Culture Watch
In this issue:
And Consider This
Getting Along (almost)
With Your Adult Kids
Lois Leiderman Davitz, Ph.D. and Joel R. Davitz, Ph.D.
Sorin Books
This breezy little book is a handy manual for anyone with grown children. Those of us who turned to Drs. Spock and Brazelton for reassurance as we reared our young will recognize the same developmental approach that gave us guidelines and labels for chronological stages like "the terrible twos." Chapters are headed with phrases like "The Terrible Twenties" or "The Questing Forties," and each decade from the 20's to the 50's and beyond is discussed at length. Along with insightful descriptions of the adult child's behaviors (and the reasons behind them), the authors offer up advice on how to respond. Almost all of these suggestions end with the reminder to butt out, which may annoy some readers even though very few of us would choose to argue with it. The Davitzes enliven their writing with anecdotal coverage of such problems as in-law relationships (dicey, very dicey: handle with care) and children who return home (not always a disaster).
One of this book's most heartening reminders is that our adult children remain our children no matter what the world (or for that matter the children themselves) may think. They no longer need the direct, physical care that was required when they were young, but the bonds forged between parent and child are strong enough to bend and stretch to accommodate each new stage of our lives and theirs.
There was one final bit of advice that this reviewer found particularly endearing, and that was the authors' claim that those of us who have children who are now in their 40's and 50's have yet another gift to give them: "(our) positive spirit, an acceptance of the reality of growing older without letting age take away any of the excitement of living, will work wonders for your kids' psyches." - JS
Clueless
in Academe
By Gerald Graff
Yale University Press
The subtitle of this book is: "How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind." The author, a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, offers his theories about the world of higher education which, he says, often takes students who are perfectly competent and intelligent and proceeds to make them feel dull and incompetent. All too frequently, American students come to college lacking an understanding of what Graff calls "the name of the game" in academia, i.e. the ability to summarize and make arguments to support their intellectual positions. It is rare that such students have been exposed to the tools that will help them to defend their ideas effectively.
By "argument" Graff does not mean dissension or quarrel, but rather a reasoned defense of an intellectual opinion obtained through research, summary and long thought.
This book can be heavy sledding for those who prefer their reading light and quick and full of sound bites. The author certainly follows his own formula for summary and argument, and at great length. He begins each chapter by telling you what he'll now discuss; he then discusses it (often with references to subjects to be taken up in future chapters); he then summarizes what he has just told you, and sometimes begins the next chapter with a quick recap.
The writing also suffers from what my grandmother used to refer to as "over-use of the first person singular."
However, there is no doubt that Dr. Graff has pretty much hit the nail on the head when he attacks the American curriculum's "sheer cognitive overload" for obscuring the culture of argument that underlies all intellectual life. The multiplicity of course offerings creates an atmosphere in which the acquisition of facts suddenly seems more important than the development of reasoning and questioning.
Not many intellectuals would argue with that.
The epilogue to this book is worth the price of the entire volume. In it, Dr. Graff sets out the steps for writing a clear argument. If you have a high school or college student in your family, you might want to refer him or her to these pages for a sound guideline.
Because Dr. Graff is a university professor, his attention is focused on the college campus and occasionally on high schools. But as a former elementary school teacher, this reviewer must note that it is never too early to introduce his principles to students. Even kindergarteners can learn to research, summarize and argue a position, and it is in fact my observation that they do it instinctively and quite well. It is that very ability that their ensuing schooling does its damnedest to wash out of them. Perhaps some day someone will write a book about that! - JS
— J.S.
CultureWatch, Page One, Page Two<<
Julia Sneden is a writer, teacher, wife, mother, grandmother and care-giver. She lives in North Carolina. She can be reached by email.
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