Higher education
Dr. Pangloss on Science and the Humanities
Steven Pinker’s latest article in The New Republic seems designed to enrage the very audience that it wants to assuage: “neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians.” In seeking to convince these hardy defenders of the humanities that modern science is not in fact the enemy, Dr. Pangloss, er, Pinker paints a rosy picture of our best of all possible worlds in which scientific advancements, like those of the 18th-century Enlightenment, Read More
Brooks’ “Practical University”
In his latest New York Times editorial, David Brooks encourages online education companies to impart not only technical knowledge but also what he calls “practical knowledge.” The “practical [online] university” of the future, he claims, should not only teach students what to do, i.e. technical skills, but also how to apply those skills in a practical setting, i.e. the modern corporate workplace. In order to do this, online schools must Read More