Keeping us Humane

It’s a quiet day in the classroom. The children are indifferent to the lesson. Some have heard similar concepts earlier in their academic careers and some have not. Nevertheless, it’s impossible for me to go forward with the course guidelines unless I first establish a baseline from which to proceed. I continue.

“In the English language, or Standard English as written, what two things must a sentence contain to be considered complete.”

There is a long pause, actually a few seconds, it just feels long with twenty-five fresh, young faces imploring you to help them as if they were drowning puppies. Finally, one hand rises tentatively, is withdrawn, and rises again.

            “Yes, Rachel?”

            “Would that be a period and a capital letter?”

            “Great guess,” I respond. “What year did you get out of the first grade?”

If my response to Rachel’s response seems a bit caustic, it’s probably because I’ve been doing this for years and each year things get worse. Oh, did I forget to mention that these are college freshmen and the year is 2016. I don’t teach at an Ivy League school, or even an Honors college anymore, but even so I might be justified in expecting an answer something like “subject and verb” or “subject and predicate” or any damn thing similar. Sadly, I receive these kinds of comments frequently from young adults recently graduated from high school. “Do you know where Montreal is?” “I think it might be a country somewhere close to Canada.” “When was the Civil War fought?” “1955, and thank you for your service in that war Mr. McGarrah.” “Has anyone heard of T.S. Eliot?” “Yeah, he plays bass in Johnny Cash’s band.” Every one of these examples is an accurate call and response from one of my classes at some point in the last ten years, not some hyperbolic fantasy from a hysterical liberal. And, these are only a few.

My friend Gary sent me a tee shirt that reads Ever Feel Like You’re One Dumb Ass Away from Losing It? He sent it to me for a reason. He understands the world people our age live in. Are students really becoming more stupid? The answer is unequivocally—NO. They are being taught less, intellectually challenged less, and not critically challenged at all. Less is required and less is expected. We blame it on technology. We blame it on attention deficit disorder, power lines, vaccinations, GMO’s, sugar, single-parent families, music, or liberals. But, the bottom line is not so complex. Less is required. Here are examples from the test public education students in the eighth grade needed to pass before entering high school in Salina, Kansas, during the 1895 school year:

1. Give the nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.

2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.

3. Define: Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.

4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give the Principal Parts of do, lie, lay, run

5. Define Case. Illustrate each case.

6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.

7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand        the practical use of the rules of grammar.

These questions are from the English section of the test. Literature, Creative Writing, Critical thinking, and Composition, are all subjects I teach for the English department at the university level. If I gave this test to incoming college freshmen tomorrow, many, if not all, would fail. You may argue, and some do, that this knowledge is no longer relevant. I would reply that, given the state of the world, communication is very relevant and greatly needed.

Would you eat an expensive gourmet meal with forks, knives, and plates? You know, just dump all the crap together in a big pile and stuff it in your mouth without regard to taste, or manners, or the clarity of the ingredients. If you were a hog and not a human, yes. Otherwise, no. Why don’t exquisite and important ideas deserve the same respect as a good meal? Organize, structure, clarify, and unify are all jobs of grammar. Like eating utensils, they may not be the most important part of a meal, but they certainly enhance it.

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.

2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.

3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.

5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.

7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn and Howe?

8. Name the events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849  and 1865.

The basic idea behind a representative form of government, a democracy, is the concept of an educated citizenry. The questions above stem from the History section of that same 1895 eighth grade test in Salina, Kansas. I have never met a college freshman in the 21^st Century that could answer them. Here’s another example of how dumb we’ve become from a recent blog article by Gary Bentley. “In 2011, Newsweek asked 1,000 Americans to take the standard U.S. Citizenship test, and 38 percent of them failed. One in three couldn’t name the vice-president.”        

Our democracy is currently broken. How can it be repaired any more than any other engine if the mechanics have no idea how it was built and how it operates? I won’t bore you with the other sections from this test. I sure as hell couldn’t pass the math section myself, and I have two post-graduate degrees. But, it does raise another question for me personally. Who wants the American people so dumbed down? Sadly, the answer may be the American people, and thanks to the Supreme Court, that includes corporations now, especially corporations.

