There’s a nice, sweet thread elsewhere with a title like this in which Big Kahuna Burger talks about his impending college days with excitement and a lovely sense of hope and trust.
And of course it made me feel about a hundred.
So, having been reminded by the estimable BKB, I wish to share that at this point of my life tertiary education seems harder than ever to cheer for, but more important than ever to preserve. It’s such a mixed bag; a variable, frustrating yet vital part of our world.
The good - the ideas, the clear-eyed, demanding examination of accepted wisdom, the birth of new paradigms, the energy, the confidence of the young, the attractiveness of youth, and the over-arching sense of potential everything. Whatever it is these are the people who’ll fix it.
The bad - the arrogance, the unwillingness to listen to what older people have experienced, the tutors and lecturers whose flights of fancy about the workplace and suchlike environments engender naive book-learnin’ robots, the unforgiving critic, the inability to grasp the fuzzy and idiosyncratic ways of real life.
However, things are obviously changing.
When I went to university, nobody issued a by-sex breakdown of the student body, and for that information to be adjusted so as to exclude those confusing, but helpful-to-redress-the-balance homosexuals is passing amazing.
And do I really remember? Of course. It was Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand.
And Professor Don McKenzie of the English Department was the man who changed my life by opening my eyes, showing me how to read, and stimulating me to explore English Literature.
Thanks for the reminder Burger old mate…
Redboss
