Thank you Jay for such a thoughtful and inspirational essay on the function of education. And thank you Josh for sharing Jay’s words.
I think I’ve felt much of this, although without the history of the educational system or the frameworks to understand what was happening. I didn’t have a “traditional” college experience, which I’m grateful for. I was a product of the Naval Academy (and right after 9/11 at that). I remember at the time wanting to study science because it seemed like the most foundational and valuable education I could pursue. That led me to Physics. But everyone had to learn a lot of engineering, even if they were an English or Political Science major. I am grateful I did as that degree opened up a lot of opportunities for me, but I wish my 19 year old self had seen a model of the humanities that was even more foundational than science was. I now believe that I would have been better served as a Navy officer with an education from St. John’s than I was by my physics degree from USNA. That is not a popular statement at my Alma mater, but I stand behind it.
I was definitely changed by the university, probably for the better. But I can’t remember a single teacher who did that for me. It was more the discipline, rigor, and leadership that I remember. It was the experience, not a teacher. I wonder if there had been more latitude to freely explore with different teachers outside of my major and maybe if the school could have attracted a different type of teacher if that would be different. But that is 40 year old me reflecting on my 20 year old self, and I fear I’m projecting a desire that wasn’t there as a kid. At the time, the only role models I had were scientists and military officers.
I also have young kids, and am trying to offer them something different. I would rather they develop the wisdom your friend did when he knew what progress really meant. It’s taken me these 40 years to see the truth underlying our world and the mindsets that it’s built on. I am trying to offer them a different model, one in which understanding human nature, knowing how to search for the divine, believing in the idea of mythology and kairos as essential to the human condition is alive for them. But at the same time, I worry that I might be ruining them in a society and an educational system that prizes ROI and devalues true understanding.
Jay, in response to your reply to Matthew about a lifelong educational system, I have long wondered how such a system could be created. Many of us are building our own experiences here on Substack, but I know there is more that can be done. And needs to be done. And it needs to be expanded beyond the western canon and into the eastern teachings and supported with opportunities that are affordable to both the students and the teachers. I recently took a few post-Bacc courses, and at $2k for a 10 week course, it gets hard to be a true lifelong student, at least through universities.
Thank you again for such a thought provoking essay. It clearly stuck with me, as I don’t often leave long comments like this.
Lots of deeply felt thoughts here, Latham -- thank you. As a nation we have, at times, made this kind of education affordable. That isn't our priority at the moment, but it could be. It would require some collective will, mutual respect, and sacrifice.
This is rather an aside, but I think affordable education has been subsidized, historically, by highly competent people, many of them women, who were either prevented from other forms of professional success or who gravitated to non-monetary rewards. Once the system shifted toward maximizing financial gains for graduates, or measuring financial gains as the primary benchmark of academic success -- the deep "why" of the system -- I think the traditional respect for teachers qua teachers was lost. That's got to be there for the system to be affordable, because if your sacrifice as a teacher is not seen, and if there is little acknowledgement that your work involves planting seeds with no guarantee of future flourishing (but in hope that there will be yields, 10, 20 years hence), then talent drains and quality goes down.
I think there are a lot of systems that cannot possibly pay people literally what they are worth. I keep using the term "fair trade education," but few people want to pay the sticker price for the highest quality of instruction (many people will pay the sticker price and then some for the highest perceived quality of brand, but that is a different thing). The solution to the insufficiency of funding for truly adequate compensation is not to exploit people. It is to restore a culture of respect and autonomy for educators. People who feel that they are living lives of purpose, enjoy the respect of their community, and have the freedom to follow their own integrity as educators will follow that deep "why."
I would love nothing more than to find my way back into education. I keep dreaming that there will be a way to do that in an in-person community, perhaps at a private Quaker or Catholic school where there is an abiding respect for ideas, for silence, and for material simplicity.
Josh, so many deeply felt replies. Thank you as well. I will react to a couple:
1. I suspect you are right about education having been subsidized by highly competent people, traditionally women. And I can remember the lack of respect from even my own parents towards teachers as that shift towards lower quality teachers became prevalent. I remember my own father telling me “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Not something I’m especially proud to repeat, but it was the attitude I grew up among.
2. In terms of the costs of high quality instruction, I struggle a bit with the details. When I can afford it, I want to pay for great instruction, but I often don’t know what that instruction is until after I’ve received it. I’ve paid (a lot) for some courses in the past only to be usually let down. Quality and businesses don’t often support each other. There’s a signaling problem here that comes across as a lack of respect (for the teacher or the student), but in my mind is simply a result of people trying to maximize their own return. Part of me admires the system Hesse imagined in the Glass Bead Game, even as I’m all too aware of the possible failures Hesse saw in such a society. I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think you address the problems of educational failure without also addressing the problems of material inequity, of the degradation of our humanity in service of creating workers, and of the isolation and pressure placed on just about everyone but especially young adults trying to set out on their own.
3. The biggest problem I see is that we have pushed people out on their own without any kind of support system or any other options than to support themselves. Our society elevates money to a religion, and those that don’t have it are therefore less than. They are sinners and failures and rejects all at once, while also starving and trying to figure out how to raise a family or become better people. There’s no room in that for a lifelong education. It’s hard to value great instruction if you’re wondering how you’ll pay for your child’s therapy bills next month. It seems to me there’s something rotten at the very core and educators and the education system are showing the strains of it. Likely due to the goal of more growth through continued education as Jay mentioned.
I also find myself attracted to places that offer silence, simplicity, and a love of ideas. But all I know right now is how to create that in my own home. If you find an opening in that direction, maybe I’ll come join you and try my hand at mentoring/coaching. Or at least I’ll keep learning.
