Gen ed problems and future outlook

[mleok]

Let me try to revisit the question of what the goals of general education requirements should be. The best analogy I can think of is the breadth requirements which are encapsulated in the qualifying examinations at the doctoral level, and in that context, the goal as I see it for the broad qualifying (or general) examination is that it equips PhD students with a core body of knowledge that allows them to acquire any futher knowledge they might require by reading an advance textbook on the subject. Perhaps that should be the benchmark for what a good general education program aims to achieve at the undergraduate level, equipping students with the necessary skills be become lifelong learners in areas that they did not specialize in.

If that were the goal, then I would argue that it would be better served with a few well-designed courses, targeted for that purpose exclusively, such as the scientific literacy course I discussed, rather than just a bunch of ordinary introductory courses from a few disciplines.

I agree. I find the current system to do nothing but provide some measure of job security for faculty in departments with an extremely small number of majors.

[mleok]

College graduates should have read Shakespeare; know something about the great historical events in the world; have learned something about science; practiced a foreign language; and, sure, whatever other subjects flesh out a "well rounded" individual.

All of this sounds like something that a good high school education should have provided. Didn't you read Shakespeare in high school?

[Wahoo Redux]

This sounds like you're asking what kind of environment we want to teach in. What kind of place I'd like to teach in isn't really relevant; what's relevant is what's best for the students who choose and pay to come... Trying to force students into the kind of system that suits me is self-serving at best, obnoxious at worst.

Nope.  I really believe in the broad liberal arts education. 

Your response, as is so often the case, misses the point and is obnoxious at best.

[Wahoo Redux]

College graduates should have read Shakespeare; know something about the great historical events in the world; have learned something about science; practiced a foreign language; and, sure, whatever other subjects flesh out a "well rounded" individual.

All of this sounds like something that a good high school education should have provided. Didn't you read Shakespeare in high school?

Yeah, I did.

I learned much, much more reading Shakespeare in college----and I had unusually good English teachers in high school.

This, for me, is what separates secondary and higher ed.

[mleok]

I believe in gen eds because they are part of what separates college from being simply career training and maintain our campuses as places of intellectual discovery.

Feel free to disagree.

I am a mathematician, and I do not think that a degree program that focuses on just mathematics is simply career training, nor is it incompatible with intellectual discovery. I do not believe that an opposition to forcing every student to study some amount of mathematics at the college level implies that I subscribe to the dystopian system you are describing.

At some point in time, students will specialize, and reasonable people can disagree about what level of exposure students should have to subjects outside their main area of interest. Would I be concerned about students who have never been exposed to any mathematics during the course of their education? Sure, but UK high school students are exposed to the level of mathematics that are required in US college general education, so it's not something which needs to be done at the college level, but it should rather be placed in high school, so that every child benefits from this broad based education.

[mleok]

College graduates should have read Shakespeare; know something about the great historical events in the world; have learned something about science; practiced a foreign language; and, sure, whatever other subjects flesh out a "well rounded" individual.

All of this sounds like something that a good high school education should have provided. Didn't you read Shakespeare in high school?

Yeah, I did.

I learned much, much more reading Shakespeare in college----and I had unusually good English teachers in high school.

This, for me, is what separates secondary and higher ed.

Yeah, maybe for you, but given what I've seen, I don't think that lower-division classes at the typical college are any more rigorous than one might expect to find at a good high school.

[jimbogumbo]

College graduates should have read Shakespeare; know something about the great historical events in the world; have learned something about science; practiced a foreign language; and, sure, whatever other subjects flesh out a "well rounded" individual.

All of this sounds like something that a good high school education should have provided. Didn't you read Shakespeare in high school?

Yeah, I did.

I learned much, much more reading Shakespeare in college----and I had unusually good English teachers in high school.

This, for me, is what separates secondary and higher ed.

Yeah, maybe for you, but given what I've seen, I don't think that lower-division classes at the typical college are any more rigorous than one might expect to find at a good high school.

So what are examples of a "typical" college in your mind?

[mleok]

I believe in gen eds because stretching and straining our brains with new material makes us better people, better workers, better etc.  People who make the big bucks are expected to be able to handle problems, evaluate, analyze, apply and improvise----which sounds like what one has to do in a class in which you study a subject you have never or marginally been exposed to.

