Core Curriculum

Parent Cafe
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<p>So-called basic language instruction differs very, very widely from college to college, even those of similar ilk. That was a conclusion we quickly came to in our college searches. There were some (such as my alma mater) where it was basically high school, only faster, and others where the cultural immersion came very deep, and from day one. But I think the main thing was (is) whether you have a clear plan, as part of your education, to do anything significant with it. If you don’t, I don’t see the point either. </p>

<p>For my d., her research assistantship has her preparing an Italian opera for publication, in the original language. Speaking of immersion! And her internship next summer is likely to be in Italy, prior to her junior year abroad. </p>

<p>Funny what Momrath has to say about “not covering the material”. Following four years in Billstown, I took two years at Oxford in the “canon”, and still felt it wasn’t enough, and did another three years in the canon at UChicago. It still wasn’t enough, but by that time I didn’t need the institutions anymore. </p>

<p>I can’t see how one can make much sense out of Indonesian or Cambodian or Indian culture (together, a quarter of the world’s people) without an understanding of the Ramayana. And, Christianity? I feel that spending time on it in college is about the same way others feel about learning a language - go to a church on an occasional Sunday, or turn on your radio and you’ll get pretty much what you need to know for cultural purposes.</p>

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<p>So-called basic language instruction differs very, very widely from college to college, even those of similar ilk. That was a conclusion we quickly came to in our college searches. There were some (such as my alma mater) where it was basically high school, only faster, and others where the cultural immersion came very deep, and from day one. But I think the main thing was (is) whether you have a clear plan, as part of your education, to do anything significant with it. If you don’t, I don’t see the point either. </p>

<p>For my d., her research assistantship has her preparing an Italian opera for publication, in the original language. Speaking of immersion! And her internship next summer is likely to be in Italy, prior to her junior year abroad. </p>

<p>Of course, languages are just one more of those “ways of knowing”. No sense in requiring it - if it is onerous (like having to take “core” classes when you’d rather do something else), most folks won’t learn it anyway. You learn how to hammer a nail better if there is something you think you’d like to build. The flip side is watching my south Indian relatives make their way with grace through various cultures by picking up languages as if it were it were simply drinking water. My adopted sister took up a fellowship in ICU pediatrics in Italy not knowing a single word of Italian, and it took her virtually no time for her to be handling the advanced medical lectures. My brother shocks everyone in Cambodia (my d. writes) by speaking Khmer - they just assume that NO ONE learns to speak their language - but he’s a child psychiatrist, so that’s what he needs to do. My 79-year-old Indian mother, in the middle of feeding thousands of people, and helping them build their own homes, has Italian tapes in her handbag that she puts on whenever there is a spare moment in the car…and it’s working too. (by the way, there is more blog up at shantinik.blogspot.com , though d.s big report in is not likely to come until tomorrow.)</p>

<p>Funny what Momrath has to say about “not covering the material”. Following four years in Billstown, I took two years at Oxford in the “canon”, and still felt it wasn’t enough, and did another three years in the canon at UChicago. It still wasn’t enough, but by that time I didn’t need the institutions anymore. </p>

<p>I can’t see how one can make much sense out of Indonesian or Cambodian or Indian culture (together, a quarter of the world’s people) without an understanding of the Ramayana. And, Christianity? I feel that, if you live here, spending time on it in college is about the same way others feel about learning a language - go to a church on an occasional Sunday, or turn on your radio and you’ll get pretty much what you need to know for cultural purposes.</p>

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<p>Mini, I agree that you need to know the Ramayana and Mahabarata to understand a good deal of Eastern art and literature, but I also think that you need to have a basic understanding of both the Classics and the Bible to understand WESTERN art and literature. From Shakespeare to Dickens to Conrad to to Tolstoy to James to Joyce to Eliot and many, many more --all drew heavily from the Bible and from Homer. You can enjoy them without knowing the references, but you can’t fully understand their images and illusions. Same for the the fine arts right up to the middle of the 20th C. No way you can understand Caravaggio or Van Eyck or Bruegel or Gauguin without having a grounding in Christian theology.</p>

<p>Believe me, I’m not favoring Western over Eastern or European over Asian or African or South American. The world is a big fascinating place. I cannot stress enough how important it is to gain exposure to other cultures and religions to function in the 21st century.</p>

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<p>oh mini
do you have any recommendations for a book ( prob contem fiction) about a girl in india for my 9th grader?
She doesn’t want anything I have ( fine balance. holder of world, god of small things…) already read the ramayana actually for language arts, I have been recommended the 20th wife, but trying to find a range of books so she can find something that appeals to her, she isn’t a great reader but it is sure easier if she can relate to it.
thanks</p>

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<p>Or, if you are using the language study as a departure point for a broader cultural study. For example, I’m not sure that basic Russian language instruction makes a lot of sense at $40k per year. But, if the plan is to continue on, read Dostoevsky in the original language, study Russian politics, etc., then it would make a lot of sense as a college pursuit.</p>