It's a fulfilling feeling, Latham, that my essay provoked you to an uncharacteristically long comment. Thank you for that. Like Matthew, you touch on key issues I'm addressing here. I see that you have lived and are living them. You raise a couple of especially important issues near the end of your comment, about expense and Substack.
When I started at City University of New York, it was free. One of the best University systems in the country -- City College, where I started, had long been known as the Harvard of the proletariat -- free. My working-class parents had no money, none, to send me to college, and there was not then the extensive system of financial aid that exists today (for better and worse). Had it not been free, I would not have gone to college. By the time I returned to finish my B.A. more than a decade later, it was no longer free. New York City had faced its 1970s financial crisis and NY State decided free college was a utopian luxury in a capitalist society, where everything of value should prove its value by being paid for, even by those who can't really afford to do it.
Fortunately, in 1983, it didn't cost that much yet, and I, fully adult, could afford to pay by taking out a small loan and working full time. (Through most of my remaining two undergraduate years and graduate years -- when I fortunately had fellowship-paid tuition -- I supervised a transshipment warehouse in downtown Manhattan, loading and unloading trucks on the overnight shift.)
We see where all this has led financially, as you point out. Any kind of rethinking and restructuring of American higher education is unthinkable under the current economic model.
Your reference to Substack is to that point, then, very relevant. There are developments here. Who knows yet where they'll lead if anywhere. But not just the readers, also writers of various kinds on Substack are providing and experiencing new forms of knowledge sharing. One of my own great pleasures in producing what I offer each week is what and how much I learn in order to do it -- and then learn from others I read.
New ways of thinking about education are definitely in order.
My education was also free -sort of. As we used to say, "Quarter million dollar education, shoved up our ass one quarter at a time." But there are some really odd and quite frankly uncomfortable realities that go with that free education. Like alumni regularly paying for new buildings and teachers, even though they are federal employees. I know so much of that happens at public and private colleges too (I get a lot of requests for donation from my MBA program after all), but it just feels somehow more inappropriate that alumni donations still fund so much of the military academies. (Not to mention the weird realization that at one time the Navy football coach was the highest paid federal employee in the entire system).
I love how much I've learned here on Substack, both from writing and from reading some of the incredible knowledge and talent that exists here. I truly enjoy it. At the same time, I have a few fears with it:
1. Right now there is a cambrian explosion of learning opportunities here on Substack. It's incredible to witness and be a part of. But as you said, who knows yet where they'll lead if anywhere. I somewhat suspect this is a unique time in history for this kind of experiment, due to the number of retiring or transitioning academics and the low expectations for what a Substack can be (I don't mean that dismissively, but in the sense that we're in a period of exploration). As I'm sure you're aware, any attempt to extrapolate into a new paradigm of education is a risky business, and I only hope we can learn lessons from this before entrenching the business model. And maybe incorporate some of the lessons from the MOOC and CBC experiments as well.
2. As much as I love reading and learning here on Substack, I can't help but feel that I'm only scratching the surface of what I want. I'm very much a receiver of information in this mode. It's almost a push model of learning, rather than a true partnership/participatory model. Some of that may be because I'm not great in the comments (today being the exception), but some of that is what I miss by not having a personal relationship with a teacher and a mentor and a partner in crime. For example, I have a spiritual teacher I speak with regularly, who often will guide me in what questions to ask next, where to look to deepen my understanding, what exercises to practice based on where I am in my understanding, etc. Maybe it's because I'm also the kind of person who wants to understand the absolute core of what I am trying to learn, no matter how long it may take. I have yet to really find that kind of support/relationship here on Substack. And maybe its just worth saying, but that's the kind of relationship I want to see in a new way of thinking about lifelong education.
This has been a great discussion though. I know it's fun when I have to rewrite my comments 10 times because I'm learning as I reply. If either you or Josh (or both) ever get the itch to sit down and try to reimagine on paper what education could look like, I'd love to start that conversation. But unless and until then, I'm going to happily keep learning from you both.
Somehow I overlooked this reply, Latham. My apology. It's late now, but I want to let you know that I appreciate the engagement and thoughtfulness, and I align with you in waiting to see new paradigms prove themselves rather than predict or rely with confidence on any particular future. Thanks again for feeling inspired beyond your usual comment responsiveness!
Thanks Jay for these memories with an emphasis on what your teachers gave to you and what you gave to your students. Does that virtuous cycle still exist? I've seen the influence of teachers in the lives of my three children, and my daughter was a teacher before she became a full time mother.
It's interesting to contemplate that at the same time there's a crisis in higher education that the divide between those with a college degree and those without continues to grow.
David, perhaps you saw this piece in the NY Times recently? Vanderbilt appears to be the first university to approach $100,000 in total expenses per year. I can understand why families might look askance at a humanities degree at that price. Liberal arts education has only made sense when it is affordable.
But the higher the cost of a college degree climbs, the more difficult it will be for colleges to show a clear ROI. I thought about this recently while gathering bids to tile two showers. Both bids were more than an adjunct professor would make in six months with a full teaching load.
Two thoughts came from that: fair trade for teachers and the obvious appeal of the trades for many young people.
David, it does still exist, but the challenges to maintaining it grow ever greater. Online education, which is a mode I actually do support, for those whose needs and qualities it fits, certainly challenges it. But the bond can be created. It's harder, but I've done it. But it's harder still for mass numbers of often less experienced, very low paid, and grossly overburdened and powerless contingent adjunct labor. And then, as well, students compelled by the economic reality you cite into studies they don't at the time value are not prime candidates for valuing their professors and receiving inspiration from them.
Josh - thanks for hosting this guest essay with Jay. Lots of stuff to digest here.
Jay - sincere appreciation for sharing your experience with higher education and the educational system in general. My mother taught for 40+ years. Numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and a sister are also teachers. I have been mentored and influenced by amazing educators throughout my life.
