Let's Redesign Curriculum: Gen Eds

[mleok]

Maybe I'm missing your implications, but these sound very much like "off the shelf" existing courses, rather than courses specifically designed for the purpose.

What would you do with history, philosophy, and foreign language courses that would be different from existing offerings but that would be good for all non-majors?

We already have a "History of the English Language" class which is taught in English departments, so I suppose we could have either a "History of Literacy Class" or "English history in the context of literature" which links literary genres to specific historical contexts required of all English majors (ex. The Epic is initially a compendium of religious texts assembled in Babylonia which morphs into a story of warrior ethos in ancient Greece and so the class would cover history of the Furtile Crescent and Greek city states and an overview of the genre etc.).  Probably the class would need to be team-taught...and I am not sure anyone wants to pay for something like that.

But here you have pointed out one of the problems of redesign.  I will admit that I am dubious that we can redesign a curriculum that is better than the "box-checking / one-off" status quo----and this thread seems to suggest this so far.

For instance, to understand A Tale of Two Cities we would need to have a basic understanding of The French Revolution; The Turn of the Screw a basic understanding of Victorian class society; The Things They Carried a history of the Vietnam War and so on...

Certainly one could read A Tale of Two Cities and then study the history of the Revolution, but most lit teachers incorporate that history into a discussion of the text.  So I am not sure that a class such as this one would do any better than a "Victorian Novel" class and a "History of Western Civ II" class taught seperately.

Honestly, that question was why I started this thread.  How would we redesign?

My "implication" is that no matter what, gen eds are going to be gen eds.  I miss a magical solution to the quandary unless the solution is to do away with gen eds altogether.

If so, why even have gen eds then? The status quo is pretty useless in my opinion, and if as you claim, we can't do better, despite numerous suggestions to the contrary, then we should just get rid of it altogether. I think you have confirmation bias if what you get out of the numerous discussions on this issue is that this thread only serves to confirm your doubts that we can redesign the curriculum so it is better than the status quo, I think you're literally the only person who thinks that.

[mleok]

There is also a fundamental issue of the kind of institution we're talking about. Too many times, I get the sense that general education is justified by assuming the kind of inadequate K-12 preparation one might expect from an open enrollment college, but with the lofty aspirations of developing a well-rounded individual that one might hope to have come out of an elite college.

Bit busy.

But I have been looking at international educational outcomes.

Not sure the idea of "inadequate" anything holds water.

I maintain that if we had an adequate system of K-12 education, we would not need general education in college, which is the case for most other countries. Keep ignoring any point of view that does not comport with yours, it doesn't change the fact that the existing justifications for general education lack traction in the current age.

[marshwiggle]

For instance, to understand A Tale of Two Cities we would need to have a basic understanding of The French Revolution; The Turn of the Screw a basic understanding of Victorian class society; The Things They Carried a history of the Vietnam War and so on...

You haven't explained why students would need "to understand A Tale of Two Cities". ( I've read lots of Dickens, but I don't see why everyone should be forced to.)


You're assuming what needs to be included (without justification) and then claiming that gets done fine by existing courses......

[mleok]

For instance, to understand A Tale of Two Cities we would need to have a basic understanding of The French Revolution; The Turn of the Screw a basic understanding of Victorian class society; The Things They Carried a history of the Vietnam War and so on...

You haven't explained why students would need "to understand A Tale of Two Cities". ( I've read lots of Dickens, but I don't see why everyone should be forced to.)


You're assuming what needs to be included (without justification) and then claiming that gets done fine by existing courses......

This is why the humanities are doomed, because they assume that an appreciation of literature is more essential than putting food on the table. Refer to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, most students who have an inadequate K-12 educational experience are going to college to address their basic needs.

[Wahoo Redux]

This is why the humanities are doomed, because they assume that an appreciation of literature is more essential than putting food on the table. Refer to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, most students who have an inadequate K-12 educational experience are going to college to address their basic needs.

You lose your cool, my friend, and start to strawman ridiculously. "food on the table!?"  Please.

Maslow's Hierarchy is pseudoscience. 

We have auguries; it is not proven that the humanities are "doomed."

But none of that is really germane. 

Anybody who has been following your comments knows that you believe we could retool primary and secondary ed.  You have posted this repeatedly.

So okay: how? 

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? 

[Wahoo Redux]

For instance, to understand A Tale of Two Cities we would need to have a basic understanding of The French Revolution; The Turn of the Screw a basic understanding of Victorian class society; The Things They Carried a history of the Vietnam War and so on...

You haven't explained why students would need "to understand A Tale of Two Cities". ( I've read lots of Dickens, but I don't see why everyone should be forced to.)


