Beyond Based
Elwin t
For students, we have nobody
to blame but ourselves
Students stage a slum at Georgetown University on NDV. protests around the
country. [Astrid / Forthe Washington Past)
By Kathleen Parker Opinion writer 'h ''l w 24 I
It would be easy to call protesting college students crybabies and brats for
pitching hissy fits over hurt feelings, but this likely would lead to such torrents of
tearful tribulation that the nation' s university system would have to shut down for
a prolonged period of grief counseling.
Besides, it would be insensitive.
Instead, let me be the first to say: it' s not the
Kathleen
column on palms and culture. She
received the Pulitzer results of our Everybody Gets a Trophy culture and
Commentary!" 2010. View Archive
students' fault. These serial tantrums are direct
an educational system that. for the most part. no
gt Facebook longer teaches a core curriculum, including history,
a RSS government and the Bill of Rights.
The students simply don' t know any better.
This isn' t necessarily to excuse them. Everyone has a choice whether to ignore a
perceived slight - or to form a posse. But as with any problem, it helps to
understand its source. The disease, I fear. was with the zealous
pampering of the American child that began a few decades ago.
The first sign of the epidemic of sensitivity we' re witnessing was when parents
and teachers were instructed never to tell johnny that he' s a "bad boy." but that
he' s "acting" like a bad boy.
Next. johnny was handed a blue ribbon along with everyone else on the team
even though he didn' t deserve one. This had the opposite effect of what was
intended. Rather than protecting Johnny' s fragile , the prize
undermined Johnny' s faith in his own perceptions and judgment. It robbed him of
his ability to pick himself up when he fell and to be brave, honest and hardy in the
face of adversity.
is earned, not bestowed.
Today' s campuses are overrun with , their female counterparts and
their adult enablers. How will we ever find enough fainting couches?
Lest anyone feel slighted so soon, this is also not to diminish the pain of racism (or
sexism. ageism, blondish or whatever -ism gets one' s tear ducts moistened). But
nothing reported on campuses the past several weeks rises to the level of the
coerced resignations of a university chancellor and president.
The affronts that prompted students to demand the resignations include: a
possibly , driveway racial epithet apparently aimed at the student body
president; another racial epithet, hurled by a drunk white student; a swastika
drawn with feces in a dorm restroom.
Someone certainly deserves a spanking - or psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud had
plenty to say about people who play with the products of their alimentary canal.
But do such events mean that students have been neglected, as protesters have
charged? or that the school tolerates racism?
Concurrent with these episodes of outrage is the recent surge on campuses of
trigger warnings" in syllabuses to alert students to content that might be
upsetting, and "safe spaces" where students can seek refuge when ideas make
them uncomfortable. It seems absurd to have to mention that the purpose of
higher education is to be challenged, to be exposed to different views and. above
all, to be exhilarated by the exercise offere speech - other people' s as well as
one' s own.
The marketplace of ideas is not for sissies, in other words. And it would appear
that knowledge, the curse of the enlightened, is not for everyone.
The latter is meant to be an observation, but on many college campuses today, it
seems to be an operating principle. A recent survey of 1, 100 colleges and
universities found that only 18 percent require American history or government,
where such foundational premises as the First Amendment might be explained
and understood.
The survey. by the American Council and Alumni, assesses schools
according to whether they have at least one required course in composition,
foreign language at the intermediate level, American government or history,
economics, science, mathematics and literature. coincidentally, the very
institutions where students are dominating what passes for debate also scored
among the worst: Missouri, D; Yale, C; Dartmouth, C; and Princeton, C - all for
requiring only one or a few of the subjects. Amherst scored an F for requiring
none of them.
Such is the world we' created for young people who soon enough will discover
that the world doesn' t much care about their tender feelings. But before such
harsh realities knock them off their ponies, we might hope that they redirect their
anger. They have every right to despise the coddling culture that ill prepared
them for life and an educational system that has failed to teach them what they
need to know.
Weep for them - and us.
Read more from Kathleen Parker' s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on
Facebook.
