the scientists. Well, the project was hell. I know. I was on the committee that tried to implement it.
The strongest (read nastiest) objections came from the faculty of the fine little School of Pharmacy. They won. Their problem was that they insisted that to maintain their standards pharmacy needed a bigger share of the curriculum hours, not a smaller one. I hate to admit it, but I see their point. Since then, if I’m not mistaken, pharmacy has been made a 5 year course and the students get an Master’s. at the end. Looking back I see that the pharmacy faculty was not just power-grabbing — their students did need more time. Their competence was actually a matter of life and death.
This experience verifies the theory of Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler who made the U. of Chicago a powerhouse way back when. They pushed for the Great Books curriculum, and got it. The way it works is that the first two years of college are general education, including both humanities and science, The last two are professional education. OK, so not everyone needs to read the great books (but some do, or the acadamics will have to constantly re=invent the wheel), but the basic principle is right — separate the general from the specific.
Maybe the solution is separating general education schools from professional ones entirely. That way you can’t possibly have the sort of wars we had at my school. There could be two-year and three-year general ed schools, and 2-and 3 for professional schools. Some stuff, like logic and math, could be offered in high schools. And, yes, all kids would get logic somewhere along the line. In my grandparents’ day some high schools did teach it. EVERYBODY’ needs to learn about fallacies and about how we can be manipulated by people (like politicians and advertisers) who know how to use them..
Where I taught there were students of all levels of ability. It was very difficult to teach them all in the same class. The smartest were just so fast and then there were some slow ones. Somebody was always bored, depending on how difficult the material was. The thing is, if you’re ;not a brain you don’t *want* to be in a class full of brains. Most of us are quite willing to admit we don’t belong in physics class with Al Einstein For me it would be torture..
The countries that have the best educated work forces have highly competitive entrance requirements, and that’s as it should be, if all kids are eligiible to compete. In France they are, so all sorts of kids get to the Sorbonne.
The other huge problem is that so many, many kids also work long hours during college. That is truly cruel. They can’t possibly keep up.
“Maybe the solution is separating general education schools from professional ones entirely. ”
Ann, I know nothing about the business of running a university, but my suspicion is that the MBA and law factories are the “cash cows” that are generating enough income for the school to keep the English and philosophy departments in existence (just as football allows the school to keep its women’s fencing team going).
“What is the role of humanities departments in advancing or sustaining these arts? Certainly, it’s possible to get better at one’s craft, whether it is acting or lighting or cinematography, through formal study, and these vocational fields need competent instructors.”
Jim P. –
Most of my friends are artists of one sort or another, and some are art teachers. I think they would all say that you can’t *teach* creativity. All you can teach is the nature of the materials and skills using the materials. Then get out of its way, though encouragement does seem to have a good effect. But I have seen teachers undercut students because they are jealous of the students’ abilities! In the plastic arts, at any rate, there is a great deal of competition (possibly because there aren’t enough people willing to pay decent wages for good art).
One thing I’ve noticed about many, many of the great American literary writers — from Hemingway, Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill and Robert Frost on down, they quit college early. That doesn’t happen in England. There seems to be something about the teaching of literature in this country that is lethal to creativity — and other kids’ interest in it as well.
David N., thanks for the cringe of the day. In the hands of Henry James, even melodrama soars. “The Bostonians” is a particular favorite of mine, but I never encountered a James I didn’t like.
Ann, some of the medical schools here in Michigan have tried to incorporate more humanities into their M.D. programs in an effort to humanize the doctors. In my view, that’s just way too late. If literary education doesn’t begin until college–and then only as a means to promote empathy–then the humanities are done for.
Literary education starts with putting a toddler on your lap and reading him books and telling him stories. I read in some parenting magazine once that the most valuable thing you can say to your kid is, “Don’t bother me unless it’s an emergency; I’m reading right now.”
So I guess I did one thing right!