You're assuming what needs to be included (without justification) and then claiming that gets done fine by existing courses......

We need almost nothing, Marshy.

We value a great many things.

[Wahoo Redux]

@Marshy and mleok:

Remember that this thread is about retooling gen eds.

So, my pundits, how should gen eds be retooled?

If we should get rid of them, just say so.  No need to repeat what you have posted ad nauseum. 

[Stockmann]

... Attenuated but Necessary: Philosophy and foreign languages....

That, to me, is a great example of the problem with college gen-eds - the reality is that for most people by the time you're 18+ it's basically too late to learn a language as a genuine beginner. Most toddlers, however, can learn a second language by immersion to (eventually) a high standard, as can most older preteens who put the effort in. To some degree, I think it's similar in a lot of fields - if you did not gain basic numeracy in K12, a college class in unlikely to do much good - by "basic numeracy" I mean things like directly proportional relationships, which my grandfather learned at a public elementary school in a developing country. I think something similar holds for literacy, or critical thinking for that matter.
To me the most salient, and probably also the most important, aspect of US K12 is how unequal it is. Even taking just public K12, the best schools are truly world-beating, while the worst are bad by Third World standards - I doubt there's any other K12 system anywhere with both extremes (esp., public K12 systems). No college class is going to fix the results of wasting key developmental ages, at least not for students who don't want to learn in the first place - that really is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

[marshwiggle]

@Marshy and mleok:

Remember that this thread is about retooling gen eds.

So, my pundits, how should gen eds be retooled?

As you said previously:

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?

Given all this, how realistic is it that any gen ed requirements are going to even out the disparities from the public school system described above?

If public school and high school, which are in principle supposed to provide some sort of uniformity to what everyone learns, are failing to achieve it, a second attempt after high school is no more likely to succeed. It makes more sense for students after high school to choose what to study, based on their own perceptions of value.

[Wahoo Redux]

So Marshy, your vote is to do away with any gen ed requirements altogether?

Fair enough.

Had you asked me in my late teens, early-'20s I would have agreed wholeheartedly.

Knowing what I do now, I gained much from the "broadening" of college and believe wholeheartedly in the lib art mission.

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.

[mleok]

So Marshy, your vote is to do away with any gen ed requirements altogether?

Fair enough.

Had you asked me in my late teens, early-'20s I would have agreed wholeheartedly.

Knowing what I do now, I gained much from the "broadening" of college and believe wholeheartedly in the lib art mission.

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.

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely inconsistent with what you've stated on this thread. In particular, you've claimed that there is no need to know more math than decimals, but isn't math part of general education as we know it? It readily apparent to the impartial observer that that only part of general education that you seem to care about is the part which ensures your continued employment.

[mleok]

... Attenuated but Necessary: Philosophy and foreign languages....

That, to me, is a great example of the problem with college gen-eds - the reality is that for most people by the time you're 18+ it's basically too late to learn a language as a genuine beginner. Most toddlers, however, can learn a second language by immersion to (eventually) a high standard, as can most older preteens who put the effort in. To some degree, I think it's similar in a lot of fields - if you did not gain basic numeracy in K12, a college class in unlikely to do much good - by "basic numeracy" I mean things like directly proportional relationships, which my grandfather learned at a public elementary school in a developing country. I think something similar holds for literacy, or critical thinking for that matter.
To me the most salient, and probably also the most important, aspect of US K12 is how unequal it is. Even taking just public K12, the best schools are truly world-beating, while the worst are bad by Third World standards - I doubt there's any other K12 system anywhere with both extremes (esp., public K12 systems). No college class is going to fix the results of wasting key developmental ages, at least not for students who don't want to learn in the first place - that really is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I agree, college is the worse possible place to attent to address inequities in our education system, it is financially inefficient, and the high cost of remediation at the college level would be more impactfully spent on addressing differentials in K-12 education.

[mleok]

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.

[Ruralguy]

By making all schools equally crappy?  I don't think that would sit too well with most of suburbia. Although older residents would love it because they think their money is being wasted on those darn kids who won't get off my lawn.

[marshwiggle]

By making all schools equally crappy?  I don't think that would sit too well with most of suburbia. Although older residents would love it because they think their money is being wasted on those darn kids who won't get off my lawn.

They instituted that in the province of Ontario a while back, so that there weren't gross inequities between rich and poor areas. (There was a particular issue with rich Toronto neighbourhoods and basically everywhere else.)

The sky didn't fall.

(Of course, Canadians in general aren't so averse to paying taxes for government services, and are also a bit more egalitarian in nature, so there was reasonable public support.)