POISE & IVY

On this quiet eve, anniversary of our national introduction to a radical idea—“all men created equal”—I have been pondering a blog entry posted a couple of weeks ago over at Eduwonkette. E-wonkette threw out a link to and some speculation about William Deresiewicz’ article in The American Scholar, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education: Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers.”

Deresiewicz poked at lots of sacred cattle, suggesting that elite colleges “teach students to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class”— and “inculcate a false sense of self-worth.”  He mused about measuring personal value through rankings, standardized numbers and admission into a perceived club of meritocracy. Flashback to the first college boards, a century ago, taken by young men educated in east-coast private schools and academies, forever setting a bar—if not “the bar”—for what someone has to know and be able to do to be a little more equal than the rest of the pack, here in the home of the free. We’ve been chasing “scientifically based” merit for a long time.

I tuned into the comments on Eduwonkette’s blog multiple times a day—the article and the blog post were fascinating to me. I failed to see any, umm, “disadvantages” in attending an elite school and wondered (nicely) what the educationally privileged would say about the trauma of attending Princeton. Deresiewicz’ main argument seemed to be that those attending select colleges were teacher pleasers, gathering credentials, rather than genuine scholars and intellectuals. I wondered if there would be pushback.

The commenters were, indeed, products of elite schools and the conversation was pretty restrained in tone—nobody saying “I am too an intellectual!” or trashing their Ivy League compadres. Even though I checked back every day, it never occurred to me to post a comment. It seemed like a conversation for other people—people who went to real schools. Checking in for the 30^th time today, I had a little epiphany: I would never enter a discussion about big-name schools because of my own half-buried perception of inadequacy in the prestige department.

I got my bachelors degree at No-Name Regional University (the only school that gave me significant scholarship help, something a first-generation college attendee values over all other qualities). It wasn’t until I was admitted into one of the nation’s top Ed Policy schools for doctoral work that I started to sense the almost imperceptible but omnipresent jostling for status. At orientation, they told us how “select” we were—a novelty for me, but not, evidently, for the other students in my cohort, fresh off internships in public policy and masters degrees from Universities Everyone Knows. 

This was the first time I observed students and professors judging research, journal articles and reports by their author and university, without actually reading them. Even in the informal and supposedly democratic world of education blogs, this credentialing seemed to matter, a lot. There were unwritten rules about whose scholarship was trustworthy. It was not an easy place to be a veteran teacher—in fact, one of my grad-student colleagues remarked that he failed to see how any sentient person could be a teacher for 30 years. Another student in my department told me that her (small, celebrated) undergraduate college was “not the kind of college that had an education department.”

What kinds of colleges do have undergraduate education programs? Not our kind, dear. This is certainly what lies under resentment of Teach for America. It’s not about ed schools’ stubborn intransigence in keeping weak programs funded, or public schools’ refusal to acknowledge that we desperately need bright, committed young teachers, and now. It’s the idea that no “sentient” person with a degree from a prestigious college would prepare for or commit to a career in teaching. Distinction is how we order and make sense of our world. If our most esteemed universities devalue education as a discipline or process—isn’t that somewhere between irony and lunacy?

How does this play out in American public schools, when the intellectual proletariat dominates the profession of teaching? When professors fret about the drawbacks to an education at our most high-status institutions? Who you gonna trust to keep the intellectual flame burning?

 I liked Ms. Frizzle’s thought (about her own elite-school experience):

“There was a bit of a sense of 'collecting' experiences or achievements at times - among my world-traveler, grant-getting friends, experience definitely trumped strict academic achievement - but I think beneath that lay a very real desire to know the world, which meant taking risks of many kinds, including intellectual.”

I still believe that Alma Mater is not Destiny, and smart, capable people turn up everywhere. It’s the Fourth of July—go forth and pursue some happiness.

Comments

[Melissa B.]

I come from the neck of the woods that's all about the Benjamins--as in, "I desperately need to get into a top-tier college, because otherwise I'll be a failure!" This sentiment is driven not only by the kids' greed, but by the parents' ambition. They don't realize that it's not necessarily about the college they attend, but what they accomplish at that college. On that note, have a Happy & Festive Fourth!

[Ariel Sacks]

A very provocative post, Nancy. My experience at Brown University (the most untraditional of the Ivy league schools), I have to say, was without disadvantages. It was not career training, and there was a scary moment for most of my peers and me when we graduated and realized that our education had not prepared us for any particular profession. But it did provide an unprecedented opportunity for intellectual pursuit that encouraged/demanded me to open my mind, to change the way I think, learn, study, write. Much of this I did alone or alongside my peers, rather than under any kind of close supervision of faculty members, though professors were almost always up for dialogue.

My critical studies eventually led me to the conclusion that the University was an elite, artificial community; that our discourse was so specialized that it could be of little use to anyone outside our small circle. It was this realization AT Brown that led me in my junior year, to venture off of "College Hill" into the nearby community of Fox Point where I would work as an art counselor for a few years and then decide to become a teacher. My time at Brown, ironically, persuaded me that my experiences were worth no more than those of any other person, regardless of class and amount of education. We had just all learned different things. When I began teaching, this presented a conflict, since I didn't believe that my particular body of knowledge was worth anything more than that of my students. It has taken me years to begin to figure out which aspects of my education are worth passing on to students. What stands out is the ability to experiment and take risks in order to access new experiences and ideas, reflect upon those experiences (which include textual experiences) and then become intentional about next steps for learning. Some people don't need an elite education or a classroom at all to acquire those abilities. But for me, it was an invaluable part of my process.

[eduwonkette]

Another remarkable post, Nancy. Thank you.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Thanks to everyone for stopping in. While I appreciated Deresiewicz's essay, I liked Ariel's remarks even more:

"I didn't believe that my particular body of knowledge was worth anything more than that of my students. It has taken me years to begin to figure out which aspects of my education are worth passing on to students."

Which knowledge is worth the most? Maybe that's the real question under all the public fumbling over "21st century learning." Beyond basic skills (which, I would contend, are not particularly well-defined, either), what is it that everyone should know and be able to do? And no--this is not a call for national standards, which would merely become national test items over a short period of time, encouraging still more people to abandon the public schools for an elite education.

Or so I think...