U. S. Education and Research Trends
I am going to resume posting my thoughts on a variety of topics, mostly for my own satisfaction but also as a record of "what's on my mind." I have concluded that most people, including family members, care little for my thoughts or opinions, which tend to drift into areas uninteresting to them. For some reason, this hasn't deterred me from ruminating about these subjects, which I find both interesting and, in my judgment, important. So here goes.
I think a lot about the rapid decline of the United States, both as a thought leader and an economic power. It saddens me to see this happening. I can't do much about it and maybe I should be worrying and thinking about things over which I have some control, as Shirley is wont to tell me, but my mind keeps drifting back to the subject. We still have some of the greatest universities in the world. But we increasingly populate the research centers of our universities with foreign-born graduate students. It is good that they still want to come here, but increasingly, they return to their own countries rather than staying here, and increasingly, the countries they come from are developing ever more robust research universities and post-doctorate research centers of their own, which are becoming competitive with the research capabilities of the U.S. In a sense, we should be happy about this, since it is unrealistic to believe that we will always be able to attract the best and the brightest brains from around the world to do our cutting-edge research, but it seems to be a progressive trend that is worrisome to me. I hope that we will always be able to populate our best universities with the minds needed to keep both our basic and our technical, applied research product among the best in the world. But I worry that China and India, with their huge populations, will create research and academic environments that are more attractive than our universities. These countries already honor their scientists and mathematicians far more than we. In the United States, many bright and capable students are attracted to the law and to business and management and away from academia, science, engineering, and mathematics. Medicine is no longer as attractive to students as it was several generations ago. We do not honor or reward teachers in our country, with the result that both our public and private schools have continued declining in quality, language skills have declined nationwide, fewer people read and the quality of literature has deteriorated measurably during the last several generations. In short, our children are becoming less educated and less competitive vis a vis Europe and Asia.
I am proud of my own children and grandchildren. They have excelled in school and in their professions. But I am worried about the general population. I could be wrong and overly pessimistic, but I don't think so.
I think a lot about the rapid decline of the United States, both as a thought leader and an economic power. It saddens me to see this happening. I can't do much about it and maybe I should be worrying and thinking about things over which I have some control, as Shirley is wont to tell me, but my mind keeps drifting back to the subject. We still have some of the greatest universities in the world. But we increasingly populate the research centers of our universities with foreign-born graduate students. It is good that they still want to come here, but increasingly, they return to their own countries rather than staying here, and increasingly, the countries they come from are developing ever more robust research universities and post-doctorate research centers of their own, which are becoming competitive with the research capabilities of the U.S. In a sense, we should be happy about this, since it is unrealistic to believe that we will always be able to attract the best and the brightest brains from around the world to do our cutting-edge research, but it seems to be a progressive trend that is worrisome to me. I hope that we will always be able to populate our best universities with the minds needed to keep both our basic and our technical, applied research product among the best in the world. But I worry that China and India, with their huge populations, will create research and academic environments that are more attractive than our universities. These countries already honor their scientists and mathematicians far more than we. In the United States, many bright and capable students are attracted to the law and to business and management and away from academia, science, engineering, and mathematics. Medicine is no longer as attractive to students as it was several generations ago. We do not honor or reward teachers in our country, with the result that both our public and private schools have continued declining in quality, language skills have declined nationwide, fewer people read and the quality of literature has deteriorated measurably during the last several generations. In short, our children are becoming less educated and less competitive vis a vis Europe and Asia.
I am proud of my own children and grandchildren. They have excelled in school and in their professions. But I am worried about the general population. I could be wrong and overly pessimistic, but I don't think so.
Labels: U.S. Education
posted by Bob at 10:08 PM
1 Comments:
Dad,
I agree with your assessment of the sad state of American education. Have you read "The Closing of the American Mind", by Allan Bloom? A humanities professor, he is particularly concerned with the lack of basic philosophic, historical, and literary education of students entering and exiting the university. He taught at Chicago and in the Ivy League, so the "quality" of student he based his conclusions from can't exactly be considered wanting. From my experience, his observations are dead on, and I believe it's the root problem to the greater educational problem we have.
Of the students who actually do become well-educated, it often seems the only reason they do so is to secure the best jobs; I get the sense that people used to want a better understanding of what it means to be human and to understand the why's in life, not just the what's. As a result, education per-se just isn't as important as it used to be, and that is sad.
In a sense, given the extraordinary level of affluence and easy money over the past 30-40 years in America, perhaps it was inevitable. And given the new sense of "sexual freedom" and ability to often indulge in all manor of vain pleasure seeking cheaply, privately, and without experiencing what used to be the harsh consequences for such action, one may ask the question, "why should I take the effort to become educated?" And since people are so nonchalant about religion, sprituality, and leading ethical lives, their well-intentioned line of reasoning often leads them towards hedonism and self-indulgence.
Post a Comment
<< Home