Let's Redesign Curriculum: Gen Eds

[Stockmann]

Given that we exist in the real world and (to borrow Polly's term) will reject "magical thinking," how are we going to take our geographically broad, multiculturally challenged, socioeconomically and racially diverse, politically polarized landscape that includes everything from tiny, rural isolated Wisconsin public schools to elite arts high schools in Manhattan in the era of increasing wealth disparity and retool our primary and secondary educational system which is based on property taxes?

We could start by not funding it using property taxes. I'm surprised this isn't part of the progressive agenda. More so than making college free, this would have a far more fundamental impact on educational inequity.

For some reason, much of the American Left seems to love a system in which, in practice, the educational opportunities available to kids are determined by the school district their parents can afford to live in. Somehow this modern-day villeinage is "fairer" than a more meritocratic system.

And I would disagree about the "disaster" of K-12 or the insistence that K-12 is supposed to have completely rounded the person; college continues what K-12 started.  It is not perfect, but neither is it a Titanic cruise.

That's kind of my point; note that I said American K-12 is extremely and uniquely unequal, not that it is uniformly a disaster - and some of its alumni succeed in world-beating universities and go on to have stellar careers; others get a HS diploma but lack the skills to be employable as pretty much anything other than unskilled labor and could only graduate from, or even get into, a diploma mill.
American K-12's extreme inequality, and the uniqueness of gen-eds in American HE are, in my opinion, not unrelated happenstance, but causally related. Gen-eds seem to me an attempt to ensure that K-12 really did cover x, y and z, because a HS diploma is no guarantee. But, IMO, by then it's basically either too late or not really necessary.

[Wahoo Redux]

That's kind of my point; note that I said American K-12 is extremely and uniquely unequal, not that it is uniformly a disaster - and some of its alumni succeed in world-beating universities and go on to have stellar careers; others get a HS diploma but lack the skills to be employable as pretty much anything other than unskilled labor and could only graduate from, or even get into, a diploma mill.
American K-12's extreme inequality, and the uniqueness of gen-eds in American HE are, in my opinion, not unrelated happenstance, but causally related. Gen-eds seem to me an attempt to ensure that K-12 really did cover x, y and z, because a HS diploma is no guarantee. But, IMO, by then it's basically either too late or not really necessary.

Okay.  So what are we supposed to do about that in regard to gen eds?

I know very well what you are talking about. 

We are now at our 2nd open-enrollment teaching university.  The first was a rural campus in the upper Midwest; its student body was a mix of your typical mediocre middle-class kids who lacked ambition to go anywhere better, rural kids from isolated communities, and minority kids recruited from the big cities in the state----the really good minority kids went to the prestigious flagship in the cool big city; we got kids who were desperate.  The differences in preparation between the lazy middle class kids and the isolated rural and inner-city kids was generally pretty stark.

Right now we teach at a run-down teaching uni in the middle of a suburban ghetto ringed by white-flight suburbia.  We have very much the same dynamic.

Everyone here takes the same gen ed sequence. 

My idea for this thread was that people suggest changes to gen eds, including simply eliminating them. 

We can point out the problems all we want, and this does nothing to solve them.  We could talk about ideas, but we'd rather be doomed-and-gloomed.

For instance, this IHE article, Beyond Box Checking, gives some examples.  For instance:

the Goucher Commons, adopted in 2017. It seeks to give even -- and perhaps especially -- first-year students the opportunity to deal with real-world questions through an interdisciplinary lens. Goucher doesn't have distribution requirements but asks that undergraduates take four seminars, one each year. Students also must take at least three "center pair exploration" courses during their first three years, to build on the first seminar experience.

Exploration courses include one Cresiski teaches on disease and discrimination, which discusses both the pathology and politics of disease. Other examples are those on Shakespeare and difference, and life in Baltimore since 1968. Students complete each of these courses with a signature project.

All students study abroad as another curriculum requirement related to language and culture. Common inquiry areas are justice, both among people and in the natural world, and many courses center on those ideas. Writing is also a key focus area, since Goucher believes that all its students will have to learn to write well to succeed, regardless of field. General education ends with a capstone experience in the final year, and students share their work at a symposium. Goucher Commons courses total about 40, of 120 required for graduation.

There are a number of links in there that actually discuss gen ed changes.

I've also been researching the outcomes of American vs. European colleges.  I'll post on them at some point.

Maybe there is not a conversation to be had on this point.  We're crabs in a barrel.

[marshwiggle]

the Goucher Commons, adopted in 2017. It seeks to give even -- and perhaps especially -- first-year students the opportunity to deal with real-world questions through an interdisciplinary lens. Goucher doesn't have distribution requirements but asks that undergraduates take four seminars, one each year. Students also must take at least three "center pair exploration" courses during their first three years, to build on the first seminar experience.

Exploration courses include one Cresiski teaches on disease and discrimination, which discusses both the pathology and politics of disease. Other examples are those on Shakespeare and difference, and life in Baltimore since 1968. Students complete each of these courses with a signature project.

All students study abroad as another curriculum requirement related to language and culture. Common inquiry areas are justice, both among people and in the natural world, and many courses center on those ideas. Writing is also a key focus area, since Goucher believes that all its students will have to learn to write well to succeed, regardless of field. General education ends with a capstone experience in the final year, and students share their work at a symposium. Goucher Commons courses total about 40, of 120 required for graduation.

Goucher College tuition: $48000

I guess their students can afford the study abroad requirement.

Seriously, these kinds of examples just reflect how out-of-touch some people are.

[mythbuster]

We've had this conversation before, back on the old Fora. As I remember, the courses/ skills that we collectively endorsed at the time were:

Personal finance
Computer literacy- at the time we though the Microsoft Certification programs might be a good place to start with this.
Nutrition and Cooking- I personally LOVE the idea of a nutrition gen ed with a cooking lab.

There likely were others that I don't remember. Some of these have shown up in the discussion above. NONE of these looks like what the current Gen Eds at most schools are.

Revisiting this in 2020 I would add a course in Local History and the impact of Government decisions on the area. This would nicely tie into a better understanding of Civics.

Now, If I truly ran the world, all of this would be a core of the middle and high school curriculum so that everyone had exposure to these necessary skills and ideas. But, we live in reality, so that's not likely to ever happen.

[Ruralguy]

At Goucher, I believe tuition covers study abroad so long as you are on one of their sponsored programs.
As with most SLACs, list price can be dramatically reduced with various scholarships.

[Hegemony]

Goucher College tuition: $48000

I guess their students can afford the study abroad requirement.

Seriously, these kinds of examples just reflect how out-of-touch some people are.

Remember that $48,000 is just the sticker price. It only applies to rich kids who get no financial aid.

Goucher's website says that 97% of its students receive financial aid, and that "Goucher awards more than $44 million annually in financial aid (through grants, scholarships, loans, and federal work-study), and our average debt is almost 12 percent below the national average." Niche.com says that the average award package at Goucher is $31,804 per year, meaning the students are actually on the hook for around $16,000.

It's a common misunderstanding among parents that a college's nominal cost is the actual cost paid by students and their families, but I'm surprised to see that even some academics don't know how college pricing works.

[Ruralguy]

In my experience parents understand this very well. It seems to be our faculty who don't get discounts.