My experience with higher education was different than the traditional path. I did attend one year of college right out of high school but with little real direction and absolutely no money it didn't make sense to continue. Fast forward a decade and I am married with two kids and working full-time on active duty with the Navy. Recognizing that upward mobility was limited without a degree I enrolled in night classes. The Navy had a contract with Chapman University in Orange, CA and remote classes were offered right on base. I would rush home from work to help my wife with a few chores, eat dinner, head back to class for an hour, come home and help get the kids to bed, and then stay up working on homework until late into the night. It was rough but I was grateful for the opportunity. With a bit more direction and motivation this time around I managed to graduate at the top of my class. A few years later I did the same thing for my Masters. So other than that one year after high school I never got to experience the traditional college environment. A part of me wishes I had but I am grateful for the educators who worked late and helped us non-traditional students achieve our goals.
Now as a parent of college age children it is interesting to me to observe the nuances involved in higher education. My son, as a computer science major, has almost no liberal arts classes in his curriculum. I think in his freshman year he took an English course and a Philosophy course. As a sophomore he took a history course. Beyond that, everything is STEM and he is at a flagship university.
I think that it is a really hard problem to solve. We can't have a progressive and functional society without an understanding of the humanities. At the same time, majoring in French or Philosophy have very little real world utility. How do we find the balance to ensure future generations don't lose touch with essential knowledge and yet are still capable of handling the technological world they are inheriting.
Somewhat different but related problem is why are we as a society pushing everyone to college when that is obviously not the best option for every individual. Culturally we need to emphasize an increased value on trade education. My son's friend from high school went to welding school and is already making $80k/year as an underwater welder. No debt and a contributing member of society.
No easy solutions and I am somewhat just rambling but lots of great stuff to think about here.
Matthew, thanks for sharing your personal journey -- and the landscape for your kids. You have a unique perspective coming from the military. And it's really impressive that you willed your way through your degrees on top of everything else. I think highly motivated learners like you have to be part of a future model for higher education (rather than defaulting to young people who don't always know why they're there, or who feel pressured to commit to a laser-focused career path before they even know fully who they are).
The liberal arts has always been a path for self-discovery and for molding responsible citizenship. But that only makes sense if it's affordable. I believe that the benefits of humanities education are lifelong, not merely transactional skills to gain an entry-level position. In fact, if the main purpose of a 4-yr degree is to get the internship or entry-level job, and that first internship or job is what qualifies you for the next role, then many high-priced degrees are effectively obsolete after you move on from that preliminary role (except as resume dressing or as a status marker). I really think there ought to be a lifelong component to higher ed and that liberal arts offers the most enduring rewards.
Perhaps you saw my post a while back about the SMELL test for news? My Iowa contractor's inability to process public health information was truly alarming, no matter how much money he might have been making tiling bathrooms. But I think we've lost the ability to agree on a common curriculum even in K-12. The true cost of that loss of faith in our public institutions has yet to come home to roost.
I hope you'll allow me to tease out the logic of these sentences a bit?
"We can't have a progressive and functional society without an understanding of the humanities. At the same time, majoring in French or Philosophy have very little real world utility. How do we find the balance to ensure future generations don't lose touch with essential knowledge and yet are still capable of handling the technological world they are inheriting."
I'm struggling with the tensions between "functional society" and "very little real world utility." Similarly, "essential knowledge" is by definition practical knowledge, yes? The tech world is perpetually beset by abuses of power or misappropriations of their platforms because engineers think studying human nature is a waste of time. But human nature is what turns Facebook into a propaganda machine. And the erosion of quality in tech is the result of myopic thinking about maximizing profits.
The thing about French and Philosophy and English is that they do not offer predictable returns on investment. Yet people who are highly competent in those areas are often trustworthy with other responsibilities, such as leadership, where good judgment and critical thinking are paramount. And I'm fond of citing examples from pop culture, such as the fantastic scene "The Carousel" from Mad Men, which illustrate how creativity (Don Draper's exceptional command of metaphor) enriches business, not merely the arts.
Enough for now -- thanks for the provocative comment!
A great, thoughtful contribution, Matthew, that resonates on so many levels with what I'm writing about. I could just let Joshua's comment stand, because I agree with every word of it, but I want to pursue a couple of themes. One is your experience with non-traditional-college-age, adult education.
I first entered college at the traditional age of 18. Intellectually, I was a prime candidate, eager and ready. But I was psychologically troubled for some years to come. I dropped out of college twice and was kicked out once. I didn't finish my B.A. until I was 31 years old -- after I had accumulated some "real-world" experience and success. When I returned to college to finish that B.A. and then go on to graduate school, I was *personally* ready for it and for academic success. You seem to describe the same readiness as an adult, even now, in the new direction you've charted in your life.
The concept of "just-in-time" learning is usually applied to discrete packets of knowledge and skills acquisition. Offer the learning at the time the student needs it, and sees the need for it, to solve a problem currently engaging the student, and the student will be a more committed and eager learner. Ultimately, this can expand into a vast network of interconnectedness in knowledge, insight, and skills.
This philosophy can be applied on a macro level as well. Bodies of knowledge and sets of skills we devalue at 20 or 30 we may come to value at 40 or 50, and when we do, an educational system that doesn't force someone fulfilled and well supported by welding onto an educational track he doesn't need or desire is what we need. When he has a job opportunity in Martinique at 40, he may see the utility, then, (even a desire) of learning French. When he's troubled over the meaning of his life at 50, he may be reminded that those Greeks way back then actually had some insights, and he'll care to learn about them. We need truly to reconceive education as lifelong and not rigidly programmatic.
The educational systems we evolve can be focused on turning to learn where and when it's needed so that the very practice of turning to learn becomes the fundamental skill and the foundational system.