Jean (and all),
One account of the genealogy of secularism argues that popularization led to privatization. As it goes, the Reformation can be read as an attempt to wrest control over theology and religious practice from the expert discourse of Scholasticism and the institutional Church structures that gave it legitimacy. As a result religion was “returned” to the people, and in the absence of institutional control mechanisms, a plethora of theological and religious practices emerged that were variously legitimated by appeals to charismatic authority and personal piety. So, the laicization of religion meant that whatever theological position you held was based on individual, autonomous choice, ostensibly guided by universal reason. But, of course, that’s not the whole story. New institutions of power came to fill the vaccuum left by the destruction of Church in the form of political and economic ideologies, which eventually became the dynamic duo nationalism and capitalism. On this reading, the Reformers just traded one despotic Antichrist for another, it’s just that the new one was willing to give them the rhetoric of popular sovereinty while it fleeced them. (Of course, the Pope’s problem was that he was so straight-forward about it.) One might think that the one saving grace in all of this was that some people still thought that reason was worth pursuing, and that a rigorous university education, including theological training, might prepare people to resist the new Leviathans – mutant strains of ideology that had grown resistant to reform. Now, it seems that this bulwark is eroding, and we’re facing a new wave of secularization such that even the regime of reason no longer has any priority. What will fill that vaccuum? What political and economic forces are shaping public desire such that certain forms of popular culture can be deployed to distract people from the fact that they are being slowly zombified as their brains are being sucked out through their eyes and ears while their bank accounts are being drained as well? It’s not whether or not The Simpsons has smart content, but who is going to let you in on what content is smart and what is just a fart joke? Your son is lucky to have a mother who can do that for him, but if humanities education is given over to democratic rule and market-research-driven commodification, who will be the cultural critics? Glenn Beck, who thinks that Nietzsche was in favor of universal healthcare? Jon Stewart, who can only get as far as pointing out the obvious insanity of Glenn Beck? Who will provide a positive vision of what it is to be human? The Daily Show is the perfect vehicle for Nietzche’s “last man”: perpetual, laughing critique of a tragic situation that has become so tragic it is farcical. The jouissance of revealing vacuous idiocy. But, as Nietsche realized, the joke is on us, because after the “last man” there is no “man.”
David N. –
I’ve known lots of English profs, and, yes, many delight in putting down others. It gets to be a duel with some of them. It used not to be as bad, although I knew one viperous one. No wonder the internet is so rude — people are imitating their nasty profs.
I also think grade inflation has something to do with bad teaching. If you aren’t forced to study something you don’t particularly like, you won’t learn enough about it to get interested in it.
JIm P -
Actually, humanities programs should be less expensive to support than the sciences with all their expensive equipment. But it’s sort of a vicious circle — when the humanities are taught badly then there is no support for them, so they continue to be taught badly.
The complaint I get from English teachers is the terrible preparation of kids in high school. Another vicious circle — teachers them selves have to play catch-up and don’t always succeed. Call it creeping ignorance.
Jean –
About reading to kids. A dear friend is a splendid remedial English teacher. She says that the research verifies her contention that if a child doesn’t see its parents reading then the child simply won’t read. My friend even approves of the parents reading comic books, just so he or she is seen reading! (Actually some of these anime comic books have great drawing!)
A great deal of time, energy, money, creativity and study are being poured into New Orleans schools right now as a great experiment. But I haven’t heard of any program to help parents learn to read. Yes, there are loads of functionally illiterate parents here. The experimental schools that are working seem to be those with a great deal of parental involvement. Sounds to me like those parents are the sort who can read. So what is causing the success? We won’t know for a while.
This article wasn’t very convincing. The use of statistics was extremely selective, focusing on the paucity of humanities majors where predictable – in for-profit colleges – but not giving much information about the number of majors elsewhere. To go back to 1915 to show the increase in the number of social science majors is pointless, since the field of psychology hardly existed then and now draws large numbers of majors.
Some universities have found it necessary to pay professors of law, business, or computer science more than others because they can make so much more money in their own fields. I don’t think that necessarily spells the death of humanities in academia.
