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More reviews by Peter Gordon
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Excellence Without a Soul: How Great University Forgot Education by Harry R Lewis
The Harvard mystique is, if anything, more deeply entrenched in Asia than it is in the United States. It is often the only American university that Asians (Asian parents at any rate) can name (or deign to name). This mystique, as I tried valiantly but against the odds to explain to prospective applicants and parents in my ten years as an alumni interviewer in Hong Kong, is not entirely deserved and rather misses the point.
A book detailing trouble in this intellectual paradise might therefore be expected to raise some eyebrows out here, but those interested in or concerned about the education of Asia's next generation could do worse than read the new book by HARRY R LEWIS, former dean of Harvard College, somewhat ominously entitled EXCELLENCE WITHOUT A SOUL: HOW GREAT UNIVERSITY FORGOT EDUCATION.
"Excellence" is largely conspicuous by its absence in discussions of Asia and its future. East Asian societies usually emphasize competence and professionalism, usually going by the names of "prosperity", "expertise", "the rule of law" or "good governance": these are worthy and important objectives, yet at some point societies should strive for the best possible: many -- most -- individuals will fail in attaining this goal of excellence, but they will be better for the attempt.
While excellence is not exclusively the preserve of universities, universities are nevertheless the places where excellence can first be nurtured. Asian universities have not, it must be said, in general reached the educational levels of the best universities in America, Britain and some other Western countries, and many Asian institutions aspire to be the Harvard (or MIT) "of the East".
While Lewis clearly has an American or even Harvard-centric agenda, the issues, if not their historical genesis, are relevant to educators in any country. "The great universities," he writes, "the universities that educate a disproportionate share of the nation's future industrial, political, and judicial leaders, struggle to explain the overall point of the education they offer."
In the interests of disclosure I should note that Lewis was one of the readers of my senior honors thesis, and the course on the theory of computation I took from him almost thirty years ago has informed my life ever since. He had, even then, a (well-deserved) reputation as one of Harvard's best teachers.
Harvard has been through something of a rough patch recently, with a controversial President being forced out after the shortest tenure in a century and a half, a scandal involving alleged fraud during consultations to the Russian government and, less seriously, perhaps, but nevertheless indicative of the interest that Harvard generates, a Harvard student whose highly-publicised book deal recently collapsed in allegations of plagiarism.
But the problems that Lewis writes about go back further; indeed, even when I attended the College, there were questions about the quality of the teaching and the lack of student-faculty contact.
Lewis discusses a wide range of issues, from grades to athletics, in considerable technical and historical detail. But underlying this discussion is a clear view of what tertiary education is for: "Education," he writes, "is not the teaching of dates and formulas and laws and names and places. Education, in fact, is not mere classroom teaching at all." Lewis quotes another Harvard professor, Jorge Dominguez that "A liberal education is what remains after you have forgotten the facts that were first learned while becoming educated."
But Lewis also sees a particular social purpose and responsibility that, ironically, might not seem entirely out of place emanating from a Communist education ministry: "to transform teenagers, whose lives have been structured by their families and high schools, into adults with the learning and wisdom to take responsibility for their own lives and for civil society."
There is much food for thought for those concerned about Hong Kong's universities. "The relationship of the student to the college is increasingly that of a consumer to a vendor of expensive goods and services... Yet colleges can and once did have a very different view of their role with students, a role in helping them set standards of personal behaviour for themselves, or helping them learn to live up to an honorable ideal of personal integrity... Simply put, colleges no longer do a good job of helping students grow up."
Even if Asia's universities do a good job in teaching skills in law or medicine, do they, as Lewis accuses Harvard, "teach them but [do] not make them wise" or "indulge students' inclinations to learn more of what know already"? One need agree with all of Lewis's views -- and many will not, I suspect, given his contrarian positions on a number of topics -- to benefit from this intelligent and straight-talking discussion of the challenges facing American education and, by extension, the challenges facing universities worldwide.
Regardless of Harvard's faults, however, one of the glories of the American university system is someone can write a book this critical and remain employed. Could it happen here?
Peter Gordon
20/05/2006
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Peter Gordon is editor of The Asian Review of Books. |
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