Word: core
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ways of understanding and portraying humanity, so directly studying different forms of portrayals is as, if not more, important than learning the skills needed to analyze them.Such a scheme will not be hard to implement; in fact, it already exists at the College. For all its faults, the current Core Curriculum casts a sharp and sensible distinction between the Literature and Arts A and B categories. Literature and Arts A courses are concerned with the analysis of literary texts, while Literature and Arts B courses examine non-literary forms of art. The best way to instruct undergraduates in literature...
Long, long ago (circa 1979) an institution was born at Harvard College. It was named “The Core,” and its coming was prophesized to herald a golden age in the education of collegiate pupils. Under its benevolent rule, simple undergraduates would be transformed from ignorant savages into enlightened cosmopolitans who no longer sought to gain the easy A, but rather to enrich their existence with knowledge of the ages. All that was needed was absolute submission?...
...problem with the general education report released earlier this month is that it fails to confront the major fault of the Core Curriculum: the lack of student choice. A philosophical change from “ways of learning” to “application of learning” doesn’t solve the fact that only about one-eighth of the courses in the history department fulfill the Historical Studies requirement, and only one class in the entire philosophy department fulfills Moral Reasoning. Quibbling over methodological approaches and requirement names will only replace one repressive system with another...
...common objection is that student choice will digress into a mindless pursuit of an easy A. This claim is ill-founded. Students already seek out easy core classes, and lower workloads do not necessarily translate into inferior classes. An extra chapter of reading or a problem set per week doesn’t mean that the course will affect the way the student views the world in a greater...
Instead of more bureaucratic distinction-making, the College should keep the general education requirement divided into eleven core areas but stop dictating a small list of classes that fulfill them. A class that examines literature should count for Literature and Arts A; likewise, a class that studies the behavior of people and institutions should count as Social Analysis. The Core was created for students, not students for the Core. Ultimately, only students have a stake in their own liberal education, and because of this, it should be the students who have the power...