The article doesn’t mention the large amounts of money going to fund arts programs on campus, or the new performing arts facilities being built, or the boom in MFA programs.
Given the public interest in quality fiction and good independent films that the article points out, it is clear there is an interest in the humanities. One suggestion I would have is for professors in the humanities to examine the courses they are offering. Students are still drawn to learn about great works of art and literature, but can be turned off if they are required to consider them through a critical lens that seems trendy and artificial.
“if humanities education is given over to democratic rule and market-research-driven commodification, who will be the cultural critics?”
Eric –
I’m not sure that the written media can do the job anymore. Jim P. points out the flourishing visual arts. Maybe we’ve become a visual society. I remember reading a few years ago that, most surprisingly, more Americans attend museums over the year than attend professional football games. That tells me something.
So might TV the answer? Can talking heads do it? I rather doubt it. All talking heads seem to do is re-affirm people’s prized ideologies. That leaves the movies. Well, some novels have changed the country at large, why not movies? If they do, It’ll probably be the indies who succeed. The money men won’t support much self-criticism. Gordon Gekko was pretty much the last of his lot.
Or — dare I even wonder — might poetry open some minds and hearts to more solid human values than we have now? It’s done it in the past. But the state of poetry in this country is awful — just look at the lyrics of popular songs. Yeah, Bob Dylan and a few others did managed to change some things, but I never thought he was all that wise, and now he’s old. Sigh.
“Actually some of these anime comic books have great drawings!”
Ann, I recommend the Rex Libris, Librarian, series for anybody who wants an intro to the graphic novel form. Here’s a review on my book blog: http://thegrimreader.blogspot.com/2009/04/in-which-jean-finally-gets-graphic.html
Eric, when I read the phrase “genealogy of secularism,” I decided to go do the dishes and come back and read your comment when my brain is fresher. This is clearly a serious conversation with lots to chew on.
This was a pause-inducing nugget from the article:
“The vast majority of for-profit students attend college without paying any money out of pocket. Taxpayers subsidize them, in what continues to prove a very successful boondoggle.”
I had no idea.
Are for-profits … *real* colleges? Are any of them accredited? Do their grads get hired by Wall Street or top consulting firms, or get admitted to Ivy League grad schools? I’m not certain they existed at all back in my student days (pretty much the days of full-length raccoon fur coats).
At any rate … my family concluded at some point that we couldn’t afford Catholic elementary and middle school. College is coming up fast for my kids. Our flagship land grant university charges something like $24K/year for in-state students (and was recently busted by the press for cutting down in-state incoming freshman seats in favor of more high-powered kids from elsewhere/abroad). No doubt, that amount will be higher in a few years when I have to face actually paying the tuition. What a racket!
OK, my dishes are done.
Eric, not sure what point you’re making. Are you saying the decentralization of religious authority during the Reformation is somehow analgous to the decline of the humanities? That when people are left to their own devices without some controlling central authority to maintain standards, people start running off willy nilly making up new stuff that’s intellectually inferior?
Doesn’t this come awfully close to saying that people can’t be trusted to maintain their own culture?
And doesn’t this, rather than uphold standards, simply remove it from the relevance of people’s lives? Isn’t that why some viewers don’t know Grendel from a fart joke? (Though I think probably they do b/c they laugh at the fart joke and ask their friends, “Grendel who?”)
Or did I miss your point and should go back and do some more dishes? :-)
Jean,
Initially, I just wanted to point out that “popularization” and “privatization” seem to go hand in hand. And yes, I think there are similarities between certain readings of the way the Reformation contributed to the project of secular enlightenment and the way current trends in the decentralization of education might contribute to a further project of enshrining means-ends rationality as the only form of thinking that matters. This speaks to your concern for relevance. It depends what you mean by “relevant” and “life.”
