Quotes from Jacob Neusner
and Possible Reasons to Go to College
"The ideal professor is the one who inspires you to dream of what you can be, to try for more than you ever have accomplished before" (185).
Go to college to dream, to stretch yourself, to reach beyond your comfort zone?
"A generation raised on television expects to be manipulated and entertained" (185).
Go to college to be manipulated and entertained?
"If a warm body fills a seat regularly and exhibits vital signs, such as breathing at regular intervals, occasionally reading, and turning in some legible writing on paper, then cosmic justice demands, and the professor must supply, the grade of C or Satisfactory" (186).
Go to college simply to fill a seat, to pass time, to do mediocre work?
"At the end of a course, students should ask themselves, Have I learned facts, or have I grasped how the subject works, its inner dynamic, its logic and structure?" (187).
Go to college to learn facts?
Go to college to really immerse yourself in a subject -- to really understand a subject, its ins and outs, its history, the way it is set up, etc.?
"The grade of B is accorded to the student who has mastered the basic and fundamental modes of thought about, and facts contained within, the subject of the course" (187).
"The grade of A goes to student work that attends in some interesting way and with utmost seriousness to the center and whole of the subject of the course" (188).
"A student earns an A when he or she has mastered the larger theory of the course, entered into its logic and meaning, discovered a different way of seeing. Like a professor, the student who through accurate facts and careful, critical thought seeks meaning, the core and center of the subject, earns the grade A" (189).
"Students have rights too, and one of these is the right to be left alone, to grow and mature in their own distinctive ways. They have the right to seek their way, just as we professors find ours" (189).
Go to college to be left alone -- to be away from parents, family, and friends?
Go to college to grow and mature?
Go to college to find their way?
Go to college to form a new identity? (see Salat and Crichton)
"Grade A professors teach, never indoctrinate. They educate rather than train" (189).
Go to college to be educated -- for knowledge -- education for the sake of education?
Go to college to be trained -- for training related to a specific work field?
"Knowledge and even understanding do not bring salvation and therefore do not have to be, and should not be, forced upon another. And this brings me back to the earlier emphasis upon scholarship as the recognition of ignorance, the awareness not of what we know but of how we know and what we do not know" (189).
Go to college to learn what we already know?
Go to college to learn how we know what we know?
Go to college to learn what we do not know?
"A good professor wants to answer the question, Why am I telling you these things? A good student wants to answer the question, Why am I taking these courses? What do I hope to get out of them? Why are they important to me?" (189).
Go to college to figure things out?
Go to college to discover how to get something out of a course?
Go to college to discover how and why required and elective courses are important?