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acroyearNo Undergrad Left Behind - New York Times:
He's commenting on the results of a test on a subject that you can actually graduate from college without actually taking. I wasn't required to take a "civics" or "u.s. history" class in college. I took mine in high school and just happened to have remembered much of it. So commenting on the results of a test on a non-required subject and saying that's a sign that higher education is failing is rather stupid. (I do note he did NOT give the results of the incoming freshman on the same test - rather telling, I think, particularly if the numbers are comparable).
There is no universal standard for what constitutes higher education. Colleges and universities can be accredited or not, but in the end it's not the taxpayer who decides the value of the education from a particular school: it's the student and the employers who look at their degrees and resume in determining their fitness for a position. As such, market forces are far more important.
I can, with my knowledge and experience, easily draft up a syllabus for a history of comic book art that would satisfy a demanding humanities requirement. Comic art, like all art, follows patterns of development and evolution, through trends of abstractionism and realism, with applications far beyond the comic world such as propaganda and advertising art, movie storyboarding, societal views towards women and men, especially women as "babes in bathing suits" has always been the comic norm yet the outfits and characters have changed significantly over the decades. Then there's the analysis of the form itself, with the role of the inker ("face it man, you're a tracer!") in choosing what aspects of the pencil to highlight. Finally there's the character development history which parallels much of literature over the wider span of history, from archetypes to fully fleshed out 3 dimensional characters with flaws they must overcome; Batman in the 1940s is NOT the Batman of today.
The point being that the concepts of art and artistic evolution can be taught using any artistic medium out there, because art is what it is first. One could teach music as art using classical or using rock and still teach HOW to understand music, because the HOW is more important than the subject matter. My mother's architecture appreciation class had a wonderous final lecture. The professor reviewed all of the concepts of architecture he taught over the semester using one medium of architecture only: mailboxes!
The article leaves me the impression that the author wants to reduce college education to a matter of being able to regurgitate facts and figures, dates and names, and turn college into a trade school for professional employment on the other side. He seems to think that the only people who value a college education (or should value it) are the taxpayers who subsidize public colleges and the employers who expect good little workers.
The author has forgotten that the point of college is to learn how to learn, not what they learn. It doesn't matter if they know that the electorial college system means their vote for a president is not a direct democratic vote.
It does matter if they come out of university without the curiosity to find out why once they do learn something about the electorial college, like when Gore lost in 2000. It does matter if they come out of university without the knowledge of how to find out why something is the way it is, be it how to research or how to apply reason and scientific and critical thought.
If someone doesn't know that senators are elected because of the 17th amendment, fine. If someone can't find out that senators are elected because of the 17th amendment when they have a copy of the constitution and amendments in front of them, THEN you can say there's a problem in higher education.
It is time for colleges to develop accurate measures of student achievement, and of the value institutions of higher education provide.This is what you call a strawman, and what I call bullshit.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently released a report from the National Civics Literacy Board, on which I serve, showing what sort of information the public needs and why it is so important that it be available. The study tracked student knowledge of American history and civics at select colleges and universities, with the goal of determining how much students learn in these subjects over four years of college. They measured the change in knowledge by evaluating freshmen and seniors. And the results were appalling: college seniors failed the civic literacy assessment with an average score of 53.2 percent.
This sort of information is important for tuition payers, policy makers and institutional leaders to have when trying to determine the difference a college education can make. Institutions of higher education need to report an academic bottom line.
He's commenting on the results of a test on a subject that you can actually graduate from college without actually taking. I wasn't required to take a "civics" or "u.s. history" class in college. I took mine in high school and just happened to have remembered much of it. So commenting on the results of a test on a non-required subject and saying that's a sign that higher education is failing is rather stupid. (I do note he did NOT give the results of the incoming freshman on the same test - rather telling, I think, particularly if the numbers are comparable).
There is no universal standard for what constitutes higher education. Colleges and universities can be accredited or not, but in the end it's not the taxpayer who decides the value of the education from a particular school: it's the student and the employers who look at their degrees and resume in determining their fitness for a position. As such, market forces are far more important.
Should taxpayer dollars really go to underwrite courses in such things as the history of comic book art? Policy makers and tuition payers need to be made aware of what sorts of courses institutions consider appropriate to fulfill core academic requirements, if anything resembling an academic core even exists.Another bit of sensationalism presented without support and for no reason other than to be disturbing. It also shows a total stereotype view of what comics are like, and a complete lack of knowledge of what they're really like.
I can, with my knowledge and experience, easily draft up a syllabus for a history of comic book art that would satisfy a demanding humanities requirement. Comic art, like all art, follows patterns of development and evolution, through trends of abstractionism and realism, with applications far beyond the comic world such as propaganda and advertising art, movie storyboarding, societal views towards women and men, especially women as "babes in bathing suits" has always been the comic norm yet the outfits and characters have changed significantly over the decades. Then there's the analysis of the form itself, with the role of the inker ("face it man, you're a tracer!") in choosing what aspects of the pencil to highlight. Finally there's the character development history which parallels much of literature over the wider span of history, from archetypes to fully fleshed out 3 dimensional characters with flaws they must overcome; Batman in the 1940s is NOT the Batman of today.
The point being that the concepts of art and artistic evolution can be taught using any artistic medium out there, because art is what it is first. One could teach music as art using classical or using rock and still teach HOW to understand music, because the HOW is more important than the subject matter. My mother's architecture appreciation class had a wonderous final lecture. The professor reviewed all of the concepts of architecture he taught over the semester using one medium of architecture only: mailboxes!
The article leaves me the impression that the author wants to reduce college education to a matter of being able to regurgitate facts and figures, dates and names, and turn college into a trade school for professional employment on the other side. He seems to think that the only people who value a college education (or should value it) are the taxpayers who subsidize public colleges and the employers who expect good little workers.
The author has forgotten that the point of college is to learn how to learn, not what they learn. It doesn't matter if they know that the electorial college system means their vote for a president is not a direct democratic vote.
It does matter if they come out of university without the curiosity to find out why once they do learn something about the electorial college, like when Gore lost in 2000. It does matter if they come out of university without the knowledge of how to find out why something is the way it is, be it how to research or how to apply reason and scientific and critical thought.
If someone doesn't know that senators are elected because of the 17th amendment, fine. If someone can't find out that senators are elected because of the 17th amendment when they have a copy of the constitution and amendments in front of them, THEN you can say there's a problem in higher education.
