Upon reading the articles from Snow and other authors, there seems to be a common agreement that there remains a great disparity between science and art and that our current education system is to be the blame for it. Much of the divide comes from the lack of understanding between the two cultures because our schooling drove us toward that manner.
The cultures of art and science are extremely divided at UCLA. As a Mechanical Engineering major and I rarely come into contact with North Campus students. The fact that we as students already label ourselves as North and South campus majors is an eminent divide that causes the disparity between art and science. As said in Lecture, UCLA campus is divided with the arts in the northern part, and sciences in the southern part. Not only is this a structural divide but a cultural one as well, as students fight to legitimize that their major is better. (You should click here for more opinions on North versus South Campus controversy.)
These perspectives on the divide of art and science and how they are implemented on our education system are not eye-opening to me as I have been a victim of the so called "factory system" of education described in the changing education paradigms video. I knew it existed as I constantly battled with school districts when I was younger, fighting for the school to accommodate my needs rather than assimilate myself to the general needs of others. I am really good at math and science and learned at a much faster rate in those subjects. This doesn't mean other students are not smart, they just have different capabilities and learning rates. Students should be able to learn at a rate they can excel and not conform to the standards that schools push children through. Because everyone knows how successful Common Core is doing...
References
TheRSAorg. "RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education
Paradigms."YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge UP, 1959. Print.
Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between." Leonardo. 34 (2001): 121-125. Print.
Wali, Kiran. "Is a ‘science Student’ Smarter than an ‘arts Student’?" The Express Tribune Blog RSS. The Express Tribune, 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
The inclusion of your experience with the flawed public education system really resonated with me. A product of the public school system myself, I also experienced difficulty getting into the accelerated classes I needed in order to succeed and was bothered by the creative limitations the system places on the education of its students.
ReplyDeleteI also really like your discussion of the public education system - when I saw the words "Common Core" I laughed out loud, as I have a younger sister who is going through that program right now and hates it (I can't figure out what her teachers are trying to do, for the life of me). It seems to me that we as UCLA students all tend to look back on our experiences from grade school and wonder how things might have been different if people were allowed to learn at their own pace instead of being funneled into groups by year.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about the similarities between the north and south campus controversy and the various school districts that one would have to deal with before getting to college, the various school districts would have certain focuses that were unique to each district just how north campus is leaning more towards the artistic side of academics and south campus is leaning more towards the science oriented. Each side is just fitting for different people.
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