"Decline and Fall of the English Major" and Other Thoughts on the State of the Humanities

"Decline and Fall of the English Major" and Other Thoughts on the State of the Humanities

It seems as though an entire cottage industry has emerged to promote, prevent, or simply observe the imminent demise of the humanities.  One of the latest contributions is a Sunday Observer column in the New York Times entitled " The Decline and Fall of the English Major " by Verlyn Klinkenborg.  The author is a college teacher who offers the familiar professorial laments about the skill level of his students.  (One wonders, has any generation of professors ever not believed that students were becoming less diligent, more sloppy, and harder to reach than when they first started teaching?  If so, they don't write nearly as much about the subject as do those who believe in the inexorable slide of academic standards.)  The most recent evidence of the decay of the humanities in academia is the rapidly falling percentage of college graduates with majors in these fields.  "In 1991," he notes, "165 students graduated from Yale with a B.A. in English literature. By 2012, that number was 62. In 1991, the top two majors at Yale were history and English. In 2013, they were economics and political science."  The desire for the more immediate "applicability" (and thus, economic reward) of students' degrees is often cited as one of the key motivators of this change, especially in our current financial climate.

Despite his pessimism, Klinkenborg does offer a persuasive argument for the benefits of an education in the humanities.

"What many undergraduates do not know — and what so many of their professors have been unable to tell them — is how valuable the most fundamental gift of the humanities will turn out to be. That gift is clear thinking, clear writing and a lifelong engagement with literature. 

"... Whenever I teach older students, whether they’re undergraduates, graduate students or junior faculty, I find a vivid, pressing sense of how much they need the skill they didn’t acquire earlier in life. They don’t call that skill the humanities. They don’t call it literature. They call it writing — the ability to distribute their thinking in the kinds of sentences that have a merit, even a literary merit, of their own.  

"Writing well ... is about developing a rational grace and energy in your conversation with the world around you.  No one has found a way to put a dollar sign on this kind of literacy, and I doubt anyone ever will. But everyone who possesses it — no matter how or when it was acquired — knows that it is a rare and precious inheritance."

 Also worth reading along these lines are the report of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on the state of the humanities in higher ed, and recent NYT articles by David Brooks and Stanley Fish.

Advent of Google Means We Must Rethink Our Approach to Education

The educational Twitter-sphere was buzzing this week with this intriguing and intentionally provocative article from Britain's The Guardian, entitled "Advent of Google Means We Must Rethink Our Approach to Education."  As the article states, "Sugata Mitra is professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, and the winner of the $1m TED Prize 2013. He devised the Hole in the Wall experiment, where a computer was embedded in a wall in a slum in Delhi for children to use freely. He aimed to prove young people could be taught computers easily without formal training."

This brief resume - along with the article's title - reveals Mitra's interest in provoking a reevaluation of what we teach to students and how that teaching takes place.  While he is, like any good provocateur, sometimes more intent on generating a reaction than on fully explaining and supporting each of his points in depth, the fundamental questions that he poses in this article are undeniably valid.  In a world where information is immediately accessible, shouldn't we reconsider the overwhelming emphasis that the educational system has traditionally placed on the rote memorization of facts?  And, at a time when collaboration (face-to-face and virtual) is one of the defining elements of success beyond school walls, why are we obsessed with the need to prevent students from collaborating on the work they do at school?

 The answer, of course, is that we must take account of these changes in the world we are preparing our students to live in as we make decisions about what and how we teach them.  At Friends School we have adopted the Teaching and Learning Paradigm as a guide for decisions such as these.  Because the world continues to evolve with sometimes dizzying speed, we recognize that this paradigm will also need to be a work in progress.  But even the process of revising the objectives we hold for our students' skills, knowledge, and habits of mind is a powerfully reflective exercise that will keep our eyes focused on the kinds of rethinking that Dr. Mitra calls for in this article.

