(“The profs at the U of C knew that a lot of polishing was required to shape us up.”)
- "Not the profs job here."
Wrong, @doschicos. Here is @Marlow1’s statement again, for your edification:
“Is it really true that to be brash, discourteous, and offensive in high school was disqualifying in any kid who came to the University of Chicago? I knew plenty of them, I may well have been one of them myself. The profs at the U of C knew that a lot of polishing was required to shape us up. The question was whether the raw material was good enough to warrant the effort. I myself was constantly being admonished to think through the implications of extreme positions, consider the counterarguments and evidence, and tone down the prose. That was the hallmark of a Chicago education.”
The question of course is whether Young Krashuv was “merely brash, discourteous and offensive” or outright racist and anti-Semitic, given his documented remarks (sorry, but the gossipy “reports of similar comments” doesn’t count). Regardless of that question, Marlowe’s point is valid: many arrive on campus - whether it be Harvard, UChicago or elsewhere - sounding brash and discourteous because, for instance, they haven’t mastered the skill of being able to conduct an intelligent conversation. If the profs are doing their job properly, the students emerge sounding more intelligent than when they came in. Sadly, many students don’t - and that’s a critique of higher ed but also beyond the scope of this discussion. As for UChicago, one of the main purposes of the Core - particularly Hum/Sosc/Civ - is to teach the students to read, write, and think critically and intelligently and UChicago students really “get” the value of those requirements once they have completed them and get out into the world. So UChicago grads gladly acknowledge how ignorant they once sounded and how the education and the professors changed them for the better. Guessing that at least some Harvard grads do and feel the same regarding their institution.