Word: formalizing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...danger of formal education eclipsing real life was personified for me during my first year back by a trio of graduate students whom I shall refer to as the Three Blind Mice...
AFTER HAVING SPENT six years away from the classroom, the first weakness I noticed in formal education was the way it trains young minds to see the world through the processes of categorization and idealization. Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear submarine and a prominent critic of the American educational system, visited our sophomore tutorial last year and emphasized the fact that history texts make past events look like the products of superhumans and rigid ideals, when in reality most were the result of a fluid mixture of chance and compromise made by people much like ourselves. He hammered...
...dean added that he plans to meet with Chamberlain soon to discuss the possibilities--which could range from informal probation to dismissal from the Summer School Flick explains that he plans to make a formal recommendation on action at a meeting next week of the Dean's Council, a disciplinary committee of about 15 officials--including Senior Proctors and several other Summer School administrators...
Like the Chamberlain case, Flick said, Harvard officials will postpone consideration of formal disciplinary action until the criminal case is handled...
...Three Blind Mice confirmed my suspicion that the ideologies and theories learned in college are of imperceptible value in dealing with people; and that formal education fails to prepare students to adjust to day to day life. Rather, it becomes a programmatic attempt to help young people understand human actions after the fact. The classroom situation imposes certain restrictions (limited range of readings, limited time, one teacher's point of view) on the learning experience that are necessary to prevent chaos. In the end it is simply too safe and standardized an environment to teach a person about living...