The discussion on May 9 on the future of the education department revealed numerous important issues to futher examine. However, a question that was only briefly discussed was the question of the morals of Dartmouth College.
Dartmouth has long been known as an institution that emphasizes training young people to be leaders of the corporate world. Indeed, my experience as a government major has proven that Dartmouth does a great job in this manner.
Dartmouth also has the reputation of producing people who are primarily concerned with their own lives. Although this reputation may not be deserved, much has been written about the apathy of the student body. What has the school done to combat this? Nothing. Is the mission of Dartmouth to prepare an "out of touch" elite? If it is, then I am ashamed to have been part of it for four years.
A top academic institution such as Dartmouth should be committed to producing true leaders for our communities not just for the corporate world. The education department is the only place at Dartmouth where my goals and morals have been questioned and challenged. One cannot receive a complete education without this type of challenge. The emphasis of the education department and of the teaching program in specific is on producing awareness of current and vital issues. The idea of teaching is based on the desire to devote one's entire life to the welfare of society.
Professor Randy Testa tells his students that in order to develop a philosophy on education, one must first develop a philosophy on life. We exist as parts of communities and cannot think that we stand separate from them.
Teachers play a large part in holding communities together and in demonstrating what it means to be a part of society. This idea is a benefit for everyone, especially for those who do not go into teaching. And students have been very receptive to the education department in this manner. In the education classes I have taken at Dartmouth, students have eagerly debated serious and weighty issues. And this kind of social awareness is just not present anywhere else at Dartmouth, especially in the administration. If Dartmouth doesn't prepare its students to be examples of how people should act in society, then who will? In an institution that is already so lacking in morals, abolishing the education department would serve as a loud indication to both its students and to the rest of the country of where the priorities of Dartmouth's faculty and administration are.
