Reading And Learning

No books, no problem:

As students are looking for shortcuts rather than having an appetite for complex ideas, simple, reductionist ideas are better able to take hold. The result is that as opposed to layered and nuanced ideas and concepts being dominant on campus, identity politics and reducing individuals and their lives, historical moments, and social change to little more than crude representations of power, race, sexuality, and gender, have been embraced by so many. Countless students would have formerly rejected these simplistic conceptions about the human condition acknowledging that this wipes out unique personalities and a real understanding of history and change. But that is no longer where we are today; not reading books and, more importantly, faculty accepting that students in higher education do not have to embrace and struggle with complex ideas has created a have a sophomoric worldview about life and humanity. Not reading deeply has regrettably helped create campuses which are fractured, segregated, anti-intellectual centers of activism and victimhood as opposed to sacred spaces of scholarship, debate, viewpoint diversity, and opportunity. A second idea missed in this discussion around college students not reading books is the question of why so many faculty have accepted this new norm. The Atlantic article mentions that faculty have altered their courses in response to students’ inability to read heavy volumes of literature. Columbia Professor Andrew Delbanco, for instance, now teaches a seminar on short works of American prose as opposed to an earlier survey course on literature, opining that “One has to adjust to the times.” The article notes that faculty have also been surprised by this change citing another Columbia professor being amazed by the fact that students who came to his class were no longer “prepared to read books.” Only recently did he ask a student why undergraduates were unprepared, and upon learning that they had not been taught, his “jaw dropped.” The article offers no clear answer as to why have faculty ceded this sacred ground and overlooked their essential duty of helping students learn to read deeply and critically. One can argue that this superficial approach helps scholar-activist faculty promote their political agendas but the skill of reading is a foundational component of liberal education and that does proficiency not impede but may even enhance their inappropriate activist mission. Sadly, it appears that numerous faculty are actively allowing their students to coast through their collegiate years, shifting their expectations rather than addressing the problem.

Laziness breeds contempt...