These days, there is quite a bit of talk about whether colleges are shaming Western civilization and American culture. I basically like American culture for it's attempts to accept the diversity of cultures and lifestyles within it. Here's some of my own history related to college education.
When I came to college in the mid 1970s, WWU was reforming it's humanities requirements; the curriculum that is said to pass culture on to future generations.
My impression was that in the past, academia at WWU required lots of classes with heavy reading assignments. It was the study of Western Civilization's classics in literature; like reading Shakespeare and so forth. Many of these classes were large lecture courses.
I was fortunate that I got there just in time for the changes away from that curriculum as I'm not good at reading.
The changes were spurred by a changing world and dropping enrollment in the early 1970s. One reason for the enrollment decline was the end of the military draft. People didn't need to go to college to get a college deferment from possibly being drafted into military service. Yes, USA had a military draft years ago. The draft was ending just before I turned 18 which was draft age back then.
Cumbersome humanities requirements were also a deterrent to enrollment, at least at WWU, so they were streamlining the requirements.
While streamlining the requirements, they were also trying to broaden the curriculum to include study of non European cultures. This could have meant piling on more information and reading assignments, but since they were simplifying the requirements, things seemed to be getting easier.
The general college requirements were becoming more of a smorgasbord with a lot of diversity offered, but with less rigid requirements. Students got more choice in what they wanted to study, kind of like picking from a smorgasbord.
I was glad that those changes went into effect before I started college as I might have never made it through the GEDs (general education requirements) that were in place before.
Also back in the 1970s, I remember lots of radio advertisements for speed reading courses. Those gimmicky techniques were sold from radio ads to help plough through piles of reading. Problem is one can do speed reading, but long term comprehension must have been lacking. I don't hear ads for speed reading anymore.
One problem I found was that studying literature of the past did not seem very relevant to my life. I was in a new town, making new friends, coming out of the closet as a gay person and so forth. I was learning by interacting with the current culture around me such as the student clubs and the dorm life around me. Books from past centuries weren't directly addressing my experiences.
I remember people treating the humanities requirements like just a bunch of hoops to jump through, cramming for the test and then going on with their lives that were, for the most part, disconnected from the studies.
Does attending impersonal lecture classes, reading books and passing tests just to jump through the hoops on one's way to a high paying career necessarily make one a better citizen?
One of my favorite classes was called Interpersonal Communications. It was small group discussions where people could share their own experiences. At times, it was almost like a therapy session. It was taught in the Speech Department.
I find I learn best by interacting versus just reading from a book or sitting to watch a movie. Interactive experiences work best for me as well as information that addresses the life I am experiencing.
I'll admit my experience may be distant and irrelevant to what students are navigating today, but I wish to share my own history anyway.
As part of the smorgasbord I took a class on Native American culture. It was quite insightful. I also took a class on Gandhi and cultures of India.
The requirements at WWU were getting simpler, but broader at the same time. More choices were being offered.
I like the idea of a smorgasbord. It allows people to make choices that are relevant to their own needs. This is what college seemed to be evolving toward, back when I was in school.
The smorgasbord idea does get criticized as we don't have much of a unified concept of what's important to learn about culture. Still, I think a smorgasbord is unavoidable as the world is very diverse and the human brain can only absorb so much information. We can't design one curriculum that contains all the important things about human culture around the world.
I think there are many attempts to make our society inclusive of the variety in cultures and lifestyles. That's good and I also think it's the price that US and European culture has had to pay as it has historically expanded out from Europe. This large and diverse world has been turned, by technology and admittedly by military conquest, into a global village. A smorgasbord of diverse lifestyles, religious beliefs and cultures seems like the easiest way for people to get along.
Under Trump, there are attempts to turn the clock back on that. Some of that is pushback from the shaming of US culture. Aside from that, I still think we should make progress toward accepting our diversity. People could turn down the shaming a bit and be at least moderately proud of the progress we have made.
In so many countries like Iran, diversity is pretty much suppressed.
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