College Education

Yesterday, a friend told me that one of my former students had called me the most irresponsible teacher he had ever known, perhaps even the most irresponsible person--but that he thanked God for my irresponsibility because it made my students think. Along another line, he emailed me later in the day, asking what I thought about the purpose of a college education. After emailing my response, I decided to post in on this blog. Whether I am a responsible person, citizen, consumer, or whatever, is an interesting question. To whom are we responsible, for what, and who is to determine these things. Shortly after a new man came on our faculty some years ago, he said to me that propriety was very important to him. My first response was that propriety was not one of my major concerns. Then I got to thinking. Propriety is cognate with appropriate. Most of the time, I say and do that which I think appropriate. That which I think appropriate, right, fitting. Much of the time I believe that socially correctness–propriety–is more concerned with maintaining a simple harmony in the status quo. Much of the time I think the status quo is not anything to quo about. Much of the time I believe that “status quo” is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” [I apologize for not translating the following. The man to whom I was responding is a professional musician, so I used some of his language.] So, it seems to me, it often is time to change the music from a I, V, IV, and back to I harmony, and interject some sevenths, elevenths, seconds, and other seeming dissonances. Some elements of social correctness need to be diminished, others augmented. Sometimes I think the occasion calls for modulation to another key: perhaps minor, Aeolian, Lydian, Dorian, Phrygian, . . .. Maybe pentatonic, blues, or some other kind of gapped scale is more appropriate at times. Propriety is relative to culture, situation, issue, assignment, etc. Responsibility is relative. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." None of this is written as personal defense, nor a rebuttal to any of what my former student told you. Rather, it is a line of thought stimulated by your remarks of yesterday, and part of the ongoing effort to understand myself. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– . . .” Now, as to your question about the purpose of a college education, who is authorized to give the definitive answer? We have many divergent judgments and opinions. Mine follows. The purpose of a college education is: • To learn how to read. (Most of those who come can do it only after a fashion. A college education should be an advanced study of how to read) • To learn how to write. (Most of those who come can do it only after a fashion. A college education should be an advanced study of how to read.) • To learn how to think. (I’m not sure how many of them can do this at all. If so, they don’t often engage in the practice. A college education should be an ongoing provocation to thought.) • To do a lot of the above. • To learn life’s issues, and the highlights of the past and ongoing conversation about these issues. • To give them the requisite vocabulary, categories, and skills, then the encouragement to join the conversation. • To bring them in touch with standards of excellence, to put them in contact with true excellence. • To let them know that all formal education is merely a course of studies called, “Introduction to Life,” thus, the necessity of lifelong learning if they are to live a good life. • To give them models who are passionate and rigorous about all this.