I read a bridge column by Frank Stewart in the Denver Post on June 11, 2012 that “King Mithridates VI of what is now Turkey was always trying to avoid assassination. He took food with a concoction that included a grain of salt, believing it to be a poison antidote. Hence, taking something ‘with a grain of salt’ – with caution. The Phrase Finder adds that the expression means that a statement can be accepted but with “…a degree of skepticism about its truth.” For those who want to replicate the antidote, the grain of salt was added to two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue that were pounded together.
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
This book by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (and several coauthors of various chapters) was not much fun to read. The book is written in a “scholarly” style complete with numerous acronyms that probably would appeal to sociology majors, but not to me. It also uses interesting words such as “psychometricians. “However, the information in the book is disturbing. It does not paint a bright picture of what college students are getting for their tens of thousands in student loan debt. I will admit I did not do anything more than skim the final more than a hundred pages containing the “Methodological Appendix,” Notes, Bibliography, and Index.
The book begins with a comment from a former Harvard president saying, “Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should.” That statement isn’t too alarming, but the words to follow are. He says that students graduate from college “…without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers…reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems.” That sounds bad enough, but the information presented in the book indicates the concerns are understated. Many students are portrayed as attending college with no intention of learning. They focus on enjoying the college experience to the maximum. They borrow large sums of money to be there and search for the classes that have no educational demands to maintain enough of a grade point average to remain in school, study very little, have fun, and eventually graduate. A significant portion of the borrowed money is spent on entertainment, socializing, and travel. Graduates enter the work force (if they are fortunate enough to find a job) with a large debt burden and little ability to succeed.
One basis of the problems with college education comes from the students and enablement from the colleges. A large number of the students are described as “drifting dreamers” who have “…high ambitions but no clear life plans…” They have no understanding about their chosen professions, the educational requirements of the professions, or even if there is even a market demand for the profession they chose. The book title derives from the belief of the authors that many students are “…largely academically adrift.” One student is quoted as saying, “I hate classes with a lot of reading that is tested on.” The student admits to doing “leisure pursuits” instead of doing reading assignments. Colleges have enabled students to stay in college and pay the rapidly inflating tuitions by providing classes that have few academic demands. The student acknowledges that he will be able to graduate with a 3.5 GPA “…but it doesn’t really matter if I don’t remember anything…It’s one thing to get the grade in a class and it’s another to actually take something from it, you know.”
It is disturbing to read that the quality of education has dropped markedly while costs have increased at twice the rate of inflation. Professors are increasingly concentrating on research and publication instead of teaching and the classes are often taught by graduate assistants. The students are encouraged to rate classes highly that have replaced rigorous education with entertaining activities. The average time spent by faculty in preparing and delivering instruction and meeting with students is eleven hours per week. Professors who go against this approach and spend more of their time teaching are not “significantly rewarded.” The net result is that a Secretary of Education Commission wrote that “…the quality of student learning at U.S. colleges and universities is inadequate, and in some cases, declining.”
The heart of the book comes from the testing of 2,322 students enrolled across a range of campuses. They were tested before college, after two years, and after graduation for critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving and writing by something called the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). The CLA is described as to test the ability to give the students descriptions of real life problems and test their ability to both solve the problems and clearly communicate their reasoning and approaches. The test is lauded by some experts and dismissed as flawed by others. I will editorialize that educators are almost certain to dismiss the results of the tests as flawed, because the results present a dismal picture of the quality of college education. One professor was quoted as saying the public is satisfied with what higher education is doing. “This is a market system, and the customers are buying.” The “customers” should read this book and decide whether they are getting the value they deserve in return for the tens of thousands of dollars and four years of investment.
The book identifies that the problems begin with inadequate education in high schools. Forty-six percent of students in Chicago agreed with the statement, “Even if I do not work hard in high school, I can still make my future plans come true.” Many students with an average grade of C or less in high school are being admitted into four-year colleges. Perhaps that is why such large numbers of students coming to college are required to take several remedial classes. The CLA finds that many college students continue to underperform. The book asks the question, “How much are students actually learning in contemporary education? The answer for many undergraduates, we have concluded, is not much.” The CLA finds “…no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skill for at least 45 percent of the students in our study.” About the same number of students reported that they had not taken classes that required extensive reading or writing. Forty-eight percent of them were enrolled in humanities and social sciences, which are the fields of study that have been found to offer students higher grades for little effort.
There is a disturbing assessment that our current higher education system is a “…complicated sieve.” Its purpose is to sift “…the able from the dull.” However, the system is willing to accept tuition from all.