<p>The dilemma is that this degree of immersion is a major commitment (or at least a minor commitment) out of 32 available semesters, especially if your goal is to at least sample a wide range of departments and fields.</p>

<p>Of couse, I’m biased. I had four years of high school French on top of god knows how many years of Latin. When I met with my advisor during orientation at Williams, I told him flat out, “Forget what it says. Forget the four years. Forget the A’s on the transcript. I want to learn how to speak French and I need to back the truck up and take a more basic French course.”</p>

<p>He was firm, “No can do. Four years is four years. You have to take a language and you have to take THIS course: Advanced Conversational French”. I don’t think I ever understood a single word of that class all semester. Not a word. Total waste of time. I could read a little and write a little, but I sat in the back of the class and never said a word. I think half the class probably has second homes in France. I felt like I was at the Indy 500 watching the cars zoom by at 230 mph. I took my gentleman’s C+ (worst black mark of my college career) and headed for the hills. Really cheesed me off, because I knew I had no business in that class. But, hey, I fulfilled the language requirement!</p>

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<p>Funny. I don’t remember there being a language requirement at Williams at all. I picked up Spanish there (badly) because I wanted to read Borges (never happened). But the language departments were so poor, as I remember, and we were even less impressed on our return. Any way, probably doesn’t matter - if you don’t have a reason, chances are you aren’t going to learn it (even if you get an “A” and the department is wonderful.) Most colleges these days (including Smith) provide credit for basic language instruction, but none toward a major or minor or anything else for the first year. All courses past that are literature and culture-based. But if you go to their JYAs, you have to take a written pledge not to use English as part of the experience, so they know what they are up against.</p>

<p>Momrath - no putdown of Western classics (I think I’ve made it clear that I’m a fan.) But I also know that if students don’t study the Koran, Ramayana, Buddhism, etc. as undergraduates, they are likely never to make up for that deficit for the rest of their lives. They might…but it isn’t very likely.</p>

<p>Ekitty - So Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things” doesn’t work? (can’t do much better than that.) Also fun, though based on both the Indian and the Indian-American experience, is Anita Desai’s “Fasting, Feasting”. Haven’t read “Clear Light of Day” - want to, but am probably spending too much time here!</p>

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<p>Maybe there wasn’t a language requirement. Maybe I just thought I wanted to learn to speak French. Silly me!</p>

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<p>Mini, odd note: THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS was one of D’s favorite books in high school. She was so enthusiastic that she had both TheMom and I read it.</p>

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<p>SBMom’s mention of the Ministry of Silly Walks reminded me of another reason for a core curriculum. Imagine how much more popular Monty Python would be if today’s kids actually got half their references. What a wonderful world that would be! Might actually be good way to introduce the curriculum…have them watch the shows/films, and then make them read the history/literature/politics they need to understand the humor. The Life of Brian as a required film for your required course on Christianity. Then make them read the real history. “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” Then again, maybe I should have a cup of coffee before posting on CC first thing in the morning. OK, we’re off to SAT IIs this morning. Latin and French. Good luck to any others with kids doing the same.</p>

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<p>interesteddad, </p>

<p>I had the same experience. Studied French from 7th through about 10th grades, barely mastered “La Plume De Ma Tante.” Took it again in college-- still no dice. I had many vocabluary words but no fluency.</p>

<p>Moved to France after graduation a to really nail it down. Your Indy image is so apt. Fluency in French = to speak “courament” = literally “runningly,” or rushing along like a river’s current. “Dans le bain” = “donlbah.”</p>

<p>I will never forget the moment that I crossed over. I was riding the metro after about 3 months there and I suddenly realized that I was eavesdropping on the conversation going on behind me!! Some version of “my boyfriend is a cad,” and I understood nearly everything. </p>

<p>Of course, it was another three months before I could go to a dinner party, follow the rapid fire conversation, and formulate my sentence of input before the entire conversation had long since moved on to something else. </p>

<p>Immersion is the way to go.</p>

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<p>My d. wrote back from India this morning that my mother has assigned her a Tamil “shadow” whose job it is to ensure that she learns/speaks the language. D. can’t pronounce her name yet. Currently wrestling with the word for banana (or as her “Learn Tamil in 30 Days” book says, “plantain fruit”) - “Vazhaiphaszam” - I guess if you can master the banana, you’re good to go. ;)</p>

<p>Ekitty - have you looked at “The Sari Shop”?</p>

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<p>How do people feel re the core vs. distribution requirements? The difficulty of the latter is that it’s more like a cafeteria, as I believe that much-publicized piece about Harvard in The Atlantic pointed out recently. One of the difficulty of distribution requirements is that you end up taking too few courses that teach you too much about each subject – more than you wanted to know about penguins, as the saying goes. If you are a future French lit major interested in developments in genetics, for example, you end up having to get the kind of training a student planning to do research in the subject gets. That is why I love the core (and I believe Columbia’s now includes science). You get enough of an exposure to the various “biggies” to 1) get a hint of the wealth of viewpoints, language, knowledge and meaning that are out there and 2) recognize how much, as SBMom says, you don’t know. </p>

