Wednesday, August 20, 2008

A damning critique of the Ivy League...

...from a man who taught there for a decade. It's a bit of a long read, but well worth it; more or less, it can be summed up as this; institutions set up around the liberal arts and real learning are now, sadly, degraded to institutions whose graduates are only fit to "be elite," incapable of learning the language that a plumber speaks.

Of course, one of the key points of the grammar stage of education is to be able to learn basics such as these.

3 comments:

Orianna Laun said...

They talk about someone being book smart and street stupid. I guess most ivy leaguers were absent the day in kindergarten when they learned how to deal with other people. It all comes down to interpersonal skills which have been traded in for a six-digit salary.

Gino said...

i think it is no accident that ronald reagan, an intellect and visonary, did NOT have an ivy league education.

but, its when i see things like the SCOTUS kelo decision, or the recent 5-4 2nd ammendment ruling, where plain reading of the english language is tossed like rubbish, i see that an ivy league education, in its reality, isnt worth very much.

Bike Bubba said...

Not a new phenomenon, though. Those who have read "War and Peace" (guilty, yes, it's worth the time!) know that when Napoleon invaded Russia, thousands of Russian noblemen took crash courses in a language they'd never learned.

Russian. No kidding.

Yes, it's a tragedy when "education" serves to obscure the basics.