Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucbvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!decvax!ucbvax!citrin From: citrin@ucbvax.UUCP (Wayne Citrin) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Student Loan FLAME Message-ID: <154@ucbvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 8-Apr-84 05:16:28 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.154 Posted: Sun Apr 8 05:16:28 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 9-Apr-84 05:42:51 EST References: <6521@uiucdcs.UUCP>, <1222@ucf-cs.UUCP>, <246@unisoft.UUCP>, <896@hou5d.UUCP> Organization: U.C. Berkeley Lines: 45 >> I really tired (what am I, Marvin??) of ``rounded'' college grads >> that don't know why the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, when >> the Great Depression was, what the Bay of Pigs means, when the >> transistor was invented, who the current leader of the Soviet >> Union/the UK/West Germany/France, or even who our own VP is > Ok. This is one of my pet peeves too. When I was in seventh grade, History > and Geography were replaced by ``social studies''. What a waste! The > only really good s.s. course I took was taught by a guy who taught it > as though it were a history course. This reminds me of those letters that regularly appear in Ann Landers complaining about how the quality of education has deteriorated because students can't name the capital of South Dakota. The issues that the first writer refers to (that certain events mean) are quite a bit deeper than he seems to think. Historians still argue about them and no "traditional" high school history course even addresses the issues beyond the "consensus viewpoint" of most mainstream historians. The best high school history course that I ever took was an American history AP course taught by a 50 year old marxist who wore his hair in a pony tail (not your typical high school teacher) who taught me how to read an historical text critically. I think that this is the mark of the rounded person: not the ability to memorize facts, but the ability to draw well-reasoned conclusions from those facts and to make responsible decisions based on those conclusions. Facts (like when the Great Depression was, when the transistor was invented, and who the leaders of various countries are) can be gotten from books. The ability to analyze history and cultures is much more complex and can be taught in "social studies" courses as well as in history courses. > I wish that history, geography, and political analysis had been humanities/ > social science elsectives in college. The only electives that I had were > in economics (not bad) and philosophy (inevitably taught by someone with > a axe to grind), music (too advanced) and a few good courses taught by the > strangest old bird I ever met in a humanities department. What school did you go to? I'm sure that these courses were offered somewhere. If you chose to study engineering and therefore have your entire course of study mapped out for you, that was your decision and nobody else's. If you wanted to get a liberal education, you could have, just like the many of us who did. By the way, one of my pet peeves is engineering schools with a "humanities" department, as if you could lump all liberal studies into one subject. I much prefer liberal arts colleges with an "engineering" department.