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Aug 3, 2003 Generally I am known as a pessimist. I guess it runs in the family. So it's natural for a pessimist like me to believe that academia is a collection of left wing nuts who want a "million Mogadishus" for our soldiers, teach afro american studies and still demand tenure and a paycheck with a straight face, who consider the Vagina Monologues brilliant. Essentially I do think this way. Too often people confuse advanced degrees with wisdom. They're wrong of course. Earning a PHD shows that you have knowledge which is not the same thing. Knowledge is accumaliting information or facts. Wisdom is applying that knowledge to life. The problems with our education system are numerous. No discipline, a watered down curriculum,etc. All of which have been written about before, so I won't. I think that the vast majority of our education problems lie with the teachers themselves. I don't blame college professors too much, by the time the students get to them they are ruined anyway, though faculty does little to help. Now I know a lot of people are going to think "what's this guy on?" "My teachers were great" Theres a difference between liking a teacher and one who actually teaches. I could go on and on about bad teachers. The horror stories have all been documented though and I really don't want to go in that direction. All I really need to say is that teachers rarely teach anymore. They fill heads with the latest PC trash or when I went to school, not all that long ago, all they did was have you copy ten pages of notes off an overhead projector which was written to cover the latest PC trash. I am not saying there aren't good teachers. I had a few myself. I can remember my high school science teacher actually teaching. Most students went in there and actually learned. Now to show that I do not think the entire American educations system is garbage, I am going to talk about a very wise professor. Dr. Gold was my philosophy professor. I only had him for one semester, as philosophy was not my field of study. But that one class with him proved to me that he was one of the last wise men in academia. Not just knowledgable, but wise. He did what was by left wing standards unforgivable. He taught students to think for themselves. He would spend weeks going over logic and teaching us how to go through information. He was also a good man. I refer to him in the past tense because Dr. Gold, one of the last wise men passed away a few days ago. Dr. Gold showed wisdom in his own life. He went from being an atheist to being a devout christian, a preacher at a christian church. He debated other philosophy professors from major universities about the exsistence of God and ran intellectual circles around them. So academia is not entirely devoid of wisdom, though it is getting there. Slouching towards Gomorrah so to speak. Reforming education begins with reforming educators. The more that have only knowledge and bad knowledge at that the worse it gets and it is hard to see how it could possibly get worse. Education begins by what teachers pass on. Its Garbage in Garbage out. We have to demand more of our educators. We wouldn't accept substandard buildings from construction companies. Nor should we accept substandard teaching. When teachers teach their personal beliefs as gospel, we have a problem and no matter how nicely they try to explain it that is what a great deal of them do. Too bad there weren't more wise men. ------------ Email Craig Chamberlain: craig_chamberlain@hotmail.com Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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