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Show What is modern education? Is this institution a gigantic Skinner Box? In The Student as Nigger, Jerry Farber points out the rotten deal today's student is taught to regard as "the privilege of education" is no more than a conforming indoctrination into society. The reasons for this approach to learning are obvious: it makes for a steady economy; it insures social tranquility; and it allows the status-conscious middle-class a method of obtaining unassailable Oneupman-ship points. In fact, the person concerned with getting an education is forced to pay money in order to fight the restricting limitation of an ego-gratifying device for Middle Amerika. The effects of a status-oriented education are most observable in the non-technical disciplines, where know- THE METHOD OR STYLE UTILIZED THE ONLY ledge consists largely of the comparison of ideas. Large classes make it impossible for a professor to do more than make sure his pupils learn a preset list of principles or jargon (assuming he's interested in what they learn to begin with). He can try to make the subject interesting enough to stimulate further pursuit of it by a pupil, but this is an art many a scholar never acquires the skill for. At the present rate of expansion, the University of Utah will have over thirty thousand students enrolled in five years. The pressure of this vast student body will strain facility and depress standards; increase the already heavy tax burden for higher education; and glut the graduate program to choking. Unfortunately for us all, population increase will increase the basal causes for illness in modern educational bodies, not simply present institutions of learning with difficulties related to handling greater numbers of qualified scholars. Some of the side effects may be most interesting. |