“Ivy Retardation”: Elite Schools Causing Narrow-Mindedness “Ivy retardation” (1) as said by one of William Deresiewicz’s friends in Deresiewicz’s essay, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education”, means that people of a higher education believe that they are smarter than the average person due to the fact that they have become experts in their specific field of studies. Deresiewicz’s personal example for this was that he was having trouble talking to a plumber who was in his house and that even though he has an Ivy League education; Deresiewicz couldn’t talk to the plumber with less education than himself. With this example being stated as an attempt to show that he has the same personal issue that he is critiquing, the questions are: what …show more content…
This is basically stating that all students choose to ignore what other people’s values are due to their higher education. If he would have said something along the lines of “broadly true of all the universities and elite schools that I have been around, precisely because the students that I have met possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others,” then he wouldn’t have caused such a generalization of all students in higher education. The way that he phrases his sentences could easily offend many readers, this leads to what could almost be considered a contradiction due to the fact that he is offending some of the people he is trying to persuade to be offended by other means. He expresses his opinion in an extremely blunt way, in which he is making the attempt to show the discrimination between higher educated students, alumni, and professors contrasted to students or individuals who did not take the same path of higher education. With this attempt, he was trying to persuade the reader to be insulted by the way that Ivy League or higher education schools teach that they should have a sense of superiority. With using this offensive phrasing in his argument he could cause many students or alumni who are in or have gone through college (majority of audience), to heavily disagree and even be offended by his main point of the
As mentioned before, he based all of his facts off of his own opinions. Dale uses only 2 pieces of statistical evidence to backup his claim. If this assumption were to become something that everyone believed, people would not get the education they would need to have a successful career life. A lot of people would become jobless because all the low level jobs would not need anymore employees. The higher up jobs would be lacking in business because no one would meet the requirements to work for the companies. Reviewing the article, Dale forgets to point out that a lot of people that go to college become successful. Yes, college isn’t right for everyone, but most of the time, the only way for people to have a successful lifestyle is to go to college.
It is evident that Gerald Graff’s article is bias because he avoids talking about acquiring academic intelligence through academic learning rather than non-academic ways. For instance, Graff shows bias when he generalizes our way of seeing educated life and academics. He said that, “We associate the educated life, the life of the mind, too narrowly and exclusively with subjects and texts that we consider inherently weighty and academic. We assume that it’s possible to wax intellectual about Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution, and nuclear fission, but not about cars, dating fashion, sports, TV, or video games.” (Graff 264-5). Graff clearly thinks that everyone associates educated life with academics, when in reality this is not true. He believes that
However, not every person should attend college” (Pharinet 680). This shows how Pharinet makes it clear that she agrees that education is important and everyone has the right to attend school, but then states her argument. By doing so she allows the readers to understand her view point, while not being able to question it. She then continues her argument by additional nodes to the opposition that allow other contradicting statements to be refined to a point where one’s interpretation can be unified. She points out the fact of “If college is for everyone, why do we rely on SAT scores and high school transcripts? Why doesn’t every school have an open admissions policy? Quite simply, because not everyone should attend college’’ (Pharinet 681). This example expresses another valid point that supports Pharinet’s argument of how college might not be for everyone. It allows the reader’s insight on additional information that she brings into her argument that is completely true. Nether the less allowing for the mental processing of the argument to be understood and more detailed. It uses the key components of admission to college against itself to support the intelligence theory she uses as in scores or results of test. Therefore, if one was to
Christ utilizes rhetorical devices to elevate the effectiveness of the article. In the opening paragraph the use of the rhetorical questions: “If Bill Gates and Steve Jobs never earned degrees, is college really necessary? Why should taxpayers foot the bill for “pointless” departments like anthropology?”, provides the reader with an understanding of what is to be answered in the essay. The second paragraph refutes the sentiment of these questions and gives an effective response by stating, “Yet, judging the value of a liberal arts education, even with a purely economic calculus, shows it to be more relevant than ever before” (Christ, “Myth: A Liberal Arts Education is Becoming Irrelevant”). By providing a counter response to the questions, the author is clarifying her main argument. Ethos, is another integral part of proving an argument. Christ uses facts including “the Association of American Colleges and Universities shows that more than three-quarters of employers would recommend an education with this emphasis to a young person they know,” which make her point that being liberally educated will make someone more employable (Christ, “Myth: A Liberal Arts Education is Becoming Irrelevant”). An important aspect of providing facts is validating them
Stanley Fish explains his encounter with a distinguished political philosopher/authors during a conference where the philosopher praises the British government for giving him an opportunity to partake in higher education and become knowledgeable in the career that interest him. After listening to the gentleman, Fish reflects on the educational system and its flaws. He seems to disagree with several statements the authors at the conference are making over higher education. He believes, the British government and higher education system educate their students to choose a
If the article was written to people who had already completed college and were well into their careers, it would be a pointless essay. Same goes for if the essay was written for people who had no plans on ever attending college. This essay was specifically written for those who are either about to enter college or have opportunities to transfer still. The author wants the audience to make the best decisions on what kind of institution is best for receiving and retaining knowledge. He also wants future prospects to see that so much more happens in college than just learning and the overall experience as a whole is what shapes one into an intellectual person. This is seen through his comment when he communicates that while some “working adults pursuing clearly defined vocational programs” (Neem 93) may learn wonderfully in an online environment, overall “we must deepen our commitment to those institutions that cultivate a love for learning in their students” (Neem 94). He wants an audience that sees the importance of furthering their education in the right environment like he does. This audience along with an intellectual appeal complement each other well in this argument and lead to an overall good
...o further the point that college is not for everyone. It also reinforces the point that for particular people, college is a tremendous investment.
