Hello
Charles Murray has published a 3-part opinion-piece in the Wall Street Journal over the past three days. The full-text of each piece is available from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research where he is the W,H, Brady Scholar in Culture and Freedom
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25452,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
Part 1: Intelligence in the Classroom
Part 2: What's wrong with Vocational School
Part 3: Aztecs vs Greeks
Whatever you feel about these issues - and about intelligence measurement - these are a suite of provocative and thought-provoking articles. As ever, he sometimes speaks with an authority about intelligence which belies the imprecision of its definition and measurement. But, within the clever weaving of fact and assertion, there are some critical questions posed about the role of education and the current fad for everyone to gain a degree in something.
For me, one of the most "stand out" and chilling paragraphs (in terms of what it implies from many competing perspectives) is from Part 3 ...
"In short, I am calling for a revival of the classical definition of a liberal education, serving its classic purpose: to prepare an elite to do its duty. If that sounds too much like Plato's Guardians, consider this distinction. As William F. Buckley rightly instructs us, it is better to be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. But we have that option only in the choice of our elected officials. In all other respects, the government, economy and culture are run by a cognitive elite that we do not choose. That is the reality, and we are powerless to change it. All we can do is try to educate the elite to be conscious of, and prepared to meet, its obligations. For years, we have not even thought about the nature of that task. It is time we did".
______________________________
Paul Barrett
Chief Research Scientist
Hogan Assessment Systems Inc.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
|