<p>This seems like an appropriate place to quote, once again, my D’s comment on her first-year core Humanities course at Chicago:</p>
<p>“They have a math placement test and six different levels of math you can place into, so that I don’t slow down someone who knows what he’s doing and cares about it. I wish they had some kind of literature placement test, to see whether you have any idea how to read, write, or talk about poetry. Half the kids in my section don’t have any idea how to do that, don’t feel like that they ought to learn, and think it’s OK to take up class time expressing their contempt for it. I’ve done that already – it was called high school. The people here are a little smarter, but it’s fundamentally the same thing.”</p>