Enjoy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jun/15/schools-teaching-curriculum-education-google  
 

Comments to Friends School Employees - June 13, 2013

Comments to Our Gathered Employees - June 13, 2013

“We’re building something … and all the pieces matter.”

What Is It that We’re Building?

My guiding metaphor in considering this question is hardly original, but nonetheless seems appropriate to me.  We are, I believe, building a home, a structure, a sanctuary for the kind of experience that we are uniquely equipped to offer to our students, and through them, to the wider world.  And when has the world needed it more than it does right now?

We are not, of course, the original owners of this home.  We have inherited it from a long line of ancestors who, each in their own way, have stewarded, maintained, and expanded on the original foundation that goes back to 1784. 

The walls of this house provide the necessary shelter for the “guarded education” that we seek to offer.  As our culture moves forward, sadly, it seems to become ever coarser, ever less civil, and ever more insistently focused on the self and the here and now.  In the face of these changes, our value as a refuge from the worst of them grows.  The winds that are whipped up by the forces at work in our society buffet this house, requiring that we constantly shore it up and strengthen it so that it will survive and thrive in even the most inhospitable weather.  And new developments in the world beyond these walls call for us to modernize this house and add the necessary additions to keep pace with these developments.

As anyone who has ever owned an older home knows, it is not always easy to balance the appreciation for the past with the exigencies of living in the present and the need to prepare for the future.  And this is the dilemma we as a school find ourselves so often on the horns of.  We’ve all heard the expression, “of those to whom much is given, much is expected.”  Well, much has been given to us, whether we realized it or not when we initially signed on at this school.  We are all the recipients of a rich and long-lived legacy.  We are part of an institution that has been working to make the world a better place for 229 years.  Our predecessors were hard at it while George Washington was still 5 years away from being inaugurated as the first president of the United States.  And like many gifts, this legacy is both a boon and a burden.  We take pride in a lineage of extraordinary education, but we cannot, and ultimately would not want to, escape the concurrent responsibility of carrying that legacy forward and impacting our students and our community as those predecessors did before us. 

And we’ve been given as well the gift of a future of vast and far-reaching possibilities.  During the past five years, we’ve seen other schools ravaged by the twin storms of an anemic economy and unfavorable demographics.  In the absence of the capital, both financial and emotional, that those who came before us at Friends built up, many schools have been scattered to the wind, deprived of any future at all and of the possibility of affecting change in the world. 

What does it require of us?

We inherited a legacy of excellence that follows us unrelentingly, and we know that the excellence that has preceded us at Friends did not come about as the result of complacency and standing still.  That spirit, that legacy is why we push ourselves so hard to constantly grow and progress.  We work so hard at continually improving because we believe in our motto, that the world needs what our children can do.  And we are driven just as fiercely by the desire to live up to that ambitious statement and all its implications as by the legacy of those who came before us. 

This legacy, if it is to be maintained, demands vigilance and vigor.  We must shore up and steward that legacy while also boldly moving into the future.

Part of what this task requires is that we hold onto an accurate understanding of our school.  So many positive attributes accompany the rootedness that characterizes Friends.  The institutional memory, the deep personal investment, the unusual sense of continuity that comes with the lengthy tenure of so many of us here are absolutely invaluable.  But it would be wrong for us to be blind to the potential downsides of this same quality.  Chief among these, in my opinion, is the inevitable loss of perspective and appreciation for the very uniqueness of Friends that comes with time.  We see this routinely in our students.  Those who have been with us since their earliest memory often come to take for granted the environment that they have so long inhabited.  They can hardly be blamed for doing so, as they have a limited frame of reference beyond our campus.  But we adults are not immune to this phenomenon.  I’m finishing my 8^th year here and was fortunate enough to teach for 10 years at another Friends School prior to that time.  It is perhaps not terribly surprising, therefore, that I catch myself falling prey to the assumption that ours is a school much like the other long-established independent schools that surround us.  We are not, of course, and I forget this fact at my own peril.

