The Academic Abuse of Quantity Over Quality

The Academic Abuse of Quantity Over Quality
Reading a great work is best done at a slow, comfortable pace. Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
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One of the most profound problems in the field of education is that it has become too superficial.

With efficiency preoccupations to “cover” as many “core” subjects as possible and equip young minds with the data of a rapidly-changing, money-driven world, skimming the surface of things through fast-moving textbooks, condensed texts, abridged works, PowerPoints interfaces, and soundbites has become something of an epidemic. The mentality has become more about sailing through the mandated material, checking the boxes, imparting the facts, and getting the grade to make the grade—teaching primarily to the test, rather than to the truth. Gone are the attitudes of the philosophical Athenian Academy, where learning was leisurely and lingered over to allow the mind to steep in goodness, truth, and beauty.

Sean Fitzpatrick
Sean Fitzpatrick
Author
Sean Fitzpatrick serves on the faculty of Gregory the Great Academy, a boarding school in Elmhurst, Pa., where he teaches humanities. His writings on education, literature, and culture have appeared in a number of journals, including Crisis Magazine, Catholic Exchange, and the Imaginative Conservative.
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