Education and Its Discontents

Among the many studies that have investigated the crisis of the humanities and liberal education in the past two decades, none is more comprehensive, well-researched, incisive, or elegantly presented than Mark H. Moss's Education and its Discontents. One by one, Moss takes up the causes of the demise; from the enormous social and governmental demands placed upon universities and the "corporate" response to deal with them, to the massive proliferation of distracting electronic devices, to "feel good" teaching and learning that lacks rigor and accountability, Moss examines each factor, his argument gathering overwhelming momentum. Without knowledge of the principal books in the canon, argues Moss, students lack the intellectual experience that enables them to make independent judgments of merit, taste, and morality. -John Paul Russo, author of The Future without a Past: The Humanities in a Technological Society (2005)

Education and Its Discontents: Teaching, the Humanities, and the Importance of a Liberal Education in the Age of Mass Information, by Mark Moss, is an exploration of how the traditional educational environment, particularly in the post-secondary world, is changing as a consequence of the influx of new technology. Students come to the classroom or lecture hall expecting to have their habits and tastes, gleaned from the online world, replicated in an Educational environment. Faculty who do not adapt face enormous obstacles, and faculty that do adapt run the risk of eroding the integrity of what they have been trained to teach. Students now have access to myriad of technologies that instead of supplementing the educational process, have actually taken it over. Issues that run from plagiarism to the erosion of the humanities are now rampant concerns in the post secondary world. Behavior issues, YouTube videos, cell phones, and the incessant clicking of the computer keys are just a few of the technologies altering the educational landscape. Moss discusses that it is now not only how we learn, but what we continue to teach, and how that enormously important legacy is protected. Education and Its Discontents: Teaching, the Humanities, and the Importance of a Liberal Education in the Age of Mass Information, by Mark Moss, argues that education has changed and the supremacy of the book and the lecture is now open for debate. What has been gained over the last five hundred years is now susceptible to the vagaries of technology, which compel us to question their continuing relevance.