We are nowhere near any such kind of re-conception unfortunately.
"Only a humanities education teaches people to think about, care about, and propose answers to questions like that." ~ This beautiful sentence sums it up so nicely. For several years, I've been thinking that the answer might lie in partnerships with the professional schools, eg, a Business Management or Nursing major with a Humanities track. Some in the professions do understand the value of this kind of education for their students. I wonder if the idea of "the humanities" might gain some new life if we separate "the humanities *major*" from the courses and if universities could manage a funding formula that does not depend on major counts. So many if's. Once again, Jay, I'd like to address the issues you raise with a whole post, though I'm not sure I can do it before school is out. :-)
Thanks for such an evocative history of being both an inspiring teacher and an inspired student! One small editorial fix: it's Pigpen, not Linus, with the visible cloud around him.
Thank you, John - and for the editorial assistance. (Where are those famous New Yorker fact checkers when you need them?) Your correction made me pause to think that I only myself ever see Peanuts strips these days when I stumble upon one somewhere, and it's been ages since I've seen Pigpen!
Took early retirement im 2017, teaching is as much about reaping rewards from student learning as it is the paycheck. That is how the school systems have degraded their personnel for decades...
I think when teachers are valued as experts and allowed the creative autonomy necessary to reap rewards from student learning it can be worth the tradeoff in pay. It was for me for many years (although that changed once I had children). But when an institution wants to march teachers along the same standardized path, they tend to think a little differently about other forms of compensation. Sadly, there are still enough teachers willing to be exploited, or unable to escape the cycle of exploitation, for the system to change.
Wish I had more time to comment, but this has been on my mind a lot since I am in an MFA program and trying to figure out if I should teach anything since people keep saying that is what I should do. I don't know if I could financially make it work out with two disabled dependents who will soon age out of their district support and stay at home full time with me and my husband.
Zina, I'm sure you would be a fantastic teacher. But it's hard to see many teaching opportunities at the college level that aren't exploitative. It truly is a system built on an unsustainable financial model. The only thing that made the sacrifice worthwhile in the past was the feeling that ideas mattered, and that the institution valued creativity and scholarship for its own sake.
It might still be possible to teach with some firm work/life boundaries. But I think if you are going into it without experience and with the financial stress that you describe, it's going to be hard not to feel burned out or taken advantage of by the end of it.
Josh, It may very well be that I may be better compensated at the high school level at this point. It is so disappointing to read about how broken the higher education system is. I wonder how much longer it will be considered a marker for economic prosperity. Will it mean that the richer still just get richer... because they can afford the tuition no matter what. The debt is very frightening.
💯 -- if you can get a full-time high school gig, especially in a place where teachers are unionized, that is the way to go.
The wealth gap that you describe is already a factor. Not sure if you've seen the stories lately about a decline in college enrollment due to delays/problems with the FAFSA filings, but a lot of families are either opting out or facing steeper challenges this year: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/01/politics/fafsa-problem-financial-aid-award/index.html
I had a thought a while back that a friend quickly disabused me of. I was thinking that making liberal arts education affordable was the best way to maximize social mobility because it allowed everyone to embrace a path that I assumed the wealthy already chose: namely, finding their place in the world and then determining career from that, rather than just chasing a job for the salary. This friend, a former NBC personality (and alum of my former employer), said that everyone in his wealthy circles was trying to push their kids into the same path they followed. So if dad worked at Goldman Sachs, the kids were pressured to do the same, not embrace their love of poetry, say. I found that incredibly dispiriting.
I think the only way we can take that pressure off of young people's shoulders is by making education a low-risk proposition. An 18-yr-old should not have to determine what they are going to do for the next 50 years of their life. There should be some grace for experimenting with different roles without risking solvency or housing insecurity. Debt erases that grace.
It's possible that I got an easy pass in the late 90s because of Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other forms of financial aid. I took out just $10K in debt and paid it all off before the interest kicked in by living at home and working with the Forest Service. It gave me an unrealistic grasp, I think, of how most Americans approach working life, and through a combination of work and luck I was able to keep that dream going as a professor. Now I'm living a different reality, but I'm more flexible and have more freedom than most because I have no debt. I think that is how it should be. But almost no one from my demographic background in rural America has any chance of following my path. Some might say, after reading all that I've written here, that that is for the better? But I don't think so. If I hadn't gone to college, I'd assuredly have been a stenographer or a trade worker with an untapped intellectual hunger that I sought to satisfy by cheap imitations in church environments where I'd never truly belonged.
My life has in some cases created discontents that I wouldn't otherwise have known. But I know that for a stretch of it, at least ten years, I felt that I'd maximized my self-realization as a teacher. I'm clinging to a semblance of that as a writer and coach. It's a dream worth fighting for.
I’m the daughter of two teachers and would now be a retired professor of English if not for the unexpected pregnancy that derailed my plans of graduate school. Jay, I have witnessed, through my parents, the profound rewards you describe about the bond with students over time. And as a former student, I still hear the voices of teachers who pushed me to become a better reader, thinker and human. Your observations about the current state of university teaching sadden me, and surprise me more than they should. (I guess I wasn’t paying attention.) Wonderful cameos of your teachers, by the way. “Accept” or “understand?” Whart a difference a word makes.
I have to say, Rona, from the little bit of familiarity I've gained so far with your compelling sensibility and voice, I think you'd have made a splendid professor of English!
Thank you Jay for such a thoughtful and inspirational essay on the function of education. And thank you Josh for sharing Jay’s words.
I think I’ve felt much of this, although without the history of the educational system or the frameworks to understand what was happening. I didn’t have a “traditional” college experience, which I’m grateful for. I was a product of the Naval Academy (and right after 9/11 at that). I remember at the time wanting to study science because it seemed like the most foundational and valuable education I could pursue. That led me to Physics. But everyone had to learn a lot of engineering, even if they were an English or Political Science major. I am grateful I did as that degree opened up a lot of opportunities for me, but I wish my 19 year old self had seen a model of the humanities that was even more foundational than science was. I now believe that I would have been better served as a Navy officer with an education from St. John’s than I was by my physics degree from USNA. That is not a popular statement at my Alma mater, but I stand behind it.
I was definitely changed by the university, probably for the better. But I can’t remember a single teacher who did that for me. It was more the discipline, rigor, and leadership that I remember. It was the experience, not a teacher. I wonder if there had been more latitude to freely explore with different teachers outside of my major and maybe if the school could have attracted a different type of teacher if that would be different. But that is 40 year old me reflecting on my 20 year old self, and I fear I’m projecting a desire that wasn’t there as a kid. At the time, the only role models I had were scientists and military officers.
I also have young kids, and am trying to offer them something different. I would rather they develop the wisdom your friend did when he knew what progress really meant. It’s taken me these 40 years to see the truth underlying our world and the mindsets that it’s built on. I am trying to offer them a different model, one in which understanding human nature, knowing how to search for the divine, believing in the idea of mythology and kairos as essential to the human condition is alive for them. But at the same time, I worry that I might be ruining them in a society and an educational system that prizes ROI and devalues true understanding.
Jay, in response to your reply to Matthew about a lifelong educational system, I have long wondered how such a system could be created. Many of us are building our own experiences here on Substack, but I know there is more that can be done. And needs to be done. And it needs to be expanded beyond the western canon and into the eastern teachings and supported with opportunities that are affordable to both the students and the teachers. I recently took a few post-Bacc courses, and at $2k for a 10 week course, it gets hard to be a true lifelong student, at least through universities.
Thank you again for such a thought provoking essay. It clearly stuck with me, as I don’t often leave long comments like this.
Lots of deeply felt thoughts here, Latham -- thank you. As a nation we have, at times, made this kind of education affordable. That isn't our priority at the moment, but it could be. It would require some collective will, mutual respect, and sacrifice.
This is rather an aside, but I think affordable education has been subsidized, historically, by highly competent people, many of them women, who were either prevented from other forms of professional success or who gravitated to non-monetary rewards. Once the system shifted toward maximizing financial gains for graduates, or measuring financial gains as the primary benchmark of academic success -- the deep "why" of the system -- I think the traditional respect for teachers qua teachers was lost. That's got to be there for the system to be affordable, because if your sacrifice as a teacher is not seen, and if there is little acknowledgement that your work involves planting seeds with no guarantee of future flourishing (but in hope that there will be yields, 10, 20 years hence), then talent drains and quality goes down.
I think there are a lot of systems that cannot possibly pay people literally what they are worth. I keep using the term "fair trade education," but few people want to pay the sticker price for the highest quality of instruction (many people will pay the sticker price and then some for the highest perceived quality of brand, but that is a different thing). The solution to the insufficiency of funding for truly adequate compensation is not to exploit people. It is to restore a culture of respect and autonomy for educators. People who feel that they are living lives of purpose, enjoy the respect of their community, and have the freedom to follow their own integrity as educators will follow that deep "why."
I would love nothing more than to find my way back into education. I keep dreaming that there will be a way to do that in an in-person community, perhaps at a private Quaker or Catholic school where there is an abiding respect for ideas, for silence, and for material simplicity.
Josh, so many deeply felt replies. Thank you as well. I will react to a couple:
1. I suspect you are right about education having been subsidized by highly competent people, traditionally women. And I can remember the lack of respect from even my own parents towards teachers as that shift towards lower quality teachers became prevalent. I remember my own father telling me “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Not something I’m especially proud to repeat, but it was the attitude I grew up among.
2. In terms of the costs of high quality instruction, I struggle a bit with the details. When I can afford it, I want to pay for great instruction, but I often don’t know what that instruction is until after I’ve received it. I’ve paid (a lot) for some courses in the past only to be usually let down. Quality and businesses don’t often support each other. There’s a signaling problem here that comes across as a lack of respect (for the teacher or the student), but in my mind is simply a result of people trying to maximize their own return. Part of me admires the system Hesse imagined in the Glass Bead Game, even as I’m all too aware of the possible failures Hesse saw in such a society. I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think you address the problems of educational failure without also addressing the problems of material inequity, of the degradation of our humanity in service of creating workers, and of the isolation and pressure placed on just about everyone but especially young adults trying to set out on their own.
3. The biggest problem I see is that we have pushed people out on their own without any kind of support system or any other options than to support themselves. Our society elevates money to a religion, and those that don’t have it are therefore less than. They are sinners and failures and rejects all at once, while also starving and trying to figure out how to raise a family or become better people. There’s no room in that for a lifelong education. It’s hard to value great instruction if you’re wondering how you’ll pay for your child’s therapy bills next month. It seems to me there’s something rotten at the very core and educators and the education system are showing the strains of it. Likely due to the goal of more growth through continued education as Jay mentioned.
I also find myself attracted to places that offer silence, simplicity, and a love of ideas. But all I know right now is how to create that in my own home. If you find an opening in that direction, maybe I’ll come join you and try my hand at mentoring/coaching. Or at least I’ll keep learning.
It's a fulfilling feeling, Latham, that my essay provoked you to an uncharacteristically long comment. Thank you for that. Like Matthew, you touch on key issues I'm addressing here. I see that you have lived and are living them. You raise a couple of especially important issues near the end of your comment, about expense and Substack.
When I started at City University of New York, it was free. One of the best University systems in the country -- City College, where I started, had long been known as the Harvard of the proletariat -- free. My working-class parents had no money, none, to send me to college, and there was not then the extensive system of financial aid that exists today (for better and worse). Had it not been free, I would not have gone to college. By the time I returned to finish my B.A. more than a decade later, it was no longer free. New York City had faced its 1970s financial crisis and NY State decided free college was a utopian luxury in a capitalist society, where everything of value should prove its value by being paid for, even by those who can't really afford to do it.
Fortunately, in 1983, it didn't cost that much yet, and I, fully adult, could afford to pay by taking out a small loan and working full time. (Through most of my remaining two undergraduate years and graduate years -- when I fortunately had fellowship-paid tuition -- I supervised a transshipment warehouse in downtown Manhattan, loading and unloading trucks on the overnight shift.)
We see where all this has led financially, as you point out. Any kind of rethinking and restructuring of American higher education is unthinkable under the current economic model.
Your reference to Substack is to that point, then, very relevant. There are developments here. Who knows yet where they'll lead if anywhere. But not just the readers, also writers of various kinds on Substack are providing and experiencing new forms of knowledge sharing. One of my own great pleasures in producing what I offer each week is what and how much I learn in order to do it -- and then learn from others I read.
New ways of thinking about education are definitely in order.
My education was also free -sort of. As we used to say, "Quarter million dollar education, shoved up our ass one quarter at a time." But there are some really odd and quite frankly uncomfortable realities that go with that free education. Like alumni regularly paying for new buildings and teachers, even though they are federal employees. I know so much of that happens at public and private colleges too (I get a lot of requests for donation from my MBA program after all), but it just feels somehow more inappropriate that alumni donations still fund so much of the military academies. (Not to mention the weird realization that at one time the Navy football coach was the highest paid federal employee in the entire system).
I love how much I've learned here on Substack, both from writing and from reading some of the incredible knowledge and talent that exists here. I truly enjoy it. At the same time, I have a few fears with it:
1. Right now there is a cambrian explosion of learning opportunities here on Substack. It's incredible to witness and be a part of. But as you said, who knows yet where they'll lead if anywhere. I somewhat suspect this is a unique time in history for this kind of experiment, due to the number of retiring or transitioning academics and the low expectations for what a Substack can be (I don't mean that dismissively, but in the sense that we're in a period of exploration). As I'm sure you're aware, any attempt to extrapolate into a new paradigm of education is a risky business, and I only hope we can learn lessons from this before entrenching the business model. And maybe incorporate some of the lessons from the MOOC and CBC experiments as well.
2. As much as I love reading and learning here on Substack, I can't help but feel that I'm only scratching the surface of what I want. I'm very much a receiver of information in this mode. It's almost a push model of learning, rather than a true partnership/participatory model. Some of that may be because I'm not great in the comments (today being the exception), but some of that is what I miss by not having a personal relationship with a teacher and a mentor and a partner in crime. For example, I have a spiritual teacher I speak with regularly, who often will guide me in what questions to ask next, where to look to deepen my understanding, what exercises to practice based on where I am in my understanding, etc. Maybe it's because I'm also the kind of person who wants to understand the absolute core of what I am trying to learn, no matter how long it may take. I have yet to really find that kind of support/relationship here on Substack. And maybe its just worth saying, but that's the kind of relationship I want to see in a new way of thinking about lifelong education.
This has been a great discussion though. I know it's fun when I have to rewrite my comments 10 times because I'm learning as I reply. If either you or Josh (or both) ever get the itch to sit down and try to reimagine on paper what education could look like, I'd love to start that conversation. But unless and until then, I'm going to happily keep learning from you both.
Somehow I overlooked this reply, Latham. My apology. It's late now, but I want to let you know that I appreciate the engagement and thoughtfulness, and I align with you in waiting to see new paradigms prove themselves rather than predict or rely with confidence on any particular future. Thanks again for feeling inspired beyond your usual comment responsiveness!
Thanks Jay for these memories with an emphasis on what your teachers gave to you and what you gave to your students. Does that virtuous cycle still exist? I've seen the influence of teachers in the lives of my three children, and my daughter was a teacher before she became a full time mother.
It's interesting to contemplate that at the same time there's a crisis in higher education that the divide between those with a college degree and those without continues to grow.
David, perhaps you saw this piece in the NY Times recently? Vanderbilt appears to be the first university to approach $100,000 in total expenses per year. I can understand why families might look askance at a humanities degree at that price. Liberal arts education has only made sense when it is affordable.
But the higher the cost of a college degree climbs, the more difficult it will be for colleges to show a clear ROI. I thought about this recently while gathering bids to tile two showers. Both bids were more than an adjunct professor would make in six months with a full teaching load.
Two thoughts came from that: fair trade for teachers and the obvious appeal of the trades for many young people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/05/your-money/paying-for-college/100k-college-cost-vanderbilt.html
I saw that number! To me, it means that assertive mating is going to get worse if nothing changes.
David, it does still exist, but the challenges to maintaining it grow ever greater. Online education, which is a mode I actually do support, for those whose needs and qualities it fits, certainly challenges it. But the bond can be created. It's harder, but I've done it. But it's harder still for mass numbers of often less experienced, very low paid, and grossly overburdened and powerless contingent adjunct labor. And then, as well, students compelled by the economic reality you cite into studies they don't at the time value are not prime candidates for valuing their professors and receiving inspiration from them.
Josh - thanks for hosting this guest essay with Jay. Lots of stuff to digest here.
Jay - sincere appreciation for sharing your experience with higher education and the educational system in general. My mother taught for 40+ years. Numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and a sister are also teachers. I have been mentored and influenced by amazing educators throughout my life.
My experience with higher education was different than the traditional path. I did attend one year of college right out of high school but with little real direction and absolutely no money it didn't make sense to continue. Fast forward a decade and I am married with two kids and working full-time on active duty with the Navy. Recognizing that upward mobility was limited without a degree I enrolled in night classes. The Navy had a contract with Chapman University in Orange, CA and remote classes were offered right on base. I would rush home from work to help my wife with a few chores, eat dinner, head back to class for an hour, come home and help get the kids to bed, and then stay up working on homework until late into the night. It was rough but I was grateful for the opportunity. With a bit more direction and motivation this time around I managed to graduate at the top of my class. A few years later I did the same thing for my Masters. So other than that one year after high school I never got to experience the traditional college environment. A part of me wishes I had but I am grateful for the educators who worked late and helped us non-traditional students achieve our goals.
Now as a parent of college age children it is interesting to me to observe the nuances involved in higher education. My son, as a computer science major, has almost no liberal arts classes in his curriculum. I think in his freshman year he took an English course and a Philosophy course. As a sophomore he took a history course. Beyond that, everything is STEM and he is at a flagship university.
I think that it is a really hard problem to solve. We can't have a progressive and functional society without an understanding of the humanities. At the same time, majoring in French or Philosophy have very little real world utility. How do we find the balance to ensure future generations don't lose touch with essential knowledge and yet are still capable of handling the technological world they are inheriting.
Somewhat different but related problem is why are we as a society pushing everyone to college when that is obviously not the best option for every individual. Culturally we need to emphasize an increased value on trade education. My son's friend from high school went to welding school and is already making $80k/year as an underwater welder. No debt and a contributing member of society.
No easy solutions and I am somewhat just rambling but lots of great stuff to think about here.
Matthew, thanks for sharing your personal journey -- and the landscape for your kids. You have a unique perspective coming from the military. And it's really impressive that you willed your way through your degrees on top of everything else. I think highly motivated learners like you have to be part of a future model for higher education (rather than defaulting to young people who don't always know why they're there, or who feel pressured to commit to a laser-focused career path before they even know fully who they are).
The liberal arts has always been a path for self-discovery and for molding responsible citizenship. But that only makes sense if it's affordable. I believe that the benefits of humanities education are lifelong, not merely transactional skills to gain an entry-level position. In fact, if the main purpose of a 4-yr degree is to get the internship or entry-level job, and that first internship or job is what qualifies you for the next role, then many high-priced degrees are effectively obsolete after you move on from that preliminary role (except as resume dressing or as a status marker). I really think there ought to be a lifelong component to higher ed and that liberal arts offers the most enduring rewards.
Perhaps you saw my post a while back about the SMELL test for news? My Iowa contractor's inability to process public health information was truly alarming, no matter how much money he might have been making tiling bathrooms. But I think we've lost the ability to agree on a common curriculum even in K-12. The true cost of that loss of faith in our public institutions has yet to come home to roost.
I hope you'll allow me to tease out the logic of these sentences a bit?
"We can't have a progressive and functional society without an understanding of the humanities. At the same time, majoring in French or Philosophy have very little real world utility. How do we find the balance to ensure future generations don't lose touch with essential knowledge and yet are still capable of handling the technological world they are inheriting."
I'm struggling with the tensions between "functional society" and "very little real world utility." Similarly, "essential knowledge" is by definition practical knowledge, yes? The tech world is perpetually beset by abuses of power or misappropriations of their platforms because engineers think studying human nature is a waste of time. But human nature is what turns Facebook into a propaganda machine. And the erosion of quality in tech is the result of myopic thinking about maximizing profits.
The thing about French and Philosophy and English is that they do not offer predictable returns on investment. Yet people who are highly competent in those areas are often trustworthy with other responsibilities, such as leadership, where good judgment and critical thinking are paramount. And I'm fond of citing examples from pop culture, such as the fantastic scene "The Carousel" from Mad Men, which illustrate how creativity (Don Draper's exceptional command of metaphor) enriches business, not merely the arts.
Enough for now -- thanks for the provocative comment!
A great, thoughtful contribution, Matthew, that resonates on so many levels with what I'm writing about. I could just let Joshua's comment stand, because I agree with every word of it, but I want to pursue a couple of themes. One is your experience with non-traditional-college-age, adult education.
I first entered college at the traditional age of 18. Intellectually, I was a prime candidate, eager and ready. But I was psychologically troubled for some years to come. I dropped out of college twice and was kicked out once. I didn't finish my B.A. until I was 31 years old -- after I had accumulated some "real-world" experience and success. When I returned to college to finish that B.A. and then go on to graduate school, I was *personally* ready for it and for academic success. You seem to describe the same readiness as an adult, even now, in the new direction you've charted in your life.
The concept of "just-in-time" learning is usually applied to discrete packets of knowledge and skills acquisition. Offer the learning at the time the student needs it, and sees the need for it, to solve a problem currently engaging the student, and the student will be a more committed and eager learner. Ultimately, this can expand into a vast network of interconnectedness in knowledge, insight, and skills.
This philosophy can be applied on a macro level as well. Bodies of knowledge and sets of skills we devalue at 20 or 30 we may come to value at 40 or 50, and when we do, an educational system that doesn't force someone fulfilled and well supported by welding onto an educational track he doesn't need or desire is what we need. When he has a job opportunity in Martinique at 40, he may see the utility, then, (even a desire) of learning French. When he's troubled over the meaning of his life at 50, he may be reminded that those Greeks way back then actually had some insights, and he'll care to learn about them. We need truly to reconceive education as lifelong and not rigidly programmatic.
The educational systems we evolve can be focused on turning to learn where and when it's needed so that the very practice of turning to learn becomes the fundamental skill and the foundational system.
We are nowhere near any such kind of re-conception unfortunately.
Wow and wow
I’m also going back to teaching in a few months after a few years away. Your lessons resonate deeply. Thanks for sharing, Jay!
Thanks, Kathleen. Enjoy the return. We'll have to compare notes!
