As you help your child pack for freshman year at college, perhaps you should take a brief moment to reflect on what your second mortgage will be paying for. Many colleges have a required reading for freshmen, usually just one book that is geared to establishing a common ground for new students. The National Association of Scholars analyzed 290 of these common reading programs and their findings on the required books are quite interesting.
Most of the books were pretty close to a high school level. Although it is comforting to know that high school graduates are being required to read at a high school level, the study felt that this is a missed opportunity to begin moving students to the next level.
There were only four classic books required and only four required books were written before the 20th century. This is a very low percentage of the 290 books analyzed and is indicative of the trend in education to view contemporary literature as superior to all that came before. Shakespeare was totally absent which may seem like a relief for many but it is not conducive to a well-rounded education.
The overwhelming majority of the books fell into the Multiculturalism/Immigration/Racism theme and, by and large, reflected “leftist political perspectives”. There was also an “absence of books that reflect conservative values”. This should come as no surprise, but having it spelled out clearly in a study certainly belies all the academic denial of liberal bias.
For the most part, the books were found to “offer a distinctly disaffected view of American society and Western civilization” with “grim assessments of American life”. Keep this in mind when your first-year college student comes home for Christmas and displays disgust at the blatant commercialism your Christmas tree exudes and demands that the crèche under the tree be removed but, of course, not all the presents. They may have been indoctrinated, but they are not that dumb – yet.
David J. Hentosh
Tags: education, Progressivism
