The Education department is once again under attack. Whatever arguments may be used to dismantle the department, the issue ultimately boils down to one prejudice held by many on this campus, including members of the administration: teaching is not a worthy application of a Dartmouth education.
Continually sitting on the brink of elimination, the department will be subjected to yet another review, begining this week. The new review committee, consisting of two Dartmouth faculty members and three peer-institution professors, two of whom have served as deans of graduate schools of education, will arguably be the most authoritative group to have evaluated Education so far. This committee may resolve once and for all the department's fate, which has been in limbo since the previous committee recommended its elimination in 1996.
While the new committee sounds well-qualified to tackle the review, I fear they are being used to support a move the College would like to make anyway, the elimination of the department.
Certainly, there are some legitimate matters of concern regarding Education. The 1996 review committee concluded that the department was not well organized and needed to be more active in education research. Fair enough, but these are shortcomings that should be expected from a poorly funded department staffed by only one tenured professor. Andrew Garrod is in charge of coordinating the activities for the remainder of the professors, all of whom are visitors. I would expect that the discontinuity inherent in this short-term faculty scenario would in and of itself cause a certain amount of disorganization and impede research efforts. Therefore, I hope that the committee will consider whether the department even began the game with a fair hand.
Even if it is decided that not enough improvements have taken place since 1996, management questions alone ultimately should not result in the elimination of the department. What if a review committee found that a core department such as Biology were mismanaged? What kind of school would offer no biology department? Perhaps more tellingly, what if Economics failed the standards that are being applied to education? We still wouldn't remove the department--because Econ turns out the sharks in neckties who run the world--and who then turn around and donate buildings to Dear Old Dartmouth.
That Education is even being considered for removal on these grounds says a lot about us. It says that we collectively wish to benefit from America's educational system -- we wish to skim the creme de la creme from each year's class of high school seniors -- but we refuse to give anything back, because it is not work prestigious enough for Dartmouth alumnae.
An argument that I have commonly heard bandied about by administrators and students is that Education is too "vocational." Perhaps, but this is not the case with Dartmouth's Education department. Here, students are encouraged to spend time teaching primarily to give themselves first-hand exposure to the field so that they can be informed scholars of education. Moreover, applying the "vocational" label exclusively to Education's activities is not fair: plenty of other departments train students in a manner that is largely career-oriented. What about a Chemistry major who wants to advance to research chemistry or an Economics major who plans to work as an investment banker? What about the engineering school? Not too many people major in engines in order to give a multidisciplinary flavor to their poetry. Using the pejorative word "vocational" in reference to Education but not to other equally vocational departments underscores the deeper point: those other departments steer graduates into more respectable careers than teaching.
I do not think that most Dartmouth students subscribe to the type of hypocrisy being used to dismantle the education department. I think we realize that having a department that teaches issues in education is beneficial to the intellectual breadth of the campus--and moreover, I think we realize that for a school of our caliber not to have a good Education studies department would be outright embarrassing.
And if to the chagrin of the administration, some Dartmouth students decide to spend their lives challenging and expanding the minds of America's youth, God bless them. Their Dartmouth educations are not wasted; they are being put to good use, even if that use is not considered prestigious and -- heaven forbid -- will never generate large gifts to the College.
The committee is due to release its recommendations regarding the future of Education late this spring. I hope they will not unwittingly do the dirty work of those who would eliminate the department out of disdain for the subject it teaches.
