The dignity of knowledge as opposed to ignominy of ignorance

From The Amazing Colossal Syllabus, an essay by Thomas Bertonneau. In the form of the age old lament that children today are not what they used to be; an accusation ineluctably true but sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In this instance, Bertonneau provides a little bit of meat on the bones of the accusation.

I cannot determine whether his experience, which I don't doubt, is universal or not. I certainly hope not. If it is common, then we almost certainly have a problem.

When I took college courses, I knew in advance that I would leave the bookstore with an armful of paperback editions. Students nowadays often email me just before the semester begins asking what book, in the singular, they will need to buy for my courses. In high school, as I know because my son is currently a high school student, there often is one book for one course. In college too, there is often one book for one course, even in literature departments.

The notorious classroom anthologies, a collusive racket run by the Ivy League professoriate and the academic publishing houses, here account for the prevailing student impression. I dislike the anthologies intensely, not least because they eclipse the legitimate and civilized notion that a primary reason for going to college—or let us say for pursuing higher education—is to have the opportunity and the leisure to read books, in the plural.

The singularization of a formerly plural noun might seem a trivial matter. I think not. The sadly impoverished student expectation of one book for one course, reveals that the image of college studies as an abundantly literate activity has no contemporary hold in the youthful, college-bound imagination. Moreover, the pedagogical practice of one book for one course, speaks of the triumph of the bureaucratic-administrative view of higher learning beyond the domain of deans, provosts, and presidents. Instructors are also to blame.

It follows that students who never expect books, in the plural, to constitute the foci of a fifteen-week semester will experience confusion about how to comport themselves with a six- or seven-book demand in a three-month period. (Their trepidation is real; I would not discount it.) The Amazing Colossal Syllabus reaches to blot out the sun in part from the need to specify, in a day-by-day and page-by-page manner, the optimum schedule of reading.

For my two in high school and my one in college, I know this focus on single books for a course is not true. I can't imagine an education that did so little in terms of establishing broad parameters of knowledge. Regrettably, I can imagine the circumstances of bureaucracy and governance that would allow such a focus to evolve and pretend that it constituted a decent university education.

The enlargement of the syllabus also stems from the need to define, explain, and insofar as possible justify the course itself, something that no syllabus from my undergraduate career ever bothered to do. The syllabus of my survey of ancient literature (“Western Heritage”) addresses the basic notion of historical indebtedness, the idea of continuity of insight, and of the dignity of knowledge as opposed to ignominy of ignorance. The syllabus also addresses the difficulty of reading; it tells students that an epic poem by Homer or a philosophical dialogue by Plato is not like a TV drama or a movie, in which in the first few minutes, one can predict the remainder.

That the rot is there, I have no doubt. I just hope that it is not extensive.