Friday, July 5, 2013

English and Humanities Majors

Alright, I know I haven't kept up with this blog. Shame on me really. It's pitiful. But real life takes over for awhile and...what can you do?

Anyway, that's all in the past. I'm ready to get this blog together. To move things forward!

So here's a post for you to enjoy. It's an article in the NY  Times concerning the drop in the English and Humanities Majors over the course of the last 20 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-english-major.html

The article details the decline in the English major and some of the speculation as to why this is occurring. From experience as an English major myself I've come to find that a major reason that we could attribute to this decline, is the sheer stubbornness of certain professors unwilling to associate the learning process of the English/Humanities majors with social media/learning tools.

I think this is a big mistake!

I've come to find through my experience at the university level that the English major is a very socially adept major. It's roots are steeped in the oral tradition and have evolved to reflect the current cultural outlooks. It makes sense, at least to me, that social media would have a major foothold in today's teaching of literature.

It just makes sense.

But a lot of professors will denounce this idea and stick, quite stubbornly, to 'traditional' methods of teaching and learning.

But really how traditional are they? Literature evolves, shifts, changes. It's never a constant. There's always something new or different happening. So how can there be one definitive method for teaching? And if professors truly are to understand that literature does in fact shift and change, then why won't they even  hazard to attempt to teach social learning?

It kind of makes those professors a bit hypocritical wouldn't you say?