Student A cademic Freedom: Beyond Moral Fervor
If there is one issue that divides the higher education community more than any other, it is the matter of how much freedom the student should have in setting his own educational goals and standards. I n dispute is not the student's freedom to learn, for obviously, this is regarded by all as possibly the most basic of all freedoms, nor is it his freedom to choose an area of study, or to enrich and personalize his education by creatively blending learning from traditional areas of study. At issue is the amount of freedom students should have in deciding for themselves what and how much knowledge and mental development are sufficient to claim mastery or competency in an area of study. Some would allow students unlimited freedom to learn what they wish a t whatever competency levels they choose, measuring progress by the student's own feeling of accomplishment and his attitude toward his work. The principal rationale behind 'this is that students today are searching for an identity or for a role in preference to a goal; they seek a way of satisfying their immediate needs to accomplish, rather than working for longer-range security, or in the hope that the future will be all that is promised. They need to know they can make a team now, and, having done so, they will work tirelessly to improve. Nearly all courses, studies, and curricula are organized to put learning and intellectual discipline ahead of the student's need to feel he is making it. Learning with no obvious use outside the learning situation, or routine training which provides only one way to approach a problem, frustrate and alienate the student who has a need to creatively use his knowledge now. If this generation of students is to be productive, universities will have to give them freedom to learn in their own way. This, of course, is patent nonsense to many academicians. Jacques Barzun refers to it as an "aboriginal freefor-all," claiming that those who advance this view confuse the conditions for learning and those fancied as proper for a free citizen in an ideal world. The argument against unrestricted freedom is not new. William James and John Dewey agreed that the essential need is for students to know something, "and to know it with a concreteness of perception and a precision of imagination" that are not possible without expert guidance and the willingness (of students) to subordinate themselves to the task. Just how long, it is asked, will it take students to rediscover on their own or to learn a t their pleasure all the mathematics, science, and humanities needed to help them live a better life in an unpredictable world? And just how longcau our civilization survive in a world in which the educated are unable or unwilling to make the effort to gain and maintain control of themselves, their society, and the environment? The sooner the student with the need for instant and continuous gratification is persuaded that this is a luxury neither he nor his
Ieditorially speaking
brothers can afford, the sooner we can get on with trying to build a better world for all. While the moral fervor with which partisans on either side of this issue defend their views would appear to be justified only by special revelation, there is hope that reason and good will can prevent an Armageddon on the campus. Taken a t face value, the case for restricted freedom certainly appears to be the more cogent, for who ever ~ucceededat anything worthwhile without being shown by a task master of some kind, not only that he can and must rise above himself, hut just how far above himself he is capable of reaching. Who ever decided, without guidance and discipline, what he really believed in, what the real world is, or what constitutes beauty and truth? Who ever learned on his own, and just for the pure plcasurc of it, the importance of good training, the power of precision, the true triumphs in hard work and struggle, the value of quiet contemplation? And for those who would argue that none of this is all that important, perhaps i t should he added that it has taken centuries to build this civilization, and we are still not very far from the jungle. There is great danger in over~implifyingwhat it takes to keep a civilization from deteriorating, and there is great folly in assuming that all who went before us were fools. Still, the other side has a point. Perhaps it is best expressed by a student who put it this way: "We feel we learned as young children to value and seek knowledge, beauty, and truth. As a result we believe ivc possess basically sound attitudes and instincts toward learning that which is worthwhile. We believe we will be able to recognize opportunities to build on our knowledge and add to our competencies. Unfortunately we have not found in the university as many opportunities as we had hoped. We find few professors who can or will take the time to he our compassionate task masters, who will watch us carefully as we reach beyond ourselves, who will really help us as we seek answers to the great questions, or who will encourage us to find the true triumphs in hard work and struggle. Instead, many of them appear to be almost unhappy servants of a task master far more stern and demanding than we can appreciate, one so domineering that he appears to have drained all too many of their zest to teach the subject they found so exciting as undergraduates. We find other professors whose god is rhetoric and social change, and whose energies are so consumed in pursuing these goals that we are little more than instruments of their ordeal. We have not lost respect for the faculty; but, because our stay here is so short and our need to develop is so great, we feel we must assume a much greater responsibility for our own education. Despite their protestations about student academic freedom, we doubt that our professors will really mind-they seem so preoccupied." WTL Volume 49, Number I , Januory 1972
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