1. From Personal to Public
Linking Personal Experience to Larger Social Issues

2. Mark Edmundson’s Argument
Education is more effective if it is treated as a privilege rather than a commodity
Dislikes that students praise him for being “interesting” or making difficult subject material “enjoyable”
Sees University Culture as Consumerism
He asks readers:
Are we really preparing our students for the “world” if we just cater to their every desire, if we do not challenge them?

3. Education as Privilege over Commodity
Education-as-commodity creates an entertainment-based environment in which teachers aim to please the students, rather than challenge them
Evaluation Example, page 323
Education creates apathetic students who fail to think critically and challenge the status quo (the way things currently are in a given system)
“a culture tensely committed to a laidback norm” (326).
“What they [the students] will not generally do… is indict the current system…. For the pervading view is the cool consumer perspective where passion and strong admiration are forbidden” (326).
Education profit-based, not academically driven
“Universities need to attract the best (that is, the smartest and the richest) students in order to survive in an ever more competitive market” (328).
After the baby boomer generation, “the colleges turned to energetic promotional strategies to fill the empty chairs. And suddenly college became a buyer’s market” ( ).

4. Education as Commodity Results In…
Lower overall standards for college admission and graduation
“What students and their parents wanted had to be taken more and more into account. That usually meant creating more comfortable, less challenging environments, places where almost no one failed” (329).
Students taking authorial role over teachers
“… a tendency to serve—and not challenge—the students” (329).
“If the clientele dislikes you en masse, you can be left without students, period” (329).
A less stimulating academic environment
“A classroom now is frequently an ‘environment,’ a place highly conducive to the exchange of existing ideas, the students’ ideas. Listening to one another, students sometimes change their opinions. But what they generally can’t do is acquire a new vocabulary, a new perspective, that will cast issues in a fresh light” (330).

5. Does Edmundson Offer Any Solutions?
He seems to suggest that if we believe in Genius, we can push past our apathetic predispositions
Genius, “offers a live alternative to the demoralizing culture of hip in which most my students are mired. By embracing the works and lives of extraordinary people, you can adapt new ideals” (334).
He places the responsibility on his readers
“Ultimately, though, it is up to the individuals—and individual students in particular—to make their own way against the current sludgy tide” (336).
“Those who do as much, trusting themselves against the weight of current opinion, will have contributed something to bringing this sad dispensation to an end” (336).

6. Edmundson Compares/Contrasts
The Physical Campus Layout Campuses have changed to accommodate student desires, with emphasis on new construction of gyms and decorative dorm rooms ( ). This exemplifies the move from academic- center to commodity- driven ( )
Joon Lee Fest Juxtaposes Joon Lee with apathetic students, suggesting that there are students out there who do break away from the general cool, consumer culture (324)
Declared Majors
As students focus more on money, material possessions, majors have shifted from the humanities (English/History) to “success-insuring branches” like science and business schools (329)

7. Your Educated View
1. Describe your educational experience in this class so far. Have you learned or been entertained?
2. Narrate an educational experience that opposes Edmundson’s claim. Did you learn or were you entertained?
3. Describe a campus environment (classroom) that opposed Edmundson’s claim.

8. 1. Briefly summarize Edmundson’s claim.
Your Reading Response
1. Briefly summarize Edmundson’s claim.
2. Show and contextually support several ways that he supports that claim.
3. Refute his claim, using examples from your own educational background as support.