In The Basement Of The Ivory Tower Analysis

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Debra S Professor English Comp 2 28 September 2012 Higher Education and the Choices We Make There are many different reasons that people choose to seek a higher education. There are numerous young adults who have recently graduated and choose to continue their education without taking more than a summer break. Many people choose to return based on employment qualifications. These days many employers require additional education to give raises or promote current employees. A lot of companies offer to pay schooling fees for employees to return to school. There are also scholarships, grants and loans available for each and every person who decides they want a higher education. But just deciding to attend is not the only question to be…show more content…
Many seek a higher education for employment purposes. There are a lot of people who are in classes only to achieve a raise or to get advancements in their jobs. Many students seem to think that they may only do the basic work in order to ‘skate by’. Professor X, in his article titled “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”, seems to believe that many people attend college because they can; or they take classes based on the job market, not because they have a desire to learn. He is unhappy with the college system of today. He chooses to hold his students to the standards to which he teaches. He believes that for some colleges, getting people to return to school is just a gimmick. “Adult education, nontraditional education, education for returning students- whatever you want to call it is a substantial profit center for many colleges.”(Prof X 4) He believes that many people choose to return to college because they can get money for school and the cost of…show more content…
This seems to be a disputed question. Can someone who becomes a doctor but cannot spell correctly or do basic mathematic problems be called a highly educated person? Alfie Kohn states in his article, “What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated”, he writes about his views concerning our education system and how a well educated person is measured. He questions the basic foundations of education. He is a scholar who lacks literature knowledge and cannot remember the algebra that he learned in his youth. Instead of trying to define what well-educated means, he asks the question, “Should we be asking about the purpose of education?”(Kohn 2, topic 1) There are many people out there who can memorize texts and other materials, do the homework, or pass tests with high scores- does this mean that they are well-educated? “Does the phrase well-educated refer to a quality of the schooling you received or something about you? Does it denote what you were taught, or what you learned (and remember)?”(Kohn 2, topic 2) Should the basic tests and exams that are given to everybody be the measuring standard of the education level of an individual? There are many bright and motivated thinkers that cannot do well on tests. Then we are posed with the question, “Who gets to decide what it means to be well-educated?”(Kohn 4, topic 5) There are so many different views and having everyone concerned agree on a certain criteria would be very difficult. “The fact that so

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