If someone says, “I am a corporate lawyer, how is Beowulf, or any literature, relevant to my life?” One would probably be tempted to say, “Well, you have an impoverished vision of “life” if “corporate lawyer” pretty much sums it up.” But then suppose they say, “Well I do like to go out to eat with my partner and see movies. How is literature relevant to that?” Then, one might say, “Literature will expose you to the great questions, and help you find modes of cultural engagement will that continue to enrich your questioning.” Our lawyer then might reply, “Who said anything about great questions, I just want to spend my weekend unwinding before I go back to work on Monday.” You can see where this is going.
It seems to me that people don’t just intuitively know that something is relevant, but they have to be taught an understanding of what it is to be human such that the life of “arts and letters” is relevant to that understanding. In our current situation it sometimes seems as if the places for learning such an understanding are becoming few and far between. And in the absence of any well-maintained and seriously debated tradition of humanist discourse, producing, consuming, and voting, seem to be the only “life” categories that remain “relevant.”
So, I think people can be trusted to maintain their own culture. Who else is going to do it? But, there have to be some institutional mechanisms in place for that maintenance, otherwise relevance slides into relativity.
Surely Jean you remember the Grimm’s fairy-tale opera about Handel and Grendel?
As a high school humanities teacher I assure you that some of us are trying to instill a passion for the humanities and literature (I also run a ‘great books’ reading club) but unfortunately us teacher are busy teaching basic grammar and preparing students for provincial exams here in Canada. Most students can’t be bothered to read the books we assign and between wikipedia summations, coles notes and essays on line we don’t stand a chance at giving them any eternal ‘incentive’ (read grades). And nothing kills a literary experience like pop-quizzes on assigned chapters. I have resorted to reading large sections to the students and talking to myself about the beauty in the passages.
At least with poetry we can usually make associations to music which seems to generate some interest.
I always like to point out the etymology of ‘passion’ which implies suffering but kids (and adults) just won’t invest the time and energy into readying when TV is such a tempting, lazy alternative.
Eric, Your last paragraph is very pertinent. As I teach school to my 10 year olds, I often think that they love the discipline of the school day and the presentation of subject matter. Today, they wanted to know so much more about history, but I had to go on to “botany”. I said, “More tomorrow!” Our culture craves subjects in the humanities, but the criticisms leveled by some of the afore bloggers are true. It is up to each university to sell its wares, and that means getting down to where these kids are at and lifting them up with relevant information thay crave. Any human story is captivating, and maybe a refurbishment of some of the more tired humanities courses is in order. Any good teacher does that anyway. I am optimistic. For one, the interest in religion will never go away no matter how hard secularism bears down on it. Look at the interest generated in the “Quran” issue this past weekend. Optimism is in order, and generally a little hard work in selling the humanities is in order, just as selling is involved in every fact of life. Even the most hardened scientist can’t resist a human interest story! Come on–humanities can deliver and does have its place, but it may have to change like everything does, to fit a new generation of technology driven students.
I think there is still a lot of passion for the humanities, but I think there is concern as to how to marry that passion with the practical necessity of working for a living. I don’t think that concern is misplaced, and if there is one thing that I fault colleges for, it is permitting students to get away with “filler” courses that are no more meaningful for making a living than more rigorous courses in both science and humanities. Although I think that more than a few professors willing to teach those courses the same way I sometimes give up and feed my kids macaroni and cheese.
“he decentralization of education might contribute to a further project of enshrining means-ends rationality as the only form of thinking that matters. he decentralization of education might contribute to a further project of enshrining means-ends rationality as the only form of thinking that matters.”
Eric –
About end-means rationality –
It seems to me that the broad-brush criticism of utilitarian ethics as the end-means position muddies the ethical waters. Sure, an absolute adherence to “the end justifies the means” (which is basic to utilitarianism) is an awful principle. But natural law ethics sytems are *also* are justified by the ends of human choice, which is said to be the flourishing of individuals. (Yes, the community needs to flourish too, but for the sake of the individuals,)
As I see it, the utilitarians are wrong in making no exceptions to “the end always justifies the means* and the natural law ethicians suffer the opposite defect — they say *the end NEVER justifies the means”, but obviously this is not true — just look at the exceptions which natural law theorists allow, including allowing, even requiring war in some circumstances.
