It seems like nowadays people generally think that everyone should go to college; everyone would be more educated, making America better, and so on and so forth. One of the points that "Professor X" brought up was that sometimes people just aren't college material. One of the incidents that caused him to decide this was the failing grade he had to give to a woman who had to pass some courses in order to get a promotion at her job. After personally trying to help the woman she turned in a paper that was clearly not college level; the woman didn't even know how to use the word processor right, as he describes:
"There was no real thesis. The paper often lapsed into incoherence. Sentences broke off in the middle of a line and resumed on the next one, with the first word inappropriately capitalized. There was some wavering between single- and double-spacing. She did quote articles, but cited only databases—where were the journals themselves? The paper was also too short: a bad job, and such small portions."(X)
The professor argues that in this case the woman needed to pass the class in order to get a promotion; thus suggesting that although jobs may not require college degrees, supervisors may expect some educational experience in this day and age. So what happens to those that simply aren't college material? This article kind of made me feel sorry for the woman, because obviously she is slightly hopeless.
But the author did bring up a good point that I agree with fully; he stated that a knowledge of good literature and poetry not only would help the careers of his students (most of his students are only taking his class because their jobs required them to go back to school, such as police officers, state troopers, social workers, etc), but it would also help them broaden their understanding of the world within their job:
"Reading literature at the college level is a route to spacious thinking, to an acquaintance with certain profound ideas, that is of value to anyone. Will having read Invisible Man make a police officer less likely to indulge in racial profiling? Will a familiarity with Steinbeck make him more sympathetic to the plight of the poor, so that he might understand the lives of those who simply cannot get their taillights fixed? Will it benefit the correctional officer to have read The Autobiography of Malcolm X? The health-care worker Arrowsmith? Should the child-welfare officer read Plath’s “Daddy”? Such one-to-one correspondences probably don’t hold. But although I may be biased, being an English instructor and all, I can’t shake the sense that reading literature is informative and broadening and ultimately good for you. If I should fall ill, I suppose I would rather the hospital billing staff had read The Pickwick Papers, particularly the parts set in debtors’ prison."(X)
Works Cited:
Professor X. "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower." TheAtlantic.com
7 comments:
It seems a little harsh to me that the woman (Mrs. L) was just dismissed as "not college material" simply because she had a few technical difficulties: Once she becomes more familiar with word processors and learns to use the internet to her advantage, I'm sure she could become much more effective at writing and might produce higher quality work.
The point he makes about reading literature is interesting, but many jobs really don't require a familiarity with "profound ideas", and I feel that most people who read literature do not often take ideas that they have encountered and apply them to their everyday life in a practical way. reading good literature can teach you all sorts of ideas, but if you are a car mechanic and you want to get better at your job (/get a better job), you are more likely to pick up a textbook about engineering and mechanics than read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird.
In this sense, I agree that a college education is important, but I don't agree that college-level knowledge of literature or even writing skills will necessarily help you in everyday life.
Very interesting post, Jenna.
I must concur with Alistair in finding Professor X's judgment harsh, and perhaps unfair. One terrible paper, or twelve of them, doesn't necessarily mean that the writer is incapable of learning.
But then, I can imagine that years of teaching students who direly don't want to be taking your course would be demoralizing, too.
But I think Alistair and Jenna are advancing different arguments about how one learns from literature.
Alistair is presenting (in order to refute) a Platonic argument, i.e. that literature doesn't give technical knowledge. If you wanted to know about how to win a war, this argument goes, you would ask a general for advice -- not Homer, no matter how awesome the Iliad is.
But that's not the kind of practical learning that Jenna seems to be suggesting. The model presented by Professor X has more to do with seeing more sides of a picture, or of understanding the world in greater texture. It particularly seems interested in the possibility of cultivating empathy. That's a different kind of learning from learning how to get better at fixing cars, but an important one all the same.
I agree with Natalia and Alistair. I also want to challenge the validity of Professor X's assertion that not everyone is college material. College is a large institute that encompasses many subjects and that the professor only teaches English. He can't really say that the woman is not college material because she can't write-- she may be very good at other fields.
That is not to say everyone should go to college. There's those who wish the learn and those who don't, and college education is far different from compulsory education.
I agree with Professor X's idea that a knowledge of literature will help one by broadening one's perspective, but i disagree with the argument he makes to prove this point. All the examples he gave, such as an officer sympathisizing with a poor man with a broken taillight, prove that a knowledge of literature would impede one's job performance. It is not the officer's duty to be guided by emotion, it is his responsibilty to carry out the law. What professor X should demand here is the reform of the system as a whole, in which case his argument doesn not hold. Literature would not be "Ultimately good" if cops stopped gicing people tickets soely because they were poor.
"College material"? In a way, I believe Professor X is right, but probably not in the same sense. I believe that some people are not college material because they are unwilling to make the effort to succeed in college.
In my opinion, anyone can be deemed college material, but it is up to the individual whether or not to become college material.
Reading in high school made books look like another chore rather than entertainment. I can remember back in the middle school days where I would read science fiction books and enjoy a large amount of mystery books. Unfortunately, I began to lose time to read books for leisure and the books I read for high school just became a hassle.
Hopefully, I can gain back my penchant for reading (as I did for little while over this past summer). Moreover, I also hope for more people to take on the title of "college material" and enjoy the learning.
I agree partially with his point about reading literature. Literature would help you take a look at life in a different way but may not necessarily help you with your job. Like Alistair said, someone who would like to get a better job as a car mechanic would more likely read a book on engineering and mechanics; those books are much more useful (to them) than some book that might teach, for example, philosophy.
I do agree that society wants everyone to go to college because education is good, but in reality, many people go to college not because they have a thirst for higher education but because their job demands them to do so. The world, nowadays, is so competitive that if a person who didn't receive a college education would probably not succeed ($$). But society sometimes covers up this "real reason" for education with their reason that sending people to college is a "noble initiative".
I would just like to mention that people in many professions devote their life to their jobs. The general consensus seems to be that reading a book wont get a mechanic a better job or make a police officer more effective at enforcing the law. I would argue that, in fact, it would make them better at their jobs by distancing them from their jobs.
There are people that get so wrapped up in their work that they begin to lose touch with the big picture and make unnecessary mistakes. Their job becomes their life; that doesn't mean they become better at their job. It means that they would do whatever is necessary to get the job done, whether it be beneficial or detrimental to others becomes unimportant. It becomes a quest for personal fulfillment, not the service itself. One example is Professor X's police officer-- the world has seen many police officers mess up and detectives ruin investigations.
I would argue that a broader perspective, something acquired from literature, is a very important part of everyone's job, to save them from becoming too attached, and creating a little distance between their personal lives and their professional ones, leaving room for rational thought and the consideration of others.
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