In the News – Web Pages of Note

A recent walk around the web reveals some very interesting web pages/articles related to the world of education.

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
One of the more interesting reads is William Deresiewicz’s “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” at AmericanScholar.org. Once an English professor at Yale, Deresiewicz is brutal in noting the many shortcomings of such an education.

Subtitled “Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make
minds, not careers,” the one time professor hammers home one of the fundamental realities of an Ivy League education. In our country, a parent’s income becomes a key component of the higher education process.

As we noted in our study of the Finnish school system, in America, a parents’ social class is a significant predictor of a student’s participation in higher education. While some very bright children escape their social and economic situations, the fact is that higher education in America today tends to perpetuate the socioeconomic stratification that currently exists.

Deresiewicz writes, “It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League dees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.”

In yet another segment, the former professor writes: “I also never learned that there are smart people who aren’t ‘smart.’ The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others. One naturally prizes what one most possesses and what most makes for one’s advantages. But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite. The “best” are the brightest only in one narrow sense.”

He concludes with one last punch: “The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have.”

The Myth of Multitasking
For another must read for educators, head on over to The New Atlantis for “The Myth of Multitasking” by Christine Rosen. All of a sudden, this one-time wondrous skill is being rethought.

Rosen begins with the words of Lord Chesterfield in 1740 as he offered some advice to his son.

“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.”

Rosen goes on to note that for Lord Chesterfield a “singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence.”

She refers again to the words of Chesterfield: “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”

Rosen goes on to note a number of studies including one funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London. The study found that “workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.”

She also notes the recent texts of Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist, entitled CrazyBusy, and that of the best-selling business advice author Timothy Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek.

Citing recent Kaiser Family Foundation that reveals 26 percent of media time is now spent multitasking, Rosen wonders aloud about the impact that such multitasking may mean for today’s children and teens.

Interactive Sites
Not that we are proponents of wasting time on the web, but yet another web page worth checking out is over at WebUpon.com. There R.J. Evans offers an interesting list of interactive websites.

In “Wow! 10 Awesome Interactive Websites” Evans notes that “Interactivity is the name of the game at the moment.” With that as his key criteria he offers his 10 websites that are “a combination of the fun, the weird, the educational or the simply bewildering.”

R.J.’s list in order: Alien Empire, The Universcale, Make a Flake, The Mini-Mizer, Interactive Radio, Neave Television, Kaleidoscope, Neon Bible, Mr. Picasso Head, Autopsy.

We must admit we had a ball with the Interactive Radio site which R.J. summarizes as such:

“This is music to match your every mood and takes the shape of an astounding interactive radio station. You can choose the genre, the mood of the music and the era from which it should come. The website will then give you a very specific selection of the type of song that you have requested. So, whether you are looking for swinging tunes from the fifties, brooding jazz from the sixties, pop from the seventies straight up to contemporary music, this is the site for you!”

In fairness to R.J. and his work we provide a single link to his web page should readers be interested in taking a peek at his other nine suggestions.

Useless College Majors
Yet another stop for readers is over at HolyTaco.com. In early June, the site posted its list of “The 10 Most Worthless College Majors.” Holy Taco begins with Art History at number ten, then progresses through Philosophy, American Studies, Music Therapy, and Communications. For his top five, Taco begins with Dance and progresses to English Lit, Latin, Film, and Religion.

Each major is followed by Taco’s two explanations, “Why this major won’t help a student get a job” as well as “What job the student will end up with.” IIf you are offended by off color language you may want to skip the piece, but with 535 comments at last check we know it certainly got the attention of a number of readers. Surprisingly, there were not as many outraged writers as one might expect but then we wonder how many parents had a peek at the list.

While we honestly cannot support the tongue-in-cheek rationales listed, we did find the page extremely thought-provoking. We could not help but wonder what some real hard research would produce for a list as well as how many of HolyTaco’s suggestions would in fact appear on such a list.