Are the Humanities Doomed?

[apl68]

Honestly, all I hear from this thread is evidence of how horrible K-12 education is, as opposed to need for humanities at the college level.

And that, as much as anything, is why the humanities are in trouble at the college level.  A big part of why there's little "market" for them is because students at the K-12 level are either not being made aware of them, or are learning about them in a way that fails to excite any sort of interest in learning more about them--or, it would appear, anything else.  I don't know how much of this is the schools' fault.  Our society places so very little value on work and learning of any kind, and at least half of our children are growing up in grossly dysfunctional household situations of a sort that place a serious drag on school achievement.

[mamselle]

Some things seem not to have changed too much, then.

I still recall, as a high-school senior, sitting in Trigonometry class listening to our math instructor (who taught all but Algebra I in that small suburban high school) yell for about 10 min. at one of the high-strung, not-as-bright-as-he-thought-he-was guys in class who'd just been dumb enough to say under his breath, "Yeah, well, English, I don't need English, I'm going to be an Engineer...." after seeing his latest British Lit grade.

The point of the instructor's rant was that her husband, who taught engineering at OSU, up the road, always had several such students in his grad program, and he had to work with them on their writing whenever grants were due.

And he really hated that....so she wasn't having any nonsense from her students on the subject and they could just re-think their attitudes.

The kid (and his friends) sort of shuffled in their seats and shut up after that. 

M.

[Ruralguy]

Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style.  I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication.  I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful.  I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?

[marshwiggle]

I still recall, as a high-school senior, sitting in Trigonometry class listening to our math instructor (who taught all but Algebra I in that small suburban high school) yell for about 10 min. at one of the high-strung, not-as-bright-as-he-thought-he-was guys in class who'd just been dumb enough to say under his breath, "Yeah, well, English, I don't need English, I'm going to be an Engineer...." after seeing his latest British Lit grade.

The point of the instructor's rant was that her husband, who taught engineering at OSU, up the road, always had several such students in his grad program, and he had to work with them on their writing whenever grants were due.

My math teacher for the last two years of high school was a former English teacher, so he'd quote poetry in math class. He was great.

[spork]

Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style.  I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication.  I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful.  I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?

Judging from the tripe I see when reviewing manuscripts, many people with humanities PhDs also could have benefited from learning how to write.

[mleok]

Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style.  I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication.  I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful.  I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?

Judging from the tripe I see when reviewing manuscripts, many people with humanities PhDs also could have benefited from learning how to write.

Definitely, if the goal of writing is to communicate as opposed to obfuscate.

[Hibush]

Engineers don't need to know how to write *creatively* (though I do think practicing different forms of writing can help you develop the other forms you use more commonly), but I certainly think they could gain from knowing how to write grammatically, accurately, and with decent style.  I believe this would greatly benefit textbooks, journal articles, grant applications, internal industry handbooks, and just day to day teaching/communication.  I think about one year of composition, and maybe even some oral presentation stuff would be very helpful.  I guess they could "get by" with less, but why just "get by", especially since you are otherwise trying to sell yourself as being among the best and brightest?

Judging from the tripe I see when reviewing manuscripts, many people with humanities PhDs also could have benefited from learning how to write.

Definitely, if the goal of writing is to communicate as opposed to obfuscate.

If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?

Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?

[mamselle]

Having edited science-y stuff for awhile at one point, I'd say journalistic writing would be most useful for engineers.

It helps you clean out all the dusty adverbs, pare down the parallel phrases: you'd learn to reduce out the common elements, rather like reducing an algebraic equation [i.e.: ax + bx = (a+b)x], use active verbs, reverse out passive constructions to active ones, etc.

Those were the things I was most often correcting in grant submissions and article re-writes (one fellow let me edit while I was typing up his hand-written originals, if I clarified for him what I was doing and why, so he'd learn how to avoid them).

Since clear, brief, accurate communication is at a premium in both pursuits, that would be my thought.

M.

[Ruralguy]

I think probably just a regular composition course, and then maybe a semester of science writing would be fine.
I wouldn't oppose creative writing or Lit for engineers, but in a stuffed curriculum that's going to have stiff competition for gen Ed slots, these slots should probably be fairly focused even if they aren't as "well rounded."

[spork]

[. . .]

If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?

Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?

If we take it as a given that historians are charged with understanding the technological innovations that have altered human history, and that it is good for history curricula to include a course in technologies, what courses are valuable before taking the specialized technological understanding course?