One general comment: I think one reason people don’t value the humanities is because there is still so much argument about basic ethical principles. I suspect that for practical reasons this can’t be avoided, but in my experience most people really don’t want to be relativists. They want sure ethical guides, but unfortunately sometimes there are none. Instead the humanities these days gives them relativism and despair. Who needs it?
I have a sense–at the risk of sounding like an America-basher–that the humanities in other countries are healthier.
Perhaps Ann’s intriguing idea about relativism fits in here; in a diverse culture, we get a pretty diverse pool of literary, historical, philosophical ideas, none of which offers any real guidelines.
Perhaps it’s because, in America, if you can’t “monetize” your skills, you won’t attract patrons or customers. Many of us with advanced degrees in the humanities work for years on adjunct wages or end up in a dusty corner editing things.
Or perhaps it’s like Mencken said: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
Maybe it’s my age, but I have no hopes that the humanitis will revive. While we’ve tried to emphasize to our son that the humanities allows you to live beyond the little pod the lawyer in Eric’s example does, it’s really had the opposite effect. It’s given him a lot of knowledge that none of his friends understand or care about, and, let’s face it, makes him a little weird.
Well there must be some attraction for it, or kids would not “get blown off course ” from the so called practical majors and begin majoring in the humanities in college. If those who majored in the humanities can’t defend them, then that is a sad day. Our teacher of the year in our fair city is an English teacher. That says something. Humanities majors often have superior communication skills, and they need to use those communication skills to defend their fields. Jean, you have a point about our pluralistic society. But hopefully our so called American literature is not lost in translation. Humanities majors need to rally and infuse life into their subject matter.
I’m not concerned about how many humanities majors there are (I’m thinking lit, philosophy, history, religious studies — the ones that “bake no bread”.) I’m concerned about the fact that the number of basic humanities courses that students are required to take has diminished to almost nothing but English these days, with maybe a history or philosophy course thrown in. There is typically no longer any general education such that all students end with at least a rudimentary experience and understanding of the basics.
The “universities” have nothing universal about them anymore, and the kids are no longer truly educatedl They’re just trained in a job that large numbers will end up hating. Football and TV will be their happiest pursuits. Oh, sure there are individual schools with good core curricula, but how many? People complain about the “elite” colleges. But what makes them “elite” to a large extent is the varied core curricula that they require of all students, and it is this core that makes them adaptable thinkers instead ofdrones. The other colleges could have such curricula, but the boards of directors don’t insist on them. I guess the board members themselves just don’t know what a really good college is — they went to the same sort of training schools.
Ann-I agree with the points you have made. When my daughter began a public university in 2003, the course directory had a full compliment of all of the humanities courses. A certain number were required with her sciences major. I hope that is still the case at most universities. We cannot survive as a society without a well-rounded education, and that is what I am exhorting faculties and humanities professors to do—”fight” for their subject matter.
“We cannot survive as a society without a well-rounded education, and that is what I am exhorting faculties and humanities professors to do—’fight’ for their subject matter.”
Of course we can survive as a society without having well-rounded educations. It may not be a society I’d want to live in (in fact, society in general is quickly becoming something I don’t like living in, so good thing retirement is around the corner and I can quietly collect my SS checks and fade into irrelevancy.)
But I don’t think commerce would come to a halt or Steve Jobs would stop producing i-Gizmos if nobody read Mark Twain, understood the Monroe Doctrine, or could explain Thoreau’s notions of civil disobedience.
As for “fighting” for their subject matter, I dunno how you do that, particularly when so many people teaching college gen ed classes at the freshman and sophomore levels are adjunct with little to no clout in their departments.
There is more fighting for tenure or a living wage than on fighting for the discipline.
