Education Essay, Research Paper

Reaction Paper on Education

Article:

Pascarella, Ernet T. and Terenzini, Patrick T. “Living With Myths” Sociology 96/97. pp. 183-189.

In this article, written by Patrick T. Terenzini and Ernest T. Pascarella, this

question is asked, Does higher education have its own dysfunctional myths? From 1985

to 1990, research was done to find out the answer to this question. The researchers came

up with at least five myths about undergraduate education in America. Faculty members

as well as administrators alike embrace these myths, which structured how we think

about and design undergraduate educational programs. These myths may also intrude on

the improvement of teaching and learning in our colleges and universities.

Most people believe that any given student who is entering a college or university

will learn to have better development and learning skills throughout college. In actuality, this probably will not happen. Yes, this can happen, but it will not happen by just thinking

about it.

One of the most frequent criticisms of undergraduate education today is that

faculty members spend too much time on research at the expense of their teaching.

Faculty members must do good research in order to be good teachers. The faculty

members who are noted scholars and who bring their research to the classroom, they are

intellectually energizing their students. The ones who do research as they are teaching

are the boring and non intellectual teachers.

In response to this article, I feel very strong that myths have a very big impact on

undergraduate students today. There are all kinds of myths out there that are not true

about college. I think this article is very good and informative about these issues. I wish

more college kids and their families would read articles like this so they would know that

some stuff is not true.