Re: on education

Melissa Hohauser-Thatcher (hohauser@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU)
Wed, 02 Dec 1998 00:10:43 +0000

Please bear with me, I'm not quite sure how to reply correctly - if I 
do it incorrectly, please let me know how to do it right:)
I'm replying to Will's diatribe on education on Monday.

It sounds to me like a severe case of Professorial disillusionment 
speaking, not some critical look at why we choose to teach or even 
what happens when we finally reach that goal.  The reasons people have 
for getting an education have changed incredibly over the last thirty 
years.  The idealism and bright eyed youthfulness of the baby boomers 
in the 1960's turned into their eventual sell out in the 1980's.  
These 40 something people look back at the past 30 years with some 
kind of sick yearning for what they perceive as the last great period 
of time in Western Civilization.  When the people who got an education 
did it for all of the right reasons - to become wise and knowledgable, 
of course never thinking that those same degrees in English Literature 
and Humanities would get them swishy jobs in Reagan's corporate utopia 
in the 80's.  And even the ones that managed to stick to their ideals 
and use their education as a means to "do good" sit in their offices 
high up in the ivory tower of the academe and bemoan what their own 
selfishness and self serving attitudes have done to the generation 
they now have to deal with in the hallways and classrooms of their 
educational facilities.  You made the bed - your generation raised us 
on pop culture and quick fixes, divorces and second and third and 
fourth step parents and half siblings - geez, some half baked Marxist 
might look back at the past couple of decades and make a quick guess 
why students react and act in the ways that they do today - distrust, 
no sense of security, disillusionment at 18 instead of 45.  I'm sick 
to death of hearing mid-life ramblings by these people who can't 
reconcile their dreams with their realities.  No one under the age of 
33 that I know goes into the profession of teaching for ridiculous 
self serving notions like "oh my students are going to hang on my 
every word - I am so intelligent - my intellectuality will have them 
bowing at my feet"  nor do the young professors I know have any 
notions about the motivating factors behind why most students get an 
education - you only had to experience the 80's to figure that out - 
money good, no money bad.  A simple trip through time without your 
rose colored glasses might serve you well, Will.
Melissa