CMC Retreat: Discussion on Education

5Cene by Athena Cabot — February 13, 2009 at 3:22 am | 5 comments | | Print

 

For those unfamiliar with The Posse Foundation, it is a national organization that awards scholarships to students who demonstrate merit and leadership in public high schools. On CMC’s campus there are a number of Posse scholars, myself included, who bring a diverse range of perspectives to the school. Posse annually hosts a weekend where Posse scholars invite Professors and fellow peers to attend a three-day retreat at a site near Lake Arrowhead. This event is meant to discuss a social concern that is relevant to our lives as students.

Thus, 60 CMC students came together on February 6th to address the following education-related questions posed by Posse:

“Is education the great equalizer or the great divider? Is it about conformity or does is give you freedom? Is education about having salient knowledge or social capital?”

Among the diverse crowd of articulate, insightful individuals, I found that there were no concrete, irrevocable truths. Some people based their opinions on personal experience and others provided contextual evidence from political and social events to support their arguments.

A hot topic right now, it is no surprise that education was the basis for our discussion this past weekend at the CMC Posse Retreat. The New York Times has recently featured several articles regarding the economic stimulus bill and what it means for increased budgets for schools across America. As the Obama administration aims to drastically increase federal spending for schools, many are eager to see what changes will be made to improve education in our country.

In terms of our discussion at the retreat, the wide variety of different perspectives prevented us from reaching a general consensus. I gathered, however, that the purpose of the weekend was not to find answers or to decide what education should be. Instead, the retreat was meant to be an opportunity for us to think, reflect, and digest the great questions that are pressing even the most influential minds in America at this very moment.

 
 
 

5 Comments

 
  1. Athenaeum Stranger
    2009-02-14
    15:48:49

    Is it a problem if education is a "great divider," distinguishing the excellent from the mediocre? Or is it really bad if education aims toward a "conformity" to knowledge? If the goal is "freedom," does that freedom have a definable content or is it merely supposed to be assertive and arbitrary?

    Posse has long been a problem on the campuses because it serves as a back-door affirmative action program that makes students overly sensitive to perceived (is, illusory) discrimination.

    Education, if it means anything, seeks to uncover the truth. But under the influence of multiculturalists like those at Posse, students instead walk away proud to proclaim that there are "no concrete, irrevocable truths." Needless to say, they believe this discovery is, well, the truth.

     
  2. Athenaeum Stranger
    2009-02-14
    15:50:55

    My comment should say "that is, illusory."

     
  3. Athena Cabot
    2009-02-14
    16:13:04

    Dear Athenaeum Stranger,

    You obviously confine yourself to your small, philosophical box. You read the word conformity and presumed a single connotation, attributing that word to knowledge. Did you take the time to think about all the other possibilities of what those question could mean? They were not just about knowledge. I am a Posse scholar myself, and it is obvious that I could not get into a school with affirmative action being that I am not a minority. That should be self-explanatory. I suggest you do more research and know your facts before you criticize what you know little about.

     
  4. Athenaeum Stranger
    2009-02-14
    16:52:09

    I understood precisely what you meant by conformity. Conformity, of course, can be bad (for instance, conformity to the multicultural dogma), but at other times it can be good (in fact, conformity of some sort is essential for the survival of any community). So I simply decided to point out one form of conformity that education might want to aim toward: the acquisition of knowledge.

    Now, it's true that Posse is not explicitly an affirmative action organization, but it is also true that affirmative action is the practical effect of much of its work. Posse's goal is to promote diversity on colleges, and it does this by assembling multicultural teams that it seeks to indoctrinate. Here's what its website says:

    "Posse identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. Posse extends to these students the opportunity to pursue personal and academic excellence by placing them in supportive, multicultural teams—Posses—of 10 students. ... Posse’s incredible partners are investing time, energy and resources in the promotion of equity in education and social justice."

    And it elaborates on its goals in a section entitled, "Why Posse is Needed":

    "A diverse society requires a diverse leadership. Posse works to fill this need. ... As the United States becomes an increasingly multicultural society, Posse believes that the leaders of this new century should reflect the country’s rich demographic mix. The key to a promising future for our nation rests on the ability of strong leaders from diverse backgrounds to develop consensus solutions to complex social problems. ... The presence of a multicultural team of students from diverse backgrounds fosters a campus environment that is more welcoming to all."

    If that's not affirmative action, I'm not sure what is. But I'll let interested readers to go the website (http://www.possefoundation.org/) and judge for themselves.

    I'm sorry if you find my philosophical box small, but hey, at least it's philosophical.

     
  5. dude12345
    2009-02-14
    17:16:24

    hmmmm....this was the most innocuous post about a group on campus that does pretty much nothing but meet once a year.

    Maybe someone feels left out of the posse?

     

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