What cures me most effectively of this illusion is my involvement in the hiring process.  As I speak with the candidates who come to campus, several themes emerge each year.  One of the most consistent is the observation that there is a palpable, though not easily articulated, difference in the atmosphere here at Friends.  I also hear frequently how amazed prospective employees are by the level of cooperation, collaboration, and genuine friendship they see among our faculty and staff.  It is no accident that virtually every candidate who was offered a position at Friends this year accepted that offer – this is, quite simply, a uniquely fantastic place to be.  Its desirability has many sources – first and foremost, all of you.  Recognizing that they will spend the majority of their waking hours at work, candidates want to be surrounded by interesting, engaged, and dedicated colleagues.  They want to be in a place where they receive the qualities that the author Daniel Pink has identified as the essential components of satisfaction - 1. Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives. 2. Mastery — the urge to get better and better at something that matters. 3. Purpose — the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.  We are blessed with each of these qualities in abundance, and people know it.

In short, I believe that there is a profound desire in all of us to go beyond the ordinary, and, if there is one thing I am certain of about Friends, it is that this is no ordinary school.

When I am in Meeting for Worship – whether with seniors and their families as we were last Sunday or with younger students and their families the week before – and I hear the members of our community speak of their gratitude for all the ways in which Friends has so powerfully affected their lives, it occurs to me that this is no ordinary school.

When I listen to our teachers talk about the ways in which they have reimagined their practice as educators time and again during their careers and are eagerly looking forward to continuing to do so for as long as they teach, I realize anew that this is no ordinary school.

When I speak with the professionals who receive our 12^th graders for our senior projects and I hear from them over and over again how astonished they are at the poise and self-possession, the diligence and responsibility of Friends School students, I’m reminded that this is no ordinary school.

When I go to concerts and productions by MS students – a group not universally known for their composure and general body control - that truly rival the quality of some professional performances I’ve attended, I am acutely aware that this is no ordinary school.

When I hear about some of our youngest students working collaboratively to raise thousands of dollars to help provide the people of South Sudan with clean water, I am affirmed in the knowledge that this is no ordinary school.

When I talk with coaches, players, and parents from other schools and they tell me that Friends School is well known for the sportsmanship and positivity of their athletic teams, I’m reminded once again that this is no ordinary school.

When a parent who has worked with students from all the local public and private schools in the area through the Peabody music program tells me that she always knew which kids went to Friends because they were the ones who were most comfortable in their own skin, I realize anew that this is no ordinary school.

When I hear the mother of one of our LS students talk about the fact that the hardest part of their family’s move will be that they cannot possibly recreate the experience they’ve had at Friends in their new setting, what she is really saying is that this is no ordinary school.

When I visit with alumni or meet them at reunion and hear them say, more times than I can possibly remember, that Friends School was indisputably the highlight of their educational experience, and when I stop to remind myself that many of these folks have attained the highest honors in their professions and attended the most distinguished universities and graduate schools in the country, I am humbled by the fact that this is no ordinary school.  

When I attend our phenomenal all-school art show and can’t decide which is most impressive – the astonishing quality of the student artwork, the brilliant performance of the Acoustic Music Club or the genuine respect and appreciation that the students there show for their peers’ artistic works, I remember that this is no ordinary school.

When I hear a student say that when she arrived at Friends she spent the first few weeks wondering why everyone was being so nice and waiting for them to go back to acting normally, only to find out that this WAS normal here, it is brought home to me that this is no ordinary school.

When I sit on stage at graduation as I did just two nights ago and hear three speakers whose words so powerfully bring to life the promise of a Friends education and so vividly illustrate the impact that all of us are having on the lives of our students and their families, I cannot escape the realization that this is no ordinary school.

The house we are all building and maintaining exists in order to provide this extraordinary education and through it to prepare our students to do the work the world will need from them.  It is a constantly-challenging, but deeply rewarding task, and I’m grateful to be partnered with all of you in doing it.