Frankly, I think you “fight” for the subject matter best by being a good teacher and engaging students with the material. Kids who’ve come through K-12 or college encountering great humanities teachers are the ones who will do the fighting for you. Sounds like maybe what Adam is doing is fighting the good fight.
None of my comments really gets to the deeper questions Eric raises about how societal shifts are contributing to the demise of humanities–or changes in the humanities that are detrimental.
Jean–I appreciate your comments, and being an elementary teacher I’m glad that some of what we do doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you for clarifying “fight” for me and enlightening me as to the reality of the plight of adjunct professors. The best we can hope for is evolving humanities courses that continue to meet our students needs and thus remain relevant.
Jean –
I agree with you about teachers not being the ones to make the needed changes — they just don’t have the clout. That’s why I said it’s the Boards of the universities that have to make the decision about a general education: at least two years shall be devoted to general education. (Those course hours would include some courses that would also be counted towards a major or minor, e.g., math for science majors.)
Denise, every year, I send e-mails of appreciation to the teachers who have most motivated my kid, and I am always stunned by the outpouring of gratitude and sometimes frustration at the lack of recognition they receive from parents.
These folks really don’t get pats on the back; mostly they get criticized b/c they won’t take pay cuts for working what some parents perceive as bankers hours just nine months out of the year.
Anybody who’s ever had a hundred students–as most teachers do in the course of a day–know that lesson plans, grading, and keeping up in the field means you put in far more than eight hours a day, and summers are devoted to meetings and courses required to keep your certificate updated.
Ann, I think university boards still do try to require at least a year of gen ed, but the problem, that I think you nailed earlier, is that students don’t like it because most of them are working or trying to cram in a lot of courses so they don’t have to stay in school so long, and parents who are footing the college bills are also pushing back against “frills” like the humanities–or agitating that the humanities be dumbed down so they don’t mess up anybody’s GPA.
My daughter’s college makes all first semester freshman classes pass/fail — you get to take all of your basic requirements without worrying about grades. That way, no one has to avoid the more interesting and substantial humanities cours in search of a “gut” just so they don’t screw up their GPA.
Another strategy that a school might adopt would be to allow students to designate a certain number of non-major credits as pass/fail.
These are strategies that cost nothing but serve to limit excuse seeking for easier and less substantial course material.
Barbara –
What evidence is there that pass-fail courses get most students to do more than the minimum amount of work necessary to pass? And why think that allowing students to choose their own curriculum will result in a rounded basic education?
Schools differ in their student populations. Some kids’ parents can afford to keep them in college for 5 or six years. In other words, they can afford a general education, In other colleges kids have to ration their time between classes, jobs and studying, and they really don’t have time to do their best, so their general ed. suffers. But either we get serious about general education *for all the kids*a or we wont have the truly educated population that a well-run democracy requires. If we are serious, we have to decide to pay teachers (from K through college) enough that their own kids won’t suffer educationally or otherwise because of the parents’ relatively low wages. (You won’t get too many really smart college profs if they can make 3 = 6 times more as good lawyers, MDs. stock brokers and managers in large corporations, etc. We also have to pay enough taxes for tuition in public colleges so that the students won’t have to work more than, say a day a week.
Education costs. The better the education, the more it costs. Surprise.
Ann, I don’t know why I have to prove anything about the minimum level of work. If the choice seems to be (based on my own recollection) that a student will take an easy, sometimes downright silly or stupid course for a grade or a rigorous course for pass/fail, then I vote for the latter, because with the latter you at least get exposure. If the goal is to expose students to a wider range or more rigorous courses in the humanities then removing the fear of a bad grade is a good thing.
As for designing one’s own curriculum — as soon as you come up with the standard “general education” you will have reams of people protesting about what is included and why. The good “in between” is to have a choice between specific classes, or possibly even, to rotate the choices.
Hmm. Maybe rotating the materials would at least make it possible for different segments of the population taken as a whole to preserve the basic ideas worth saving. But we still wouldn’t have a well educated population.