One of my professors sent me an e-mail earlier this week. Basically, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences did a giant study of the state of humanities in American education from elementary to post-graduate studies.
Website: http://www.humanitiesindicators.org/
This is from the press release (on the website):
I find all this pretty abhorrent. "No Child Left Behind" pushes 'quantifiable' studies like math and science so much that there's no time for language, social studies, and CREATIVITY. Are we turning kids into little robots with no interest in art? Who don't have access to their imaginations?
And reading - I mean, we know that not a lot of Americans read regularly, but I would like to know what they're reading (fiction, non-fiction, smut?)
Thoughts?
Website: http://www.humanitiesindicators.org/
This is from the press release (on the website):
What Do the Humanities Indicators Tell Us?
- The picture of adult literacy in the U.S. is one of polarization. Among Western industrialized nations, we rank near the top in the percentage of highly literate adults (21%) but also near the top in the proportion who are functionally illiterate (also 21%).
- Public debate about teacher qualifications has focused mainly on math and science, but data reveal that the humanities fields suffer an even more glaring dearth of well-prepared teachers. In 2000, the percentage of middle (29%) and high school (37.5%) students taught by a highly qualified history teacher was lower than for any other major subject area. The definition of “highly qualified” is a teacher who has certification and a post-secondary degree in the subject they teach.
- Humanities faculty are the most poorly paid. They also have a higher proportion of part-time, non-tenured positions compared to their counterparts in the sciences and engineering. But almost half of humanities faculty indicate that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs overall.
- Since the early 1970s, the number of Americans who support the banning of books from the public library because they espouse atheism, extreme militarism, communism, or homosexuality decreased by at least 11 percentage points, although still from 26% to 34% of the public would support banning some type of book. In the case of books advocating homosexuality, the decline was a particularly significant 20 percentage points.
- Recent federal legislation identifies certain languages as “critical need languages” (Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, and Uzbek, among others), but the data show these languages are rarely studied in colleges and universities. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of students studying Chinese.
-Charitable giving to arts and cultural organizations grew between the mid-1990s and early 2000s before leveling off. But little of public or private sector funding for the humanities goes to academic research. This trend undermines both academia and the public since public institutions rely on humanities scholars to provide much of the knowledge on which these activities are based.
- The number of American adults who read at least one book in the previous 12 months decreased from 61% to 57% in the decade between the early 1990s and the early 2000s. The greatest rate of decline (approximately 15%) occurred among 18-to-24-year-olds.
- The picture of adult literacy in the U.S. is one of polarization. Among Western industrialized nations, we rank near the top in the percentage of highly literate adults (21%) but also near the top in the proportion who are functionally illiterate (also 21%).
- Public debate about teacher qualifications has focused mainly on math and science, but data reveal that the humanities fields suffer an even more glaring dearth of well-prepared teachers. In 2000, the percentage of middle (29%) and high school (37.5%) students taught by a highly qualified history teacher was lower than for any other major subject area. The definition of “highly qualified” is a teacher who has certification and a post-secondary degree in the subject they teach.
- Humanities faculty are the most poorly paid. They also have a higher proportion of part-time, non-tenured positions compared to their counterparts in the sciences and engineering. But almost half of humanities faculty indicate that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs overall.
- Since the early 1970s, the number of Americans who support the banning of books from the public library because they espouse atheism, extreme militarism, communism, or homosexuality decreased by at least 11 percentage points, although still from 26% to 34% of the public would support banning some type of book. In the case of books advocating homosexuality, the decline was a particularly significant 20 percentage points.
- Recent federal legislation identifies certain languages as “critical need languages” (Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Turkish, and Uzbek, among others), but the data show these languages are rarely studied in colleges and universities. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of students studying Chinese.
-Charitable giving to arts and cultural organizations grew between the mid-1990s and early 2000s before leveling off. But little of public or private sector funding for the humanities goes to academic research. This trend undermines both academia and the public since public institutions rely on humanities scholars to provide much of the knowledge on which these activities are based.
- The number of American adults who read at least one book in the previous 12 months decreased from 61% to 57% in the decade between the early 1990s and the early 2000s. The greatest rate of decline (approximately 15%) occurred among 18-to-24-year-olds.
And reading - I mean, we know that not a lot of Americans read regularly, but I would like to know what they're reading (fiction, non-fiction, smut?)
Thoughts?
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