I would say classical mechanics, calculus, principles of electromagnetism, organic and inorganic chemistry, maybe some basic genetics. That should be enough to understand the technology underlying events like the Industrial Revolution, electrification, the Green Revolution, vaccines, microprocessors, etc.

[Wahoo Redux]

I agree that engineers need to write precisely, I just don't think that most general education humanities requires come anywhere close to addressing that required competency. A writing across the curriculum approach might do more to address this need.

I always know when I have an English major or a creative writer in my classes.

One of the biggest problems with describing a "more formal register" or "concision" or "fluency of style" is that a good many students have absolutely no idea what these are in any practical terms.  They don't read.

It would be very hard to be Justin Bieber without having listened to a lot of pop music.

And, maybe you should go learn more about alternative systems of education before you continue to opine in an uninformed fashion on this topic.

Actually I have been doing some Google, JStore, and Ebscohost searches.  I don't really have time right now, but I am trying to learn about this very thing. 

Perhaps you could educate me, professor.  My mind is open.

[Parasaurolophus]

Yeah... I don't doubt engineering students would enjoy the formal aspects of linguistics, but I'm not sure it'd be of much help where their own writing is concerned!

[. . .]

If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?

Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?

If we take it as a given that historians are charged with understanding the technological innovations that have altered human history, and that it is good for history curricula to include a course in technologies, what courses are valuable before taking the specialized technological understanding course?

I would say classical mechanics, calculus, principles of electromagnetism, organic and inorganic chemistry, maybe some basic genetics. That should be enough to understand the technology underlying events like the Industrial Revolution, electrification, the Green Revolution, vaccines, microprocessors, etc.

I may be wrong here, but I think Hibush's point was actually friendly to yours. So I'm not sure your reductio is quite as ad absurdum as you intended!

Also: our resident historians should feel free to correct me, but those courses all seem like they'd be a desirable foundation for someone specializing in the history of science. I suspect you'd find a lot of agreement with historians on that front.

[Wahoo Redux]

what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?

Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?

There is no one answer for this, of course. 

We know that grammar needs to be taught in the context of writing, and linguistics is its own discipline.

Some students will respond to a structural course, some students will respond to creative courses.

Serious creative writers and journalists virtually always understand sentence structure and word usage better than other students.

[spork]

Yeah... I don't doubt engineering students would enjoy the formal aspects of linguistics, but I'm not sure it'd be of much help where their own writing is concerned!

[. . .]

If we take as a given that engineers are charged with writing to communicate clearly, and that it is good for engineering curricula to include a course in engineering writing, what preparatory courses are valuable before taking the specialized writing course?

Specifically, what is the case for having a characteristically humanities course like creative writing or literature? Would they be better of with structural courses like grammar or linguistics?

If we take it as a given that historians are charged with understanding the technological innovations that have altered human history, and that it is good for history curricula to include a course in technologies, what courses are valuable before taking the specialized technological understanding course?

I would say classical mechanics, calculus, principles of electromagnetism, organic and inorganic chemistry, maybe some basic genetics. That should be enough to understand the technology underlying events like the Industrial Revolution, electrification, the Green Revolution, vaccines, microprocessors, etc.

I may be wrong here, but I think Hibush's point was actually friendly to yours. So I'm not sure your reductio is quite as ad absurdum as you intended!

Also: our resident historians should feel free to correct me, but those courses all seem like they'd be a desirable foundation for someone specializing in the history of science. I suspect you'd find a lot of agreement with historians on that front.

I'm not disagreeing with him/her/they/it. But why is the problem always framed as "engineers need to learn X" and not "Xers need to learn engineering"?

I'm in the middle of grading final exams written by U.S. undergraduates. They are not engineering majors. Yet they still are unable to provide written evidence in support of a proposed causal relationship. Many do not even spell or punctuate correctly in English, their native language. They almost certainly are also innumerate. They are in college because they generate net revenue for the institution they attend.

[mleok]

I agree that engineers need to write precisely, I just don't think that most general education humanities requires come anywhere close to addressing that required competency. A writing across the curriculum approach might do more to address this need.

I always know when I have an English major or a creative writer in my classes.

One of the biggest problems with describing a "more formal register" or "concision" or "fluency of style" is that a good many students have absolutely no idea what these are in any practical terms.  They don't read.

It would be very hard to be Justin Bieber without having listened to a lot of pop music.

Do you assign scientific, engineering, and mathematical journal papers in your classes then? If not, how is what you do in class of relevance to the writing needs of STEM majors?