By Robert Field
Perhaps you have read the articles on the chase by parents that begins in New York City and elsewhere for placement of children in a prestigious pre-school program as the first step in getting into a good school, college, post graduate and job! Yet this is a perceived as a necessity by todays upward bound millennials.
In the ‘50s and ‘60s students were encouraged to take courses aside from areas of main talents to broaden their knowledge, regardless of the marks earned. Today this is considered fool hearty, even anathema.
Now students pre-screen courses and teachers to achieve the highest possible grade point average throughout their undergraduate work, and even on the graduate level so that they will be offered a better job. The result is they know a lot about something but very little about much else. They aren’t educated; they are programmed!
And it is so wasteful of educational opportunities and counter productive for an informed society.
If an elder person suggests such a criticism, younger generations will respond: “You just don’t understand our times.”
Things were radically different some sixty years ago. We were encouraged to experiment outside our areas of skills during our first couple of years in college. No one gave it a second thought about receiving a ‘B’ or a ‘C’ in a subject well outside what later would be our major. Taking such courses was treated by the school and others as a sign of intellectual curiosity and part of a well rounded education.
Liberal Arts upper class student were required to have a certain number of hours in their major and corollary subjects. What other courses were taken was strictly up to us. If curious about Greek Mythology or advanced Physics, we were encouraged to go for it. You would be admired for your intellectual curiosity and academic courage.
Even students seeking a Bachelor of Science degree were given some time to take Liberal Arts classes.
Graduate school admission was largely based on what had been achieved in courses preparing for that field of interest and how the applicant performed on the graduate school aptitude exams. That was what counted!
Today our students and our society are being shortchanged by the stress on grades. We are producing a society of artisans, rather than well educated individuals. This hardly produces a well informed citizenry and leadership class, and may ultimately lead to tragedy.
