A great column that everfy perfson with young kids should read. Read the whole things.
Whenever we have toured a center of learning (and I won’t name them specifically) my wife and I have heard great things about the way our son will mature, will be exposed to opportunities, will ‘develop as a human being.’ (Which I thought was kind of a given, being a human and all.)We’ve been assured that kids who attend those schools make great progress, and become fully actualized, able to impact the world in a diverse, cutting edge, technologically savvy, multi-cultural, sustainable, tolerant and environmentally friendly manner that would be the envy of anyone in the world.I had no idea that college was all of that! You see, silly old person that I am, I thought that our colleges and universities were supposed to help students learn to think clearly, accumulate knowledge and enter useful graduate programs or find meaningful, gainful employment in the world. I didn’t know it was all about ‘development.’...We need to stop marketing college as a four year resort vacation and start having compassion for the kids we send off in the tired old belief that college guarantees a good future.
For some reason, I don't know when and why, college became not about developing the skills necessary to find a good job; it turned into an experience for its own sake. If you are a wealthy trust fund baby, that may be what you want to do before you join the family firm. But for millions of others, college has become a holiday from reality, a waste of money and a broken dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment