Where is your spleen?

This week I started my lectures on Ancient History to first year students. Following a tradition invented by one of my colleagues 20 years ago, I kicked off the very first lecture by handing round a skeletal map of the Mediterranean – and asked them to mark several key places (including Athens, Sparta, Troy, Crete, Rome and Pompeii). The results are collected in for scrutiny, but entirely anonymously. No names are required,.

The idea is to demonstrate to the freshers that they really do need to get an atlas out before they start sounding off about the Peloponnesian War, or whatever. The accuracy this year was no better or worse than usual. Most of the my 100 or so clever first years could place Rome and Pompeii, but Sparta wandered dangerously (from time to time popping up in modern Turkey) while Alexandria was a mystery to many, and one at least appeared not to know that Crete was an island. Are they pulling my leg I wondered….?

Over the decades this little exercise has given the new students a wonderful feeling of shared ignorance. The dons on the other hand have enjoyed shaking their heads at the very idea that a student with straight (classical) As at A level still doesn’t know where Sparta is.

We don’t of course blame the students -- but the government or the national curriculum. Our students are, we believe, the crème de la crème. The trouble is that they have been let down by the “system” before they came to us. (Better not to ask if we, aged just 18, could have marked Alexandria on a map … but that’s another story)

For centuries, dons have combined a loving over-commitment to their students with a rhetoric that deplores the ignorance of those they are teaching. The “can-you-believe that-they-have-never-heard-of-Pericles?” line is one of the most primitive and powerful of all donnish bonding rituals.

This struck me very strongly this week when I rushed from that first year lecture to steal an hour of work in the University Library. I was there to look up some of the pamphlets of the 1860s written at the height of Victorian debates about what should or should not be taught in schools and universities. If anyone now thinks that education is over-politicized, they should try the nineteenth century. Those Victorian gurus debated even more furiously than our own the rights and wrongs of the curriculum. And they were just as ready to blame the “government”.

I found myself reading a tract by Robert Lowe (Chancellor of the Exchequer  immediately before Gladstone), denouncing the tyranny of Latin and Greek over the school syllabus. He lingered, like me, to think of what the crème de la crème did not know – because, in his view, they had been kept to a narrow classical path:

“I will now give you a catalogue of things which a highly educated man may be in total ignorance of.” he wrote. “He probably will know nothing of the anatomy of his own body. He will have not the slightest idea of the difference between the arteries and the veins, and he may not know whether the spleen is placed on the right or the left side of his spine. He may have no knowledge of the simplest truths of physics and would not be able to explain the barometer or thermometer.”

Sounds familiar? My first thought was to get a new questionnaire up for next week to see how my students did on these central issues of basic science. Until I realised that I would be hard pressed myself to say on which side of my spine my spleen lay. In fact it was probably the likes of me (though you would have to change the gender) that Lowe had in mind.

As these Victorians saw, there is an issue here not just about what facts people should know, but about what education is for, and who is responsible for it.  Our generation tends to think that we are the first to have wondered about this. Far from it.

Comments

[Meritorious_Soso]

Tried to post this, Ms. Beard, but don't think it made it. I have a bet with my wife that you will not dare to pose this:
REPEATING; Thank you, Stafford, for remembering Mary Beard's article calling the Islamic terrorists of 9/11 courageous.
Roaming the net, I found Ms. Beard's blog for the first time. As a professional humor writer, I was amused at her floundering attempts at writing humor, hiding behind her "don" prestige for protection ("If you don't find me funny it's because you're stupid and not as highly educated as I am." -- And I'll bet Ms. Beard considers herself free of the British class system, while she hangs desperately to her perch.
Anyway, it is my fondest wish that Ms. Beard finds herself one day between an American soldier and one of her "courageous" Muslim terrorists.
I know where she would run for safety, but hope the soldier has enough sense to turn his back on her and leave her to the tender mercies of her Islamic radical hero.

[Michael]

Well dash it all, Professor Beard, I know where _my_ spleen is. I earn my living from venting it.

However, my serious point is that while it may be illuminating to know the extent of people's scientific knowledge, it might be even more enlightening to know the extent of their understanding of what science _is_. With something called "science" (but in reality a sort of neo-positivist scientism) being promoted as the best bulwark against the resurgence of fundamentalism, I suspect being able to distinguish between science and scientism would be one of the most useful tools we could give to undergraduates. (And I am not going to mention Pliny the Elder or Stoicism. See: I haven't.)

