Word: coreness
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When I reflect on the Core classes that dot my transcript, the problem as I see it had little to do with what I was learning, and everything to do with how it was taught, an error of method, not of content. In this light, the Task Force’s report seems too erudite and abstract for the dilemma at hand, like trying to fix a broken down car with a new theory of locomotion. The proposed shift from “ways of knowing” to “real-world context” will do little...
...telling truism about undergraduate life at Harvard that we learn more from our fellow students than we do in class. It certainly describes my experience, particularly when assessed against the classes I took in the Core. However, it is not simply that peer learning often trumps academic learning, but that the two so frequently exist in entirely separate spheres. A truly revitalized undergraduate education would adopt methods that more strongly involve undergraduates as collaborators in each other’s educations; to this end, the Task Force on General Education’s final report should mark the start...
...General Education Report concludes that the problem with the Core lies in its stated purpose, and so the report recommends swapping it out for a new one, replacing the old “ways of knowing” with a new imperative to teach undergraduates how the “arts and sciences relates to their lives and to the world that they will confront.” The report goes on to note, “Since 1945 the Harvard Faculty has believed in the importance of taking a stand on the question of what students need to learn...
...basic methods of a Core class seem to have learned nothing from the innovative progress of education during the past century. Students attend lecture, read at night, write papers, and take final exams—each practice remains as solitary as it is antiquated. Students attend section for an hour a week and always have the opportunity to talk about classes in the dining hall or the dorm room, but the social dimension of learning is almost entirely extrinsic to the practice and principles of a Core education...
...While elementary and secondary education have benefited from progressive ideas of alternative learning, group work, and hands-on activity, higher education has retained an unfortunate commitment to antiquated Puritan themes of individual contemplation and work in isolation—both of which characterize the academic experience of the Core, the hours spent alone in the library, alone writing a paper, alone taking notes in a crowded lecture hall...