2008 Woodie Awards
A common curriculum would stifle insight
Ehssan Barkeshli
Issue date: 10/29/07 Section: Opinion
Here's a recipe: take one De Anza College student, add two De Anza instructors, mix with one De Anza course and then add a dash of chance. What do you get? There's no way of knowing.
At the moment, the curricula and rigor of many courses offered at De Anza are significantly dependent upon the instructors who teach them.
Thus, two students who are enrolled in the same exact course, yet with different instructors, might experience entirely different testing standards, workloads and class dynamics.
One course might be easier than the other, giving one student a head start on building a successful transcript, transferring to a four-year university or landing a good job.
Is this fair?
Yes. In an era when knowledge is transmitted at the speed of light, it would be a mistake to drive De Anza's instructors into the swamp of a "common curriculum."
Under such a system, all instructors of a certain course would be forced to distribute the same materials to their students and use the same rubric to grade papers and homework assignments. They would also have to administer the same midterms and finals.
One of the perks of being a college student is getting to experience the many flavors of brilliance that intelligentsia affords us.
For instance, when studying literature, an exposure to varied perspectives and interpretations allows us to find cleaner routes to the thoughts and pathos of great writers.
Individualized curricula facilitate this through the impassioned lectures of our favorite teachers, each of whom has his own way of massaging the minds of his students.
"Would it be a good thing if Harold Bloom (the foremost scholar of Shakespearean criticism) would show up on a computer screen and give everybody the same lecture on what the character Falstaff is about?" asks Bob Dickerson, instructor of literature at De Anza. "Is that what learning is?"
What if Harold Bloom is wrong about Falstaff? After all, oftentimes in literature no one point of view is correct.
And just as genetic success hinges upon variety and natural selection, success in the evolution of thought depends upon the modes and functions of versatility.
It is true that in some areas of study, such as the sciences and math, a common curriculum might be beneficial. But we should be very careful as to how we make this distinction.
Good grades are easy enough to achieve, if that's all you're after. We should be fighting for more knowledge, not less, a wider array of insights, not a narrower one. The passion to learn hangs on our necks wherever we stray. Why relinquish it?
At the moment, the curricula and rigor of many courses offered at De Anza are significantly dependent upon the instructors who teach them.
Thus, two students who are enrolled in the same exact course, yet with different instructors, might experience entirely different testing standards, workloads and class dynamics.
One course might be easier than the other, giving one student a head start on building a successful transcript, transferring to a four-year university or landing a good job.
Is this fair?
Yes. In an era when knowledge is transmitted at the speed of light, it would be a mistake to drive De Anza's instructors into the swamp of a "common curriculum."
Under such a system, all instructors of a certain course would be forced to distribute the same materials to their students and use the same rubric to grade papers and homework assignments. They would also have to administer the same midterms and finals.
One of the perks of being a college student is getting to experience the many flavors of brilliance that intelligentsia affords us.
For instance, when studying literature, an exposure to varied perspectives and interpretations allows us to find cleaner routes to the thoughts and pathos of great writers.
Individualized curricula facilitate this through the impassioned lectures of our favorite teachers, each of whom has his own way of massaging the minds of his students.
"Would it be a good thing if Harold Bloom (the foremost scholar of Shakespearean criticism) would show up on a computer screen and give everybody the same lecture on what the character Falstaff is about?" asks Bob Dickerson, instructor of literature at De Anza. "Is that what learning is?"
What if Harold Bloom is wrong about Falstaff? After all, oftentimes in literature no one point of view is correct.
And just as genetic success hinges upon variety and natural selection, success in the evolution of thought depends upon the modes and functions of versatility.
It is true that in some areas of study, such as the sciences and math, a common curriculum might be beneficial. But we should be very careful as to how we make this distinction.
Good grades are easy enough to achieve, if that's all you're after. We should be fighting for more knowledge, not less, a wider array of insights, not a narrower one. The passion to learn hangs on our necks wherever we stray. Why relinquish it?
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