Dangerous Precedents! Protecting College Students from Thinking
What is it about institutions of higher knowledge? Are they afraid of ideas, or are they only afraid of ideas that don’t conform to their hidden agendas?
Isn’t the point of college, other than to gain a credential, to be an opportunity to freely express concepts and theories with those who will eventually become peers?
How else is learning achieved? At the very least, brainstorming is the best way to derive new formulas and expand the horizon of a young mind.
It seems that a professor at the University of Chicago has taken it upon himself to govern the “children” who are paying for an education at this institution.
Professor Eric Posner feels they are just not old enough to be thinking or speaking for themselves.
Disregarding the fact that an 18 year old can vote, hold property, enter armed service and marry upon their own volition, Professor Posner says that they are indeed still children. They merit no access to free speech or due process.
He believes that these “children,” i.e. students, should be treated as such, “while being prepared for adulthood.”
Most parents spend the first eighteen years of their offspring’s life “preparing them for adulthood.”
What is Professor Posner’s role in your family’s life? Did anyone invite him into their home to help “prepare” their children?
Most will agree that college can be a hotbed of controversial ideologies.
The 60’s and 70’s showed that young people, i.e. college “children”, can exert considerable influence in society. It was during this time that American youth stood up for change and new ways of thinking. Some of it was good, some not so good, but there was a vast amount of alteration to our society.
Socrates lectured to students should learn to think for themselves. As an originator of philosophy, it would seem he would have known the best way to create someone who can craft concepts.
Professor Posner feels that opinions are “out of place” even in philosophy and politics classes and that students desire these kinds of “sex and speech codes.”
At eighteen, most college students have formed a majority of their personality and values.
Higher education is the fire to proof and refine the person that leaves their childhood home at eighteen.
It seems if the agendas of the universities is so fabulous, why are these institutions unable to withstand the heat of contrary opinions?
Food for thought!
Image: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/advice/student-experience
