The Core Problem

AS AN IDEA, Harvard's Core curriculum is a fine thing. It represents progress in the field of education, an eloquent response to Henry Adams, who believed that his Harvard education did not begin to prepare him for his later life.

The alternative to the current Core is teaching students the specifics of the major academic disciplines. Come Commencement time, such an educational approach would, as Core critics argue, produce better educated men and women.

However, within a decade, graduates' knowledge would be dated; what had served them so well as undergraduates would be superceded by more recent research. And over a life-time, a nitty-gritty education would ultimately prove less useful than a few years of trade school.

Harvard's Core, consequently, seeks to impart an education that will last a lifetime. By teaching approaches to knowledge, it tries to provide us with the techniques and tools needed to approach various disciplines. It allows us to reeducate ourselves as disciplines change over the years and thus avoid Henry Adam's predicament. Unfortunately, the Core doesn't work that way. It may be a great idea on paper, but it doesn't translate into reality.

PROPOSED CORE COURSES must go through an elaborate review process before being accepted. The Core Committee rejects most of the proposed courses it scrutinizes. Consequently, professors are well aware of the intent of the Core and generally understand how their course fits in with its approach.

Teaching fellows, however, are another story. While they are knowledgable in their own disciplines, they are too often ignorant of the Core and its larger purposes. They receive no training in the intent or philosophy of the Core and are consequently likely to view a Core course precisely as they should not--as little more than an introduction or a survey.

Unlike professors, teaching fellows are not reviewed by the Core committee. At the beginning of each semester there is a desperate scramble for graduate students to lead sections in over-subscribed Core courses with courses advertising for TFs on department bulletin boards. Yet these last ditch section leaders provide the only personal instruction students get in large lecture courses. They are actually expected to steer the fine line between teaching a subject and teaching how to approach a subject?

AFTER HANDING BACK midterms, one Core section leader in a Core course commented that the exams were "pretty good for an intro course." All too often TFs like this one fail to realize that they are teaching almost exclusively non-concentrators who will never take another course in the field again.

Knowing history does not qualify one to teach a physicist all he will ever know about how to study history. Expertise in a field is just not enough when it comes to teaching in the Core.

Section leaders do the grading. They help students determine what kind of issues to focus on. They make or break a course. Only in the case of the Core, the stakes are higher. A section leader who emphasizes facts at the expense of approach single-handedly stands between the student and a well-rounded education.

TFs ought to receive training on how to teach in the Core. They should also be screened far more thoroughly before they are hired. These measures would require more advanced planning on the part of professors and may even require restricted enrollments. If that's the price we have to pay, it's worth it. As it now stands, the Core teaches neither approaches to knowledge, nor knowledge itself, successfully.