Challenging ideas

Possibly this goes in the "you can't make it up" category, but I want to discuss it calmly. There are reports that some conservatives who have lost elections or witnessed elections being lost, believe large numbers of young Americans voted against them after being radicalized by a college education. Really? They were brainwashed by their liberal professors? The university as a "cult?" As many of you know I taught for many of those years. I think I knew my students. They were virtually the exact opposite of cult members, 180 degrees different. First, it is important to recognize that a college experience involves a lot more than classroom instruction. Students learn as much, if not more, outside class as inside. They listened to voices from a wide range of people and considered perspectives that were not available while "growing up." Late night study breaks, study abroad, trips over Spring Break, trips with athletic and theatre teams and groups, summer jobs, visits to friend's homes to meet their parents, "bull-sessions" over beer or coffee or pizza, and the songs, the films and the books that they read and discussed, all contributed to new perspectives and changed lives. Put simply, they had time to consider and challenge new as well as traditional ideas and beliefs. They spent four years relatively free of the responsibilities of a job and family, giving them time to think, dream, imagine, invent, criticize or make sense out of a world far larger than their everyday experiences. They had the privilege of four more years of formal education—not indoctrination or propaganda. They, notwithstanding how much else they found in these late teen years to compete for their attention, became smarter, more aware of nuance, more careful in speech and writing, better informed about the world, able to place themselves in time and place, more logical in thinking, more willing to consider alternative explanations. Of course, all was not, nor is at present, as ideal as I suggest. There were and are professors that go over the line in their passion for social change. However, my experience has been that the more an instructor tries to make "converts," the less he or she succeeds. The very American contrarian streak. not far from the surface in all of us, comes to our aid and probably moves us in an opposite direction. And if now they don't think like you, isn't it possible that it is you who are a step behind them, in trying to understand, and deal with, a new, complex and challenging world. And I think you will find that you can't fix things by passing laws and appointing governing Boards to force colleges to actually try to indoctrinate their students—to think your way.