How Colleges Stopped Rewarding Curiosity

Johann Neem, a professor of history at Western Washington University who is the author of What’s the Point of College?: Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform, argues that Eliot’s free-for-all approach didn’t have an organizing principle and lacked depth. But educators, Neem says, often make the mistake of believing they can offer a complete education, as if they know what society or the individual student wants or needs. Student-learning outcomes tied to a history program might set a goal that students “will be able to formulate historical questions,” “grasp the complexity of historical causation,” or “express their ideas clearly, logically, and in evidence-based ways” — broad learning goals that are separate from the personal motivations and knowledge that students bring to courses. And these goals might not reflect the knowledge and skills that students seek, or how the combinations of courses will be useful to them in the future.