[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

So, incidentally, I agree that the public school system is the real disaster here. I am not actually even sure what the point of a public education is anymore? It seems to be a fairly rote process where students are advanced under a strata of different curriculums designed to suit a crude set of abilities. In reality, the public schools have the most difficult job of all.

And yes, many students are lost under that particular way of doing things. Most importantly, no student, not even the brightest is being equipped to think at the university level.

I was a graduate student, and I taught a few classes for first and second years - all of them political philosophy courses and with a very heavy writing component (typically 2 15 page papers, and then, a 3 hours final exam). I noted a few significant trend:
a) an elite cadre of students - typically 2-5% with natural inborn ability, who were able to excel regardless of difficulty,
b) an even smaller minority of kids who weren't that bright, but had good work effort, and would grind out "B's",
c) a large group of entitled students - from a wide variety of backgrounds, who had been taught ideologically, and learned ideologically, but absolutely failed because they lacked the basic skills.
d) the vast majority of students who obviously had no idea what they were doing in university or why they were doing it. Had come egregiously unprepared, and obviously did not have the merit to maintain anything more than a C or below average in university. We were encouraged to grade these students on the curve.

University should only be for the smartest. In my experience, the best are the only people smart enough to actually achieve that liberal ideal, and share it with minimal bias. Too many students I witnessed were either not able to grasp the intricacies of a liberal education (and why should they be expected to do so!?) or were already set in an ugly pattern of identity politics.

This is my problem with programs like the UofM.

Well I think you and I have both discussed before how university isn't really ground for learning anymore as much as it is for building resumes. You can't really expect kids to put a tonne of effort in when the purpose isn't the learning process itself. There's a reason for mantras such as "Cs get degrees."