[micheal wright]

can we really ever trust anyone (i.e. Lord truth) who refers to themselves so lavishly in the third person?

ponder

[Jackie]

postblogger writes about the age of people who learn as the 12-22 year olds. As I suggested in an earlier post, on a different subject, the Open University defies this logic. I admit the average age of OU students is coming down (could this have something to do with fees?!) but it is still a great deal higher than the 'normal' university. A great many of these students are studying for the sheer joy of learning. I know - its addictive!
So no, education is not just for the young.

[Lord Truth]

Re Lady Distain:
1) Lord Truth does not do apostrophes....
2) His use of "dots" in the form of ellipses represents the biggest advance in English prose since Milton.....it allows the presentation in visual form of the natural stream of human thought processes in a conversational and therefore memorable way...something particularly useful for the dunderheads Ms Beard finds herself closeted with....Such a style must properly be called "Truthonian"
The dots may also be considered bullet holes made by Thruths intellectual Spitfire as it wings its way through the darkness of cyberspace.....(thats one more shot down...)

[David Kirwan]

Sparta in Asia Minor? Are people confusing the Peloponnesian with the Trojan War? If so, it argues a higher level of education, even if slightly confused as to facts, than would at first appear.

But this discussion raises the whole question of what education is for. Though I don't believe the etymology that relates 'educare' to 'educere' (wrong quantity; wrong conjugation) it seems to me that the semantics are right: 'lead out' from oneself into a wider world; stimulate an open and intelligently enquiring mind: the facts can come later. Too heavy a deluge of facts can prematurely stifle it. But on the other hand too few facts will fail to develop it. It's a difficult problem...

[David Grenell]

G. K. Chesterton - A Ballade Of A Book-Reviewer

I have not read a rotten page
Of 'Sex-Hate' or 'The Social Test,'
And here comes 'Husks' and 'Heritage'...
O Moses, give us all a rest!
'Ethics of Empire! ... I protest
I will not even cut the strings,
I'll read 'Jack Redskin on the Quest'
And feed by brain with better things.

Somebody want a Wiser Age
(He also wants me in invest);
Somebody likes the Finnish Stage
Because the jesters do not jest;
And grey with dust is Dante's crest
The bell of Rabelais soundless swings;
And the winds come out of the west
And feed my brain with better things.

Lord of our laughter and our rage,
Look on us with our sins oppressed!
I, too, have trodden mine heritage
Wickedly wearying of the best.
Burn from my brain and from my breast
Sloth, and the cowardice that clings,
And stiffness and the soul's arrest:
And feed by brain with better things.

------------Envoi
Prince, you are host and I am guest,
Therefore I shrink from cavillings ...
But I should have the fizz suppressed
And feed by brain with better things.

(Inwardboundpoetry.blogspot.com)

[postblogger]

Also re Lord Truth. To her/him, actually…

I’d like to join you in Grumpypants Alley, because I think that not only the internal structure, but also the external boundaries of our educational ‘system’ (which we move into, through and then, crucially, out of) may sometimes cause trouble. University students tend to be younger, better looking and more free than I am, so I feel no compunction at all in picking on them as easy and thoroughly deserving targets. Is there, however, any age group who wouldn’t benefit from more education? I know, for example, many people who were perfectly brilliant undergraduates/ettes, but who forgot to keep on learning once they hit middle age and are now perfectly mediocre Professors.

So while, broadly, I agree with your assertion that the UK’s educational system could be improved, it wouldn’t surprise me if the people who might benefit most weren’t, say, 12-22 year olds, but people of any age who use their own successes and failures as a measure of achievement for others.

Present company excepted, of course…

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb slightly and say that any society which sees education/sexual mores/short hair/war (delete as applicable) as something which is only for young people is probably a society in which education/sexual mores/short hair/war ends up as something against which young people rebel. Incidentally, I haven’t though that sentence through properly and may be spouting rubbish. Feel free to correct me if I am.

As for the second point in your (Lord Truth’s) post, I’m not quite sure whether to agree or disagree with you. When you mention that girls are only able to discuss whether ‘the grey would go well with the beige’, do you blame nurture or nature? That is to say, do you think that, on average, men and women have similar academic abilities, but that schools/exams/universities/life in general are stacked in favour of men? Or do you think that females are inherently less able intellectually than males?

[Lady Disdain]

Lord Truth: You start to make some possibly valid points about personal responsibility in education, and then you completely destroy them with your sexist hogwash and ridiculous ranting without sparing a thought for proper grammar.

The brutal truth is that ellipses contain only three dots. Combined with a period, there may be four dots apparent, but never should you have six--nor even just two!

A few clicks on the internet that you use so ceaselessly for brainless version of "truth" would have yielded this information to you.

You might also want to review apostrophe use, particularly with "its" versus "it's."

My apologies to Prof. Beard for the rudeness of this posting.