<p>I still think the key, however, is to improve our high schools. In hs my kids read almost entirely nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, for example.</p>

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<p>Distribution requirements strike me as more of high school. I think if there is a limit on the number of courses one can take in one’s major, and maybe a writing, applied math, and, perhaps, a cross-cultural requirement, students should be trusted to take charge of their education. The intellectual argument behind the distributional requirements seems to me even shakier than that usually put forward for the core, but at least with the core, you are likely to learn something of great beauty and power, regardless of the underpinnings behind why you had to take it.</p>

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<p>Ah, mini, you should have gone to Brown. Like me. ;)</p>

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<p>Actually, the logic behind distribution requirements is to force 18 year old kids to at least sample different areas of study before they decide what they want to do with their lives. You’ve seen the kids here: half of 'em are positive exactly what they will major in, where they will get their graduate degree, and asking if the parking is good at the building where they already know they will work after they finish school! All before they’ve even been to their senior prom.</p>

<p>As a practical matter, it is almost impossible not to fulfill the requirements if you are at all interested in a liberal arts education. That’s why I view the whole thing as a non-issue for 99 out of 100 kids.</p>

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<p>Oh, I understand the logic, and the key is the word “force”. (But you’re right: for the vast majority it is a non-issue; and for those it is, it shouldn’t be. ;))</p>

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<p>“It is the exclusive focus on Western European Anglo-Saxon history from the time of the Crusades on that makes it so difficult for us to understand the underpinnings of Islamic/Middle East”</p>

<p>It would of course help them to understand and see some connections if Medieval Philosophy were taught in some Philosophy courses with an emphasis on the scholastics. Here you would see the two cultures feeding into each other through Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina into Aquinas etc. Unfortunately, few colleges do in their rush through the positivists into postmodern philosophy (whatever that is).</p>

<p>“Loved the Denby book!”
Add me to the list of admirers.</p>

<p>“Christianity? I feel that, if you live here, spending time on it in college is about the same way others feel about learning a language - go to a church on an occasional Sunday, or turn on your radio and you’ll get pretty much what you need to know for cultural purposes.”</p>

<p>Should I suppose that you will learn what you need to know about Islam by watching IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) and hit an occasional Mosque to learn about Islam in the East? Or could we hope for a bit more of an intellectual approach in college(in the West, perhaps a quick glance at
Aquinas, Scotus, Maimonides for starts)?</p>

<p>“One of the difficulty of distribution requirements is that you end up taking too few courses that teach you too much about each subject – more than you wanted to know about penguins, as the saying goes.”</p>

<p>Amen…opps.</p>

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<p>“Should I suppose that you will learn what you need to know about Islam by watching IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) and hit an occasional Mosque to learn about Islam in the East.”</p>

<p>If I grew up in Iran, lived in Iran my entire life, was exposed to Muslims my entire life, and it was the dominant ideology in my school, neighborhood, community, and nation - absolutely!</p>

<p>Could I learn more from formal study? Why, surely - but I would easily have the requirements to understand what was going on in my culture generally speaking without it. (And I could certainly answer all the related questions in the Islamic Dartmouth quiz…)</p>

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<p>One could easily make a case that some of our most faithful churchgoers could benefit from a course in Christianity. And I won’t even comment on the Christianity that is currently being televised.</p>

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<p>I don’t really think the ability to pass a pop-quiz should be the standard for intellectual discussion…I can tell you that it would not be in an Iranian university.</p>

<p>Whether it is now fashionable to think so or not, an intricate understanding of not only the bible but Christianity as such is part of the very fabric of the majority of pre-20th century art, literature, music and philosophy. An adequate understanding of any of them is virtually impossible without “immersion” into Christian and biblical understanding. The same would be true if you were trying to understand the art and intellectual history of India–the Ramayana and Mahabharata along with commentary and historical interpretation would be essential. </p>

<p>With Islamic civilization, you would need not only to read the Quran but the intellectual history of Islam including Shia and Suni literature and commentary (and for the more refined, Sufism). </p>

<p>Why would the same not be true of Western Civ, or do we somehow transcend such an understanding due to talk radio, Hollywood and sermons on morality on the occasional Sunday in church (understanding that few college-goers attend church at all); good luck understanding Shakespeare, Melville, Erasmus, Voltaire, Descartes, Spinoza, etc, along with the history of western philosophy, art and thought without it – other than the cardboard cut-out interpretation. </p>

<p>On the other hand, if it is felt there is no need to have grasped some sense or understanding of Western art and thought ( a core of sorts) there will probably be no need for an understanding of Christianity or the Bible. Many apparently believe the culture was created from whole-cloth in the late 19th and early 20th century and it has no roots.</p>