There is a posting on the blog link of this web site that gives some opinions about what students might want to consider in their search for higher education options.
Smart College Choices
I posted a review of the book “Academically Adrift” by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa that paints a very bleak assessment of the quality of education in both our high schools and colleges. High schools are doing a poor job of preparing students for life or further education and colleges are accepting more of them regardless of their high school grades. The colleges then, on the average, allow students to run up huge amounts of debt while they focus on enjoying their social lives and doing as little studying and attending class as little as possible to maximize the fun they are having. It seems many colleges enable this behavior by providing classes that require little studying, reading, or writing to attain high grades. The students want to live the good life and the colleges want them to continue paying tuition.
My first college class was English Literature taught by an eccentric female professor who would become one of my favorite professors. She opened the first class by telling us she had no intention of noting who was or was not in class. She also had no intention of calling on students with questions to determine who had or had not completed the assignments. She explained that we had paid to take the class, she appreciated that she had a good job as the result of those payments, and it was our choice whether to attend class or do the assignments. I had saved all of the money earned doing odd jobs that had been spent on tuition and books, and thought it would be a good idea to attend class, listen to the lectures, and do the assignments. I was suspicious that students who chose differently had parents paying the bills.
I’ve posted comments previously that it is time to rethink who should attend college. President Obama disagrees with me. He has said that “…we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college.” Consistent with that approach, 30 percent of high school graduates with a C grade average and 15 percent with a C- or less are admitted into four-year colleges. Many first year college students are required to take remedial classes to prepare them for college level classes. Many college professors agree with the statement “Most of the students I teach lack the basic skills for college level work.”
I question the “college for all” policy if it is automatically assumes the college is of the four-year variety. Community colleges offer two year degrees with tuition cost in the vicinity of $2000/year. I’ve seen data that the average cost at public four-year colleges is at or above $7000/year and more than $20,000 for tuition and fees at private four-year colleges. My suggestion is that those students who had low grades in high school but want to continue their education in a quest “to find themselves” research local community colleges or junior colleges. I know that some four-year colleges limit the classes that can transfer and be credited toward graduation requirements, but I would say that disadvantage is offset by the significantly lower cost.
Some students want to attend college with the primary purpose of socializing and having fun, and I understand that those are high priorities for most if not all young people. However, it shouldn’t be difficult to find like-minded people who would be willing to share an apartment with someone near those community colleges or junior colleges. The savings in tuition would pay for significant amounts of fun activities. Perhaps the two years of exposure to education will even lead some students finding that, as is written in “Academically Adrift” that the real mission of schooling is “…developing a love of learning for learning sake.” I have personal knowledge of a student who was “academically adrift” until taking a class from a demanding professor. The professor was also an excellent teacher, the student became engaged, and was proud of the B from the class. The student learned to love learning and found it easy to earn high grades.
Bust a Gut
I expected some sort of complicated description of the origin and meaning of this expression, but the Freedictionary.com had the most interesting discussion. The definition is straight forward, and it means “…to work very hard to achieve something.” It also can mean to “…laugh very energetically.” The etymology is described as being “…based on the idea that hard physical work or laughter could damage your gut (stomach).”
Ending the Iraq War: A Primer
I previously reviewed the book “The Good Soldiers” by David Finkel about an infantry battalion that was part of the surge, and that led me to read a book that gives the anti-Iraq war perspective. This book by Phyllis Bennis certainly fits that description. There are quotes from a report by the National institute for Strategic Studies describing the war as creating “…an incubator for terrorism.” I may have chosen poorly, since the book has not had a single review posted on Amazon.
I attempt in my reviews to let authors tell their side of the story without editorial comment and then post disagreements in a posting on the blog link. There were sections that gave me difficulty complying with that approach. The book does contain interesting information about the history of Iraq and its ethnic diversity.
I thought using “frequently asked questions” to introduce discussion was a good approach. One question was, “Didn’t the ‘surge’ strategy work?” General Petraeus’s reported that the surge was working. The author disagreed, writing that the reduction in violence in Iraq came from the unilaterally declared ceasefire by Moqtada al-Sadar and his Mahdi Army militia and also because of payments given to Sunni militias in exchange for them not targeting US and UK occupation troops. Violence spiked in 2008 when Prime Minister Maliki ordered an attack on Sadr’s militia in Basra. Large numbers of Iraqi soldiers and police defected to Sadr. Iran arranged a ceasefire between the two Shi’a forces.
