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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 08:01:55 -0500 (EST)
Random Thought: Where Is This Golden Age
So much moaning and groaning. So much complaining. So much
condemnation. So much accusation. So much self-pitying. So much tearing
of clothes. So many ashes covering mortarboards. So much exchange of
academic robes for sackcloth. So many going around in barefeet. Have you
heard them? Have you seen them? It's so rampant and deafening that you'd
think the four horsemen of the apocalypse are stampeding through our
campuses, that our classrooms are battlegrounds wherein clash the biblical
forces of good and evil, that intellectual armageddon is upon the academy,
and that academic world is coming to an end.
I hear and read so often hear these accusations and condemnations
from bear-footed faculty in sackcloth, holding up placards and hurling
warnings that education is going to hell and damning hellish students for
putting poor ole us innocent and struggling academics through hell: "it
isn't what it used to be," "students aren't what they used to be," "they
aren't as serious as they used to be," "they don't want to work hard,"
"all they are interested in is getting a job," "they're so materialistic,"
"all they want is to get a higher salary," "they always have excuses,"
"they don't care about intellectual growth," "they're so apathetic,"
"they don't want to study," "they're so irresponsible," "they don't the
right priorities," "they're so disrespectful," "they're so....."
Let's put everything in a perspective. I have a simple set of
questions. Where and when was this golden age when students were paragons
of intellectual and moral virtue? When was this golden age when getting
job credentials wasn't what it was all about, when getting a grade wasn't
what it was all about, when getting a good recommendation wasn't what it
was all about? When was this golden age students never asked, "Is he
easy" or never looked for the "crib course?" When was golden age when
students never plagiarized or never cut a corner or two or never went to a
fraternity file or never just downright cheated? When was this golden age
when students were always prompt and never skipped class? When was this
golden age when students constantly put their nose to the grindstone and
put grease on their elbows and burnt the midnight oil? When was this
golden age when students never had outside distracting personal problems?
When was this golden age when students were always self-disciplined and
responsible? When was this golden age when students always handed in
their assignments on time? When was this golden age when students never
offered excuses, explanations, or rationalizations. When was this golden
age when grandparents did die on Fridays by the hoard? When was this
golden age when getting an education wasn't about getting professional
position and social status? When was this golden age when students never
really cared if it was going to be on the test, but learned for the pure
sake of learning. When was this golden age when WE faculty didn't
emphasize the vocational or professional character of degrees? When was
this golden age when no one in the academy cared about making a living.
When was this golden age when students had the writing ability of a
Hemmingway, the reasoning powers of an Aristotle, the oratorical talents
of Pericles, and a saintliness of a Thoreau? When was this golden age
when students didn't cram for a test just to pass the test and get a
grade? When was this golden age when students were never disrespectful,
disinterested, distracted, disenchanted, disgusted, and disengaged? When
was this golden age when students had a fearless curiosity? When was this
golden age when students didn't suck up to the professor, offer favors to
the professor, didn't engage in cut-throat competition with each other?
When was this golden age when students preferred cracking a book to
cracking a keg. When was this golden age when students never had financial
burdens, when they never took out loans, and never worked their way
through school. When was this golden age when students left "their
baggage" at the edge of the campus? When was this golden age when
students didn't goof around swallowing goldfish or wearing raccoon coats
or cramming into telephone booths and volkswagons or going on panty raids
or having priorities other than scholarly pursuits? When was this golden
age when students didn't have eating clubs, drinking clubs, fraternities,
and other social communities; when there was no hazing and no riotous
parties and no drunken orgies? When was this golden age when sports were
not an integral--and often distracting--part of college life? When was
this golden age when students went to college out a deep love of learning
and were looking only to live the noble life; when was this golden age
inhabited only by paragons of intellectual virtue who saw higher education
as an exercise in pure, free intellectualization; when was this golden age
when students' most cherished memories, deepest friendships, life-altering
experiences emanated from classroom academics? When was this golden age,
where was this academic heaven on earth, when students were divinely
perfect?
When was this golden age when professors were divinely perfect,
when they were paragons of intellectual and moral virtue, above the quest
for position and prestige and renown and .....?
Tell me, where and when was this golden age?
It must have been long, long, long time ago, before my sixty-one
years on earth, because it wasn't on my watch either as a k-12 schoolboy,
as an undergraduate, as a graduate, or as a faculty member.
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