[Mary]

Re Lord Truth: Just to set the record straight (and in defence of the female of the species) my lecture was to a mixed audience in the Faculty of Classics, not girls only in college.

[Lord Truth]

Just when I was following Mr Michelsons advice and leaving the the country I read "Where Is Your Spleen" and was so filled with horror and anger that before I could throw myself from the nearest window I must again put pen to computer..
NO Professor Beard its not a joke...you try to soften the "Its not the students fault"-its the government /the curriculem etc- you even try to bring in your own ignorance"I wouldnt know where my spleen was"etc--But Ms Beard -you are not studying medicine-that information is completely irrelevant to your life....but for these girls -and they were girls of course-- to have studied classic subjects for years and never had the real interest to know or even visit these places-or even have a few clicks on the internet that they use so ceaselessly for brainless "chat"--God help us!!
I feel particularly bitter as I was in Cambridge a few weeks ago and captivated -again by its beauty ,yet my sensitivities in fact picked up disturbing signs...there seemed to be lots of GIRLS there braying and talking loudly about what they were going to study interspersed with comments on who loved who or what...while their minds were undoubtedly largely occupied with whether the grey would go well with the beige or perhaps the red would be better
with the green...
The brutal truth is that the most important part of constructive thought has vanished in the last twenty years.For centuries men have exercised their minds to find ways out of the human predicament-theory jousting with theory with often lots of blood spilled.For at least a hundred years free market capitalism fought Socialistic ideas for a planned sciety.All that vanished with the collapse of communisn and the triumph of Thatcherism ...and with that the brain is no longer needed for constructive thought.Everything simply HAPPENS according to the rule of cost effectiveness.The worlds of PLANNING of COMMITTEES ,of positive thinking, of everything that lifts mankind out of its automated monkified existence are abandoned to a simple slogan "do whats most economical" In fact the glories of the free market are in fact merely the working out of the killing actions of animals.A pack of lions dont"think " or plan their attack on Zebras-there is an automated response that looks for the easiest prey to kill -the one that is most cost effective in terms of chasing bringing down etc
The disappearance of anything smacking of socialistic planning in its widest sense puts a total damper on constructive intellectual enterprise and initiative-The market will do all the work-so there is no need to be anything but a happy zombie-- which is the condition-if she is really honest- of the professors "creme de la creme "students and most of the rest of Britains young......
Sorry to be so brutal......

[Mary]

Postblogger has a good point....sharp, attentive, hard-working, intelligent and -- in the technical sense -- ignorant students have been the teachers' delight for centuries (while giving them ample opportunity to lambast that very ignorance which they so wish to eradicate!).

[postblogger]

Apologies for this, I very much enjoy your blog, but this my first time commenting, so please be gentle with me...

Isn’t it more fun having ignorant students? The interdependence of facts and their manipulation is so subtle that I think it’s a godsend to be able to deliver a ‘clean’ fact, unencumbered by the baggage of a previous teacher. So in that sense, ‘hurrah’ for declining educational standards!

By way of a very crude non-academic analogy, I used to coach rugby to two University teams, one male and one female. The men had all been playing since the age of 8, assumed they knew all the basic skills and wouldn’t listen to anything I said. The women had never played before, took everything on board, were much more fun to coach and wound up a better team than the men.

And, as you say, this debate between the balance of hard fact vs. abstract reasoning and tradition vs. novelty obviously goes way back. To chip away at the timescale, in 1661 A. (which I think stands for Abraham, but don’t quote me on that) Cowley wrote 'A proposition for the advancement of experimental philosophy'. Like Lowe, Cowley was in favour of reducing the emphasis on the classical and paying more attention to modern scholarship, bemoaning, in his preface, that idle and pernicious opinion which had long possest the World, that all things to be searcht in Nature, had already been found and discovered by the Ancients.

I’m sure you know that citation already and I have absolutely no doubt that you or one of your commentators can come up with an earlier example of the same sentiment. But thanks for the provocation!

[paul potts]

This reminds me of what happened when I set, not a test but an assignment to first-year students at the University of Swazland. It was meant, not to test their knowledge, but to start doing some research. They were given an outline map of the Atlantic, including the American continent and Africa. No place names, only the lines. Their task was to write in the names of about 20 cities in the correct location. If they didn't know the answers, they were directed to consult an atlas, wherever they could find one.

The results were astonishing - many placed London in the middle of Hudson Bay, and their own country in the Atlantic. Students registered to study geography did no better than the others, I'm afraid. It was clear that some did not know what a map was, never mind an Atlas, and did not know how to read it if they did.

A bit like me watching a cricket match, never mind listening to people talking about it.