"Only a humanities education teaches people to think about, care about, and propose answers to questions like that." ~ This beautiful sentence sums it up so nicely. For several years, I've been thinking that the answer might lie in partnerships with the professional schools, eg, a Business Management or Nursing major with a Humanities track. Some in the professions do understand the value of this kind of education for their students. I wonder if the idea of "the humanities" might gain some new life if we separate "the humanities *major*" from the courses and if universities could manage a funding formula that does not depend on major counts. So many if's. Once again, Jay, I'd like to address the issues you raise with a whole post, though I'm not sure I can do it before school is out. :-)
Thanks for such an evocative history of being both an inspiring teacher and an inspired student! One small editorial fix: it's Pigpen, not Linus, with the visible cloud around him.
Thank you, John - and for the editorial assistance. (Where are those famous New Yorker fact checkers when you need them?) Your correction made me pause to think that I only myself ever see Peanuts strips these days when I stumble upon one somewhere, and it's been ages since I've seen Pigpen!
Took early retirement im 2017, teaching is as much about reaping rewards from student learning as it is the paycheck. That is how the school systems have degraded their personnel for decades...
I think when teachers are valued as experts and allowed the creative autonomy necessary to reap rewards from student learning it can be worth the tradeoff in pay. It was for me for many years (although that changed once I had children). But when an institution wants to march teachers along the same standardized path, they tend to think a little differently about other forms of compensation. Sadly, there are still enough teachers willing to be exploited, or unable to escape the cycle of exploitation, for the system to change.
And have you heard about the BU debacle going on right now? I am sure you can search for the terms Boston University and student teacher strike and get a number of articles... https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/bu-graduate-workers-launch-strike-with-rally-picket-plans/
Wish I had more time to comment, but this has been on my mind a lot since I am in an MFA program and trying to figure out if I should teach anything since people keep saying that is what I should do. I don't know if I could financially make it work out with two disabled dependents who will soon age out of their district support and stay at home full time with me and my husband.
Zina, I'm sure you would be a fantastic teacher. But it's hard to see many teaching opportunities at the college level that aren't exploitative. It truly is a system built on an unsustainable financial model. The only thing that made the sacrifice worthwhile in the past was the feeling that ideas mattered, and that the institution valued creativity and scholarship for its own sake.
It might still be possible to teach with some firm work/life boundaries. But I think if you are going into it without experience and with the financial stress that you describe, it's going to be hard not to feel burned out or taken advantage of by the end of it.
Josh, It may very well be that I may be better compensated at the high school level at this point. It is so disappointing to read about how broken the higher education system is. I wonder how much longer it will be considered a marker for economic prosperity. Will it mean that the richer still just get richer... because they can afford the tuition no matter what. The debt is very frightening.
💯 -- if you can get a full-time high school gig, especially in a place where teachers are unionized, that is the way to go.
The wealth gap that you describe is already a factor. Not sure if you've seen the stories lately about a decline in college enrollment due to delays/problems with the FAFSA filings, but a lot of families are either opting out or facing steeper challenges this year: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/01/politics/fafsa-problem-financial-aid-award/index.html
I had a thought a while back that a friend quickly disabused me of. I was thinking that making liberal arts education affordable was the best way to maximize social mobility because it allowed everyone to embrace a path that I assumed the wealthy already chose: namely, finding their place in the world and then determining career from that, rather than just chasing a job for the salary. This friend, a former NBC personality (and alum of my former employer), said that everyone in his wealthy circles was trying to push their kids into the same path they followed. So if dad worked at Goldman Sachs, the kids were pressured to do the same, not embrace their love of poetry, say. I found that incredibly dispiriting.
I think the only way we can take that pressure off of young people's shoulders is by making education a low-risk proposition. An 18-yr-old should not have to determine what they are going to do for the next 50 years of their life. There should be some grace for experimenting with different roles without risking solvency or housing insecurity. Debt erases that grace.
It's possible that I got an easy pass in the late 90s because of Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other forms of financial aid. I took out just $10K in debt and paid it all off before the interest kicked in by living at home and working with the Forest Service. It gave me an unrealistic grasp, I think, of how most Americans approach working life, and through a combination of work and luck I was able to keep that dream going as a professor. Now I'm living a different reality, but I'm more flexible and have more freedom than most because I have no debt. I think that is how it should be. But almost no one from my demographic background in rural America has any chance of following my path. Some might say, after reading all that I've written here, that that is for the better? But I don't think so. If I hadn't gone to college, I'd assuredly have been a stenographer or a trade worker with an untapped intellectual hunger that I sought to satisfy by cheap imitations in church environments where I'd never truly belonged.
My life has in some cases created discontents that I wouldn't otherwise have known. But I know that for a stretch of it, at least ten years, I felt that I'd maximized my self-realization as a teacher. I'm clinging to a semblance of that as a writer and coach. It's a dream worth fighting for.
That's a key insight, Leah. Exactly so.
I’m the daughter of two teachers and would now be a retired professor of English if not for the unexpected pregnancy that derailed my plans of graduate school. Jay, I have witnessed, through my parents, the profound rewards you describe about the bond with students over time. And as a former student, I still hear the voices of teachers who pushed me to become a better reader, thinker and human. Your observations about the current state of university teaching sadden me, and surprise me more than they should. (I guess I wasn’t paying attention.) Wonderful cameos of your teachers, by the way. “Accept” or “understand?” Whart a difference a word makes.
I have to say, Rona, from the little bit of familiarity I've gained so far with your compelling sensibility and voice, I think you'd have made a splendid professor of English!
This pleases me so much. I've taught memoir writing and mentored editors while running a magazine, so I couldn't entirely dodge the call to teach.
Mentor is the key word, the essential word, that covers so many kinds of teaching.