College education also does a large of things for college students, these things can be both counted and not counted. Delbanco wrote about this when he wrote “The best reason to care about college – who goes,.... is not what it does for society in economic terms but what it can do for individuals, in both calculable and incalculable ways”(Delbanco 507). In the article Delbanco writes about what one of the alumni at one of his talks said to him afterwards. He writes about the experience of this alumni in his article when he writes “Not only had a college education enriched his capacity to read demanding works of literature and to grasp fundamental political ideas, it had also heightened and deepened his alertness to color and form, melody and harmony...Such an education is a hedge against utilitarian values”(Delbanco 508). Delbanco also wrote how college education has maintained the same in some ways for many years. He writes “The tradition of liberal learning survived and thrived throughout European history but remained largely the possession of ruling elites. The distinctive American contribution has been the attempt to democratize it, to deploy it on behalf of things cardinal American principle that all persons, regardless of origin, have the to pursue happiness… is helpful to that pursuit. Educated can be characterized as “snobbish and narrow”, but that is not
...ege might not be for everyone, for one reason or another- college does benefit its students. It gives young adults a place to transition into adulthood, to have a support system of friends and professors, and balance responsibility. The value of this, to a certain extent, is more than that of the actual education. Though colleges aren’t perfect, they do benefit students, and in turn satisfy the ever changing economic needs. A degree does not equal success, and college is not perfect for everyone- but all college students’ benefit from their education one way or another, creating worldly, accomplished young adults.
In a letter to columnist Ann Landers, a college professor wrote about his views of the education system. He feels that universities have turned into businesses where teachers are just looking for money and students are just looking for a piece of paper with a title on it. He says that the students of today think they are automatically entitled to a degree because they pay tuition (Depressed Old Prof. 3-B). Adding to the profit motive for schools is the government which, for the p...
In the article “College is Not a Commodity. Stop treating it like one,” Hunter Rawlings explains how people today believe that college is a commodity, but he argues that it’s the student’s efforts; which gives value to their education. Rawlings states that in recent years college has been looked at in economic terms, lowering its worth to something people must have instead of earn. As a professor Rawlings has learned that the quality of education has nothing to do with the school or the curriculum, but rather the student’s efforts and work ethic. Rawlings explains the idea that the student is in charge of the success of his or her own education, and the professor or school isn’t the main reason why a student performs poorly in a class. Rawlings
...s that you develop a way of regarding the information that you receive to the society that you are living in. He also believes that a quality education develops a students moral views and ability to think. And that these qualities are best developed in the traditional classroom setting by interaction between the student and their professors, and the student’s social life on campus, that is, their interaction with fellow students.
The right and privilege to higher education in today’s society teeters like the scales of justice. In reading Andrew Delbanco’s, “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, it is apparent that Delbanco believes that the main role of college is to accommodate that needs of all students in providing opportunities to discover individual passions and dreams while furthering and enhancing the economic strength of the nation. Additionally, Delbanco also views college as more than just a time to prepare for a job in the future but a way in which students and young adults can prepare for their future lives so they are meaningful and purposeful. Even more important is the role that college will play in helping and guiding students to learn how to accept alternate point of views and the importance that differing views play in a democratic society. With that said, the issue is not the importance that higher education plays in society, but exactly who should pay the costly price tag of higher education is a raging debate in all social classes, cultures, socioeconomic groups and races.
In Louis Menand’s “Live and Learn: Why We Have College” he discusses his three theories about the purpose of higher education. The first theory says “college is, essentially, a four-year intelligence test”(57). This meritocratic theory is saying that “society wants to identify intelligent people early on … to get the most of its human resources” and college is the machine that does the sorting (57). The second theory, the democratic one, claims the point of college is not to pick out the elite. Rather, the point is to “expose future citizens to material that enlightens and empowers them” (58). The third theory explains how “advanced economies demand specialized knowledge and skills, and, since high school is aimed at the general learner, college is where people can be taught what they need in order to enter a vocation” (62). All three theories have their
...order to get better jobs and earn more money, to get to the good life, yet influenced by what colleges want them to learn and what employers want them to know: these all may or may not be the same thing. What employers want out of college graduates is also based on money: who can do the job the fastest and best, who can save or make money for the business. What is clear is that the university or college which is purely a "meeting of the minds," a place for people to gather and learn for the sake of learning, seems to be becoming a thing of the past. It is being replaced by an increasingly commercialized system of higher education: one that costs more and more each year--with the cost rising much faster than the rate of household incomes, and one that is being altered by the needs of an increasingly diverse student population and the needs of the business world.