Continue Your Education

This quote from W.E.B. duBois is posted outside the School of General Studies at Columbia, a school that offers undergraduate degrees to adult students who seek to complete their degrees after having taken off a year of more from college.   This quote advocates for an multi-dimensional education that extends beyond or vocational training.   I would imagine that students of life would therefore be open to new experiences and peoples of all stripes.  Yet a recent article in the Columbia Spectator decried perceived discrimination among traditional college-aged students and their older counterparts.  In “The ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have Nots’” (Columbia Spectator, January 18, 2007), Sean McMorris writes of blatant and subtle discrimination against older students. 

He quotes midterm evaluations from Columbia College students: “I feel this is more a class of personal anecdotes than facts. The General Studies students go on and on with absolutely no gain in conversation.”  Another post opines, “I just kind of wish that this class wasn’t taken over by people who already have so much experience working in various science technology industries and who know an ungodly amount about these topics … [we are] half the time left in a daze somewhere between annoyed and bored out of our minds by their useless rambles and obscure vocabulary.”

The following week a cartoon ran in the paper depicting Santa Claus, Barney and the Grouch from Sesame Street as “G.S. Students.”  I daresay that the choice of subjects for this comic speaks to the maturity of the contributor, ostensibly a traditional age college student.

You would think that students of any age would welcome “people who already have so much experience” in their classes, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Granted no one wants to listen to a blowhard, especially when you are paying to hear a professor, but I think that the contributions are undervalued here and elsewhere.  When I worked at The New School, the “inventor of adult education,”we prided ourselves on the fact that students ranged from eighteen to eighty.  Often you heard that the students and faculty felt that the older students had the most to contribute.  As often, however, there was resentment and hostility toward older student, much like the comments above about General Studies students.  At one point the school actually banished the “Lifelong Learners” from the cafeteria in the undergraduate college because of complaints form younger students.  prior to the banishment they’d installed stools that we ostensibly uncomfortable to older backsides.

At what point do students become students of life and appreciate the lessons learned before them?  Isn’t there an expression about education teaching you how little you know?  Is that the purpose of continuing education?