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Message: <blockquote data-quote="joethelawyer" data-source="post: 4796678" data-attributes="member: 55764">It is disturbing.  I just read an article related to this today.  A professor wrote something called The commencement speech you'll never hear.  In it he says:[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Well, I believe that the humanities have failed you also, especially in regards to ethics and morality.  More specifically, those of us who teach English have ignored your urgent needs to write better.  I have taught long enough (fifty years) to observe a steady decline in the writing skills of almost all students at virtually every level of the educational system—but especially during the past decade or so of grade inflation and feel-good philosophies promoted by educators to nurture students’ self-esteem.[/SIZE][/FONT]       [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Remarkably, almost all of you who are graduating today—no matter what your major—will complete your degree with a B+ grade point average or higher.  At some institutions, and in some disciplines, rarely is a grade below an A- given to any student who completes a course.  And yet surveys indicate that many of you do little or no work outside of the classroom, assuming that you do attend classes.[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][/FONT]       [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Were you truly challenged by your higher education?  Did you write papers that asked you to grapple with ideas and not simply borrow from the Internet?  Did your professors carefully read your papers and challenge you with their comments?[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][/FONT]       [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]What I am suggesting is that your professors rarely gave you the grades you deserved but, instead, enabled most of you to assume that you are hard-working original thinkers, brilliant students who were deeply immersed in the disciplines they supposedly taught you.[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][/FONT]       [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]So this is where you find yourself today: with a stunning grade point average from a first-rate institution, an impressive résumé (because of all your carefully chosen extra-curricular activities and internships), heavily in debt, and with few prospects for a high-paying job.[/SIZE][/FONT]The whole article is over here.<a href="http://www.counterpunch.com/larson05082009.html" target="_blank">Charles R. Larson: The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear</a></blockquote>

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