"Our students have lost the space in which to act with purpose, which I think of as narrow but deep attention, not quite obsession but a healthier version of it. The ideal is now versatility, four years of learned attention deficit disorder (except in sports, where the three-sport dilettante has been replaced by the highly directed thoroughbred one-sport stud). As activities have multiplied, the curriculum has diversified, which is both a cause and an effect. Choosing from a menu of activities — academics, sports, student government, community service, etc. —students spend less time on academics, and what time they do spend is forcibly divided among various disciplines or "distribution groups."
"While I do worry that Americans are less capable than ever of sustained attention, I am less concerned with what our hyperactive world is doing to our personalities than with the values underlying these changes, this intentional slide toward hyperactivity. What does it say about our view of the good life? A college that once required a narrow, classical curriculum and now requires ten times more breadth; and whose student culture diminishes study time in favor of myriad extracurricular activities; and — what's more — whose mission used to be avowedly religious or patriotic and now is only "to prepare students for their roles as citizens" or some such formulation — such a school has no strong notion of its own purpose, and no vision of the purposeful life it means to prepare students for. Well-rounded and liberal is a perfectly nice way to be — I hope it describes me — but it connotes no particular meaning or calling or purpose. It's a way to be, not a reason to be."
As someone thinking through various and somehow-related questions such as: my children's potential college choices, the value of the introverted in our society, and the way I spend my days (and the way I don't), this article was timely. No pat answers, but great discussion material for us. It's a keeper.
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