In general, the topics covered are those beloved of the Academic Left: multiculturalism, racism, immigration, environmental issues, animal rights, food production and green politics, along with the Islamic world, women and poverty. Nearly one-third of the books had an African, African-American, Latino or East Asian theme, while only 1.7 percent had a European theme.
This was exactly what happened to me in late August. And I dropped my daughter off at the oldest Catholic university in the U.S.
During the Sunday morning Mass, prayer was requested for the courage to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It was the first time I felt like standing up and booing at a Mass.
Oh, and the summer reading was a book about fundamentalist Islam.
Those Jesuits certainly know how to run a school.
Kids, did you need any more proof that “summer reading” in college is a joke?
There isn’t a business in the country that will be able to hire these ‘intellectuals’ after 4 or 5 or 6 years of ‘studies’.
But don’t worry, parents! Just keep sending your kids to these indoctrination camps that call themselves colleges.
Don’t even think about how much it costs and what you really get for what you really sweated for.
Besides...YOUR kid’s college, like his public school, is “different.” YOUR kid is not impressionable or likely to fall under the influence of bad teachers or bad companions. And maybe YOUR kid needs a sheepskin on the wall to prove his worth and make his way in the world.
So go ahead. Never mind whose skin will be on that wall, but it might be your grandchildren’s. Or yours!
Baaa-a-a-a!
That’s nothing compared to the crap I had to read at UW-Madison. “One World” by Peter Singer (lets kill humanity), “Night Draws Near” (A story about Iraqis being killed wholesalely by American soldiers), “Race Class and Gender in American Media” (Saying that the LIBERAL media is racist and sexist), arguments about how Howard Dean and Barack Obama were/are too far to the right , ect.
Thanks!
Actually, this is good news. Please let me explain.
I’m a high school English teacher. A lot of the crap portrayed as literature isn’t allowed into my classroom, but that’s not the topic of discussion. Here’s what I’ve found with actual students in a real classroom.
The more strident and ideological the teacher and materials, the more disinterested and cynical the student. Once a student understands that all he or she has to do to pass is vomit back the teacher’s prevailing bias, the student has learned an important lesson: the elites are full of bulls**t.
The same thing happened in the old Soviet Union, where students had to mouth Marxist platitudes in order to pass their classes. They become professionals at mindless writing which reflected the accepted ideology of their leaders. In the end, even the teachers knew it was a mirage.
Among my smartest students, the leftist platitudes about race, diversity, gender and political outlook are the source of smirking disrespect. If I had to put a label on it, I’d describe most of my students as libertarians, with a fairly strong representation of social conservatives. Outspoken leftist attitudes remain in the realm of the teachers, where such thinking is considered by students to be a sign that their classroom leader is an old hippie.
Here’s another good sign. Right now I’m taking an online degree program for my master’s degree. The college is located in Chicago. Students are scattered around the country. I’m in Alaska. There’s not a lot of liberal garbage, either - by my choice. I could have gone to the University of Alaska to get the same degree, but they wanted five times as much money and filled their curriculum with leftist ideals. Someone smarter put together an online program which gave me what I wanted, and with far less cost and headache.
There will come a day, soon, when major academic institutions will be in the same boat as the major television networks - that is to say, they’ll be anachronistic institutions that no one cares about and no one uses. Specialty schools, online or with local branches, will replace the large colleges and universities, as people grab the education they need quickly and effectively and then get to work.
By the way, I warn students about the narrowness of thinking at college or university, too. I also have the seniors read Solzhenitsyn in case they didn’t get the message the first time.
Just my two cents.
The majority of students go to STATE colleges and universities, which are, by definition, socialist institutions.
What you see, is what you get.
College trends ping
I would never send my kid to a modern liberal arts college. I would, however, encourage them to enroll in a trade school and learn something usable. Private, Christian schools are good, acceptable alternatives to L/A colleges.
What are these college reading lists? When I went to college, there wasn’t any such animal.
You did get a list of books to buy for each course, but that was it.
So what would happen if the college-bound kids simply threw the list into the trash?
FYI, ping, as many of you are looking at college.
I’d love to go to college now, at my age. I’d mess with every leftist professor I could, stand up in class and challenge them, and say out loud that I wasn’t going to pay to listen to their BS. Of course at my age, I also wouldn’t give a damn about grades, which would help.
The Great Gatsby is not a great book. It drives me crazy when conservatives cite it as such.