What Education?

AT the back of recent Harvard yearbooks--and this year's is no exception--sits a section reserved for delicious little quotes, sayings, aphorisms, even short stories, all passing judgement on the "Harvard Experience."

I am struck by one that seems to be repeated in spirit every year. It runs something like this: "I loved Harvard, for I was fortunate enough not to let Harvard (here insert also 'academics' or 'classes') interfere with my education."

This statement seems to capture both sides of the 'good Harvard-bad Harvard' coin. Most students find that friends, or extracurriculars, or being sociable, or living on their own constituted their best education. The flip side is inevitably Harvard's failure to educate--due to its large classes, distant faculty and ill-conceived Core curriculum.

But what have students gained if their education was solely derived from friends, roommates or clubs. They could get the same experience from a new job and home, any other college or any good summer camp. Why go to Harvard and waste money, if all you seek is social experience?

Undergraduates avoid blaming themselves for their failure to be educated. But they must bear much of the responsibility. When asked what he found most surprising about Harvard, a visiting professor from Australia replied: "It's the students. Most of them are rather dull. They sit in the back and don't ask any questions."

From a comparative perspective, this Australian professor could observe what many of us often miss: that the student body, like the majority of Americans, is essentially anti-intellectual in nature. It's disheartening to watch what could be America's greatest collection of raw intellectual talent descend into choosing their courses by exam date and lecture time.

Moreover, even at Harvard, intellectual pursuits are often frowned-upon. It is unseemly to work "too hard," lest one become a geek, and talking with professors--often the best way to learn--is thought of as "brown-nosing." Much admired is the student who can get a "B" without studying, which detracts from more important pastimes such as playing a sport, partying oneself into senselessness, or watching TV and gossiping the night away.

How few, it seems, are the students who intellectually challenge themselves on a consistent basis. The three "R's" have been replaced by two new ones: resume and relaxation. Harvard students are more interested in running for class marshal than in protesting for democracy, as their colleagues in China have done at the risk of their lives.

BUT like a romantic tragedy, there are two actors present here whose flaws lead to disaster. Not only do students hide from challenges, but their university refuses to challenge them. Harvard no longer presumes to tell undergraduates what they need to learn, believing they will somehow find the correct education on their own. The University should win renown as the World's Greatest University, as well as the World's Worst Teacher.

The signs are all around us. Harvard's poor excuse for a Core curriculum leaves the undergraduate without any foundation of knowledge or intellectual skill to build upon. The large lectures, the distance between most senior faculty and students and the importance of graduate students in teaching courses means that any learning usually takes place through diffusion rather than symbiosis. And the generous graduation requirements of many departments means almost anyone can coast through Harvard without having to feel sweat on his brow.

Add to this a university which, in many respects, has lost sight of its intellectual mission. The Faculty now spends its energy fighting with the administration about converting a gas station site into a hotel or offices. More effort seems to be spent on improving the return on the University endowment than on ensuring that undergraduates are receiving the proper education.

Teaching and research itself is being suffocated by thickening layers of bureaucracy. The dominant building on Harvard's campus is no longer University Hall but Holyoke Center, heart of Harvard's enormous officialdom. Moreover, an endless series of advisers are placed throughout the school in order to make the University more "sensitive" and "aware." The residential Houses, intended as intellectual enclaves within a large university, have become the best place to talk about one's sexual, social or drug problems, but not ideas--your's or anyone else's.

But somehow, some people stumble out of Harvard with an education without peer. This must be attributed to those individuals among the student body and the faculty who are willing to take on the senseless obstacles Harvard places before them. As this University grows older, will a Harvard education mean anything at all but a few scratchings on a piece of sheepskin?