Archive for the ‘Enlightenment’ tag
The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment II
This spring’s Chronicle of Higher Education piece The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment has more to consider (Note: link to earlier post here). Of particular interest are the practical steps which Tim takes to address quintessential Americans in the classroom. Any students or faculty have reactions to the proposed shift in learning objectives and new classroom style? Read the rest of this entry »
The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment
As the fall term winds down, have any students enabled you to cling to The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment? Here’s what Tim Clydesdale, an associate professor of sociology at the College of New Jersey and author of The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School (University of Chicago Press, 2007), writes on the topic:
“Most of the mainstream American teens I spoke with neither liberated themselves intellectually nor broadened themselves socially during their first year out.” … “What teens actually focus on during the first year out is this: daily life management.” . . . “Only a handful of students on each campus find a liberal-arts education to be deeply meaningful and important and most of those end up becoming college professors themselves. . . . And so the liberal-arts paradigm perpetuates itself, while remaining out of sync with the vast majority of college students.” Read the rest of this entry »