For students, we have nobody
to blame but ourselves
Students stage a slum at Georgetown University on NDV. protests around the
country. [Astrid / Forthe Washington Past)
By Kathleen Parker Opinion writer 'h ''l w 24 I
It would be easy to call protesting college students crybabies and brats for
pitching hissy fits over hurt feelings, but this likely would lead to such torrents of
tearful tribulation that the nation' s university system would have to shut down for
a prolonged period of grief counseling.
Besides, it would be insensitive.
Instead, let me be the first to say: it' s not the
Kathleen
column on palms and culture. She
received the Pulitzer results of our Everybody Gets a Trophy culture and
Commentary!" 2010. View Archive
students' fault. These serial tantrums are direct
an educational system that. for the most part. no
gt Facebook longer teaches a core curriculum, including history,
a RSS government and the Bill of Rights.
The students simply don' t know any better.
This isn' t necessarily to excuse them. Everyone has a choice whether to ignore a
perceived slight - or to form a posse. But as with any problem, it helps to
understand its source. The disease, I fear. was with the zealous
pampering of the American child that began a few decades ago.
The first sign of the epidemic of sensitivity we' re witnessing was when parents
and teachers were instructed never to tell johnny that he' s a "bad boy." but that
he' s "acting" like a bad boy.
Next. johnny was handed a blue ribbon along with everyone else on the team
even though he didn' t deserve one. This had the opposite effect of what was
intended. Rather than protecting Johnny' s fragile , the prize
undermined Johnny' s faith in his own perceptions and judgment. It robbed him of
his ability to pick himself up when he fell and to be brave, honest and hardy in the
face of adversity.
is earned, not bestowed.
Today' s campuses are overrun with , their female counterparts and
their adult enablers. How will we ever find enough fainting couches?
Lest anyone feel slighted so soon, this is also not to diminish the pain of racism (or
sexism. ageism, blondish or whatever -ism gets one' s tear ducts moistened). But
nothing reported on campuses the past several weeks rises to the level of the
coerced resignations of a university chancellor and president.
The affronts that prompted students to demand the resignations include: a
possibly , driveway racial epithet apparently aimed at the student body
president; another racial epithet, hurled by a drunk white student; a swastika
drawn with feces in a dorm restroom.
Someone certainly deserves a spanking - or psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud had
plenty to say about people who play with the products of their alimentary canal.
But do such events mean that students have been neglected, as protesters have
charged? or that the school tolerates racism?
Concurrent with these episodes of outrage is the recent surge on campuses of
trigger warnings" in syllabuses to alert students to content that might be
upsetting, and "safe spaces" where students can seek refuge when ideas make
them uncomfortable. It seems absurd to have to mention that the purpose of
higher education is to be challenged, to be exposed to different views and. above
all, to be exhilarated by the exercise offere speech - other people' s as well as
one' s own.
The marketplace of ideas is not for sissies, in other words. And it would appear
that knowledge, the curse of the enlightened, is not for everyone.
The latter is meant to be an observation, but on many college campuses today, it
seems to be an operating principle. A recent survey of 1, 100 colleges and
universities found that only 18 percent require American history or government,
where such foundational premises as the First Amendment might be explained
and understood.
The survey. by the American Council and Alumni, assesses schools
according to whether they have at least one required course in composition,
foreign language at the intermediate level, American government or history,
economics, science, mathematics and literature. coincidentally, the very
institutions where students are dominating what passes for debate also scored
among the worst: Missouri, D; Yale, C; Dartmouth, C; and Princeton, C - all for
requiring only one or a few of the subjects. Amherst scored an F for requiring
none of them.
Such is the world we' created for young people who soon enough will discover
that the world doesn' t much care about their tender feelings. But before such
harsh realities knock them off their ponies, we might hope that they redirect their
anger. They have every right to despise the coddling culture that ill prepared
them for life and an educational system that has failed to teach them what they
need to know.
Weep for them - and us.
Read more from Kathleen Parker' s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on
Facebook.
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