Many of the conflicts are between the Sunnis and Shi’a (most books use the term Shiite) militias. Sunnis Arabs make up 15-20 percent of the population and were disproportionally privileged in wealth and power in Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. Shi’as are 55-60 percent of the population. The Kurds are primarily Sunnis.The Kurds have been protected by the US and are the most supportive of US policy. (There are an estimated 30 million Kurds in the world, and they are often named as the largest ethnic group without a state of their own.) Some have tried to make people think of themselves as Iraqis instead of Sunni, Shi’a, or Kurd, but with little success. One fact that is not in dispute is that there are fewer Iraqis in the country because of the war. An estimated two million Iraqis fled mostly to Jordan and Syria.
The borders of Middle East countries were established by “…the French-British trading schemes…” Faisal was appointed by the British to be king in 1921, and his son and grandson succeeded him. Faisal II was overthrown in a revolution against the monarchy in 1958. The Ba’athist government was officially secular but dominated by Sunnis. The book mentions that the CIA “…helped orchestrate the coup…” Saddam Hussein took control in 1968.
There are criticisms of several U.S. politicians to include Henry Kissinger, who developed and funded a plan for Iraqi Kurds to launch an uprising against Baghdad to weaken Iraq in its war against Iran. The Kurds were abandoned and were overrun by the Iraqi military after the war. Kissinger was said to have commented “…covert work should not be confused with missionary work.” President Clinton is criticized for claiming the U.S. was required by the UN to enforce the “no fly zone.” No UN resolution mentions creation or enforcement of such zones. All politicians arguing whether Iraq should be divided in three parts or united are said to be “…rooted in a set of thoroughly colonial assumptions about who has the ‘right’ to impose their will on Iraq and Iraqis from outside.”
The book frequently mentions “lie after lie” by the Bush administration in advocating the start of the war. Specifics include weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons programs, uranium yellowcake in Niger, Iraqi links to al-Qaeda, and Iraqi involvement in 9/11. There is a question whether U.S. actions brought a constitution to Iraq. There was a constitution adopted in 2005, but it was drafted mostly by U.S. lawyers under contract to the State Department.
The question “What war crimes have been committed in Iraq?” begins with bombing civilian targets and a long list of other actions designated as war crimes during the Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The twelve years of economic sanctions that followed were said to have resulted in the death of half a million Iraqi children. Secretary of State Madeline Albright infamously replied to a question about the children, “We think the price is worth it.” The invasion of Iraq is characterized “…as what the Nuremberg principles identify as the worst war crime: a crime against peace in the form of a war of aggression.” The “…congressional authorization passed in November 2002 granting Bush permission to go to war…” did not make the invasion legal.
Part II of the book presents the Bush administration’s arguments for the war and, in the opinion of the author, dispels them. The war is said to have increased recruitment of terrorists instead of making us safer. Iraq had carefully controlled borders before the war, but the U.S. demobilized the border guards. “Iraq has been transformed into a gathering place…for global terrorists…” The author says the real reasons the U.S. wanted a war were, “…oil, power, and ideology.” There are lengthy discussions that oil was main objective. There is a sarcastic comment in a couple of places that Americans seem to think the invading troops would be welcomed “…with sweets and flowers and singing in the streets.”
Part III discusses global effects of the Iraq war. The brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein was ruthlessly secular and not a safe place for fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. Iraq now “…is global center stage for a concentrated host of terrorist forces.” The war has “…accelerated recruitment for al-Qaeda.”
There is an interesting discussion of how many Shi’a sought refuge in Iran during Saddam Hussein’s rule, and many of those have now returned to Iraq. Iran was one of the first countries in the region to recognize the government of Maliki, and one of the few to maintain full diplomatic relations. The other powerful Iraqi Shi’a, al-Sadr, spends much of his time in Iran “…burnishing his religious credentials…”
Part IV is about ending the war, and I don’t intend to spend much time with that since U.S. combat troops were withdrawn in December 2011 after the book was published. The author directs strong criticism toward the U.S. Congress which “…essentially abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare or reject war in 2002 when it gave the Bush administration the power to decide whether to go to war against Iraq. Congress could have ended the war at any time by refusing to vote supplemental war funding bills out of committee.
See the posting on the blog link for an update about current events in Iraq.
Darn Tootin’
I saw this phrase in a Pickles cartoon by Brian Crane, and it made me curious. The Word Detective has an entertaining article about “folksy” expressions. It explains “darn” is a common euphemism for “damn.” Toot has meant “to call or proclaim loudly” since the 16th century. The expression is intended to affirm that you strongly agree with a statement.