Do you have any evidence to demonstrate that general education requirements actually achieve those objectives? In practice, the flexibility in the requirements mean that most students primarily take a combination of general education classes that are most closely aligned to their area of specialization or which have a reputation for being easy, nondemanding classes.

[Wahoo Redux]

College graduates should have read Shakespeare; know something about the great historical events in the world; have learned something about science; practiced a foreign language; and, sure, whatever other subjects flesh out a "well rounded" individual.

All of this sounds like something that a good high school education should have provided. Didn't you read Shakespeare in high school?

Yeah, I did.

I learned much, much more reading Shakespeare in college----and I had unusually good English teachers in high school.

This, for me, is what separates secondary and higher ed.

Yeah, maybe for you, but given what I've seen, I don't think that lower-division classes at the typical college are any more rigorous than one might expect to find at a good high school.

Fair enough.  I doubt the accuracy of what you are saying, which is anecdotal at best, but I understand. 

So should we retool higher ed as career training?

[Wahoo Redux]

I believe in gen eds because stretching and straining our brains with new material makes us better people, better workers, better etc.  People who make the big bucks are expected to be able to handle problems, evaluate, analyze, apply and improvise----which sounds like what one has to do in a class in which you study a subject you have never or marginally been exposed to.

Do you have any evidence to demonstrate that general education requirements actually achieve those objectives? In practice, the flexibility in the requirements mean that most students primarily take a combination of general education classes that are most closely aligned to their area of specialization or which have a reputation for being easy, nondemanding classes.

As I said, I will research it.  My mind is open.

I would suggest you do the same.

[mleok]

So what are examples of a "typical" college in your mind?

Well, I'm thinking of the community colleges where a significant fraction of the college students are trying to take their general education requirements. But, even at my public research university, our calculus classes are less rigorous and less challenging than classes I took in high school outside the US.

[mleok]

I believe in gen eds because stretching and straining our brains with new material makes us better people, better workers, better etc.  People who make the big bucks are expected to be able to handle problems, evaluate, analyze, apply and improvise----which sounds like what one has to do in a class in which you study a subject you have never or marginally been exposed to.

Do you have any evidence to demonstrate that general education requirements actually achieve those objectives? In practice, the flexibility in the requirements mean that most students primarily take a combination of general education classes that are most closely aligned to their area of specialization or which have a reputation for being easy, nondemanding classes.

As I said, I will research it.  My mind is open.

I would suggest you do the same.

I'm open to seeing evidence of this, and weighing it against the opportunity costs that students have to shoulder. I am more generally supportive of a core sequence of courses that are specifically designed to expose non-majors to the critical aspects of a field and to build up their knowledge to the point that any well-educated individual should possess.

[mleok]

So should we retool higher ed as career training?

This is what I mean by "strawman argument." Is a BA in mathematics at Cambridge University just career training? Maybe you should take your own advice against relying on hyperbolic arguments. You're one of the most passive-aggressive posters on this forum.

[Wahoo Redux]

I am a mathematician, and I do not think that a degree program that focuses on just mathematics is simply career training, nor is it incompatible with intellectual discovery.

We would have actuary science, statistics, and department of defense majors if we have career mathematics degrees.

I understand we would also have computer programmers and production managers who use math, but those would be their own majors with a lot of math training.  Finance seems to me would have a broad cross-section of training which included advanced mathematics.

Those would still be intellectually rigorous degrees.   

I'm sure there are more, but I honestly don't know what people would do with a math degree.

[mleok]

I am a mathematician, and I do not think that a degree program that focuses on just mathematics is simply career training, nor is it incompatible with intellectual discovery.

We would have actuary science, statistics, and department of defense majors if we have career mathematics degrees.

I understand we would also have computer programmers and production managers who use math, but those would be their own majors with a lot of math training.  Finance seems to me would have a broad cross-section of training which included advanced mathematics.

Those would still be intellectually rigorous degrees.   

I'm sure there are more, but I honestly don't know what people would do with a math degree.

Again, I'm not sure what any of this has to do with general education requirements outside one's core area of study. Can you stop trying to obfuscate the issue.