I urge you young ones to do one thing. Read. It doesn't matter what you read, just read. Read fiction, or non-fiction, or comic books, or guitar magazines, or cereal boxes while you're eating breakfast...just read.
100% with you there Frank and I would add read often and read well!
There used to be a time when University students read for their degrees - nowadays they study
. This tends to underscore the instrumentalism to which you refer - many study
only to pass an exam; understanding is lost in the rush for a pass mark and any 'knowledge' gained is ephemeral: no depth only surface, all that is solid melts in to air. Ask many students a question on their chosen subject a few days after the exam and they cannot answer.
The situation is compounded in many UK universities where students are now official referred to as a 'customer' and academic staff are there to service their needs as 'customers' and to keep them entertained. To quote a VC (Dean) of one UK university, 'Anyone can teach any subject, all you have to do is read the lesson plan and notes before the 'customers'.' Yeah right
. Go into pretty much any university and you will witness no end of lectures that comprise docile 'customers' passively watching a lecture of little more than a series of Powerpoint slides regurgitated to them by the lecturer at the front. Hegel by numbers; Heidegger's 'Sein und Zeit' condensed into 6 easy to remember bullet points; Derrida for Dummies:
no depth, only surface. I was asked by a PhD candidate (whose thesis was on Michel Foucault) if I thought it was necessary to read Foucault rather then just relying on a 'Foucault for idiots' type primer. My response was that reading Foucault - and by that I meant all that he wrote AND much of what has been written on him - would in my view be a starting point.
Whilst I was reading for my PhD a Professor at my Uni said, 'You read too much Tony. You're not here to read.'
I've never understood what I was supposed to do instead
but then again I'm not that bright.
Cheers,
Tony
ps - not meant as a slight on anyone who is, was or has aspirations to Higher Education - just a comment on the prevailing general situation.