In the reading selection, a man is conduction an experiment with his wife on elitism and the humanities. The humanities are the liberal classes we are taught in school (philosophy, poetry, art history, logic, rhetoric and American history). He wants to take a sample of carefully selected poor people and put them in a series of rigorous courses. He explains how he thinks the elite and middle class are born with a certain privilege, of the humanities that the poor class are never introduced to. Using private donations and some of his own money he conducts this experiment with positive results. 14 of the 16 who stayed in the course are now in college. 1 was fired from her fast food union for trying to start a union.
The experimenter did a very good job. He used a well selected group of people to conduct his research. He also tested over a long period of time to ensure the best results. He used direct dialogs and filmed each class session to document even further. The dialog as the excerpt went on seemed to improve with the course. Having the different sections cut out made me feel a little confused and made it choppy.
I agree with the authors studies, but the amount of money and time spent is not going to happen in real life to everyone. As he said in the middle of the article, some of the people he interviewed were just to poor and helpless. I agree that middle and upper class students definitely have an upper hand in life to poor children ever since birth. You can definitely see that in todays society, especially in college.
"You want a certain kind of life, a richness of mind and spirit."
This is what the whole article was about. Teaching the humanities to the less privileged. Hoping to push the limits of a set society, and to show that work pays off. A richness in mind is referring to logic and analytical skills. Spirit is having a positive attitude towards life and to increase self esteem. These are the two basic qualifications to success in todays world. To have a positive mind and to have knowledge and education.
After reading your comments about middle and higher classes having a certain privilege over poor communities, it reminded me of one of my themes in my exploratory essay. Students have little choice sometimes when it comes down to their education. A child doesn't decide where they go to school they are young and if they are cut short of certain liberal courses, they are limited to opportunities in our society once they get older. Is there really an equal opportunity when it comes to quality of education when you're young?
ReplyDeleteI liked what you said about the humanities improving the positive outlook and self-esteem of its students. I think this was best shown when Shorris mentioned receiving that telephone call from David, one of the Clemente course students. It seems that learning about Socrates and learning to ask himself the question "What would Socrates do?" before over-reacting to a co-worker's negative comments really improved the way that David handled this conflict. Judging from the positive outcome of that conflict, the Clemente course helped David to view himself as worthy of saving and that "his coworker's envy was not his problem", thus allowing him to feel better about himself in relation to his coworker. Do you think this type of reasoning could also help students in other ways?
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