The vast majority of us will spend our lives as part of a gigantic work force. Call us worker bees, drones, whatever you want, that is the reality. We will punch a time clock and fill some kind of quota. Some will be paid better than others. Some will be happier than others doing their jobs, but the work will still be a job. We get up, commute, function as automatons for eight or nine hours, commute home, watch TV, eat dinner, sleep, and start the same process over the next day, five days a week for three or four decades. If we’re lucky, we’ll live long enough to enjoy a small pension unless the people we work for have stolen it. A gifted and lucky few get to have careers, something better than a job because they actually like doing what they do to earn a living. This struggle to find a life in the midst of banality has taken a tangible form called materialism. We equate happiness with earning power and in so doing, demand education be geared to achieve that end and only that end. Employers appreciate this attitude because the result is a compliant workforce that neither questions nor demands.

This leaves a traditional university education and the universities that provide it scuffling with technical colleges and trade schools, attempting to fulfill a mission they were not designed to bother with in the 17^th, 18^th,19^th,  and much of the 20^th centuries. University administrators must convince prospective students and their parents that attending the classes available translates into earning power. A university education is more expensive now than it ever has been and more than it should be, not because the faculty is well paid, but rather because business oriented bureaucrats are overpaid, along with coaches. I once taught at a university where the president had four vice-presidents doing the president’s job, and the vice presidents each had at least one assistant vice-president. All of these administrators were paid six-figure salaries while the starting pay for faculty members with doctorates hovered around 35,000 dollars.

New buildings get built to enhance the appearance of the campus and make college living seem like a vacation environment. Textbooks—way overpriced to begin with—usually last only one or two semesters. The textbook companies then provide a new edition, which is the same as the old with some minor changes and a higher cost, and the student must buy into the monopoly to take the class.

Like a lot of products in our capitalistic society, the cost has risen far above the ability of working Americans to pay. For students and their parents, this process is like the old company store cycle created by mining companies in the early twentieth century. The difference being that higher education is still a matter of choice. In order for people to borrow tens of thousands of dollars, make this sacrifice, and accept this paradigm, they must believe the end result will be access to a high paying job, not simply the ability to think critically, communicate, converse, show compassion, learn respect for intelligence, and accept the responsibility for self-governance. Sadly, these concepts of self-betterment have always been the objectives of an undergraduate university education since the model was invented by ancient Greece. Universities must offer tangible material results now if they are to stay in business. People must feel that their children can leave a four-year college with a trade, or access to one. Parents send their kids to school as clients, or customers, not students. They want a usable product in return.

This new direction begins in the lower grades, especially in high schools. States are moving away from reading literature in high school. The go to assignments these days come from technical catalogues. Who needs Shakespeare, George Orwell, Virginia Woolfe, Langston Hughes, or Jonathan Swift in order to punch a time clock? Why study philosophy when tests are standardized and require no critical thought or logical ability? No one needs to look at a Picasso or Rembrandt to spray paint a car fender on an assembly line, or push a button so a robot does it.

I’m not making an argument here that work of this nature is unimportant. It’s vital to any thriving economy if it is to remain a surviving economy. The point is more nuanced. I’m saying that a liberal arts education elevates the humans who do this kind and every other kind of work. Education in the humanities makes people better humans because they think and are willing to evolve intellectually and emotionally. This does not necessarily follow that it makes them better workers. In many cases, the opposite is true. That’s the problem for the employing elite in this country. Educated people ask too many questions, can provide historical and ethical references for raises and better working conditions, realize that a job is not a life, and they are able to prioritize rather than blindly follow. What I’m saying and what I believe has more to do with the creation of possibilities for bettering the conditions of all rather than increasing the wealth of a few.

“Dumbing Down” is a clichéd term now. Unfortunately, it has become an expectation almost positive in its application. When the leaders of our government appoint people who believe that education of the masses should be work related entirely and that critical thinking is a liberal trick leading to socialism, to the most powerful positions in educational policy and direction, then Americans simply lose the most important parts of their humanity gained through an education in the humanities—the ability to empathize with others and the ability to change their opinions when confronted with fact. All you have to do is observe the last four years (i.e. 2016-2020) of American life to understand this point. There’s nothing new or profound in what I’ve stated in the last few paragraphs. I’m no great thinker. I have no dog in this hunt, so to speak. My children are adults, educated in the humanities and working good jobs as well, and I’m retired from teaching. One type of learning is not mutually exclusive from the other. I guess that’s my point. It isn’t necessary or even profitable in the long run to make it that way. As a matter of fact, I believe it’s dangerous.