Week 5_Julia Wells_Section 4

In The Imperial University by Piya and Sunaina stated a phrase that professor Valverde wrote on the board and started talking about. The phrase was “Turned on its head”. Dr. Valverde coined this phrase as the result is the complete opposite of what one might expect to happen. The book used this phrase to show the backlash “against the political movement and intellectual projects that opposed racial and class inequality” (Chatterjee, P,.Pg 26) This book looks at the fact that military and political influence affects the education system, and the students, scholars, and educators are victims of this system. Corrupt educators that follow the system get rewarded and the educators and students who want to fight the system get a negative consequence. Like the book and what Dr. Valverde says consequences include denial of tenure, loss of livelihood, and even harassed and penalized at the institution. So, because of these consequences people are afraid to speak up and fight. People would prefer to stay silent because it is safe and part of the flow.

                I feel that nowadays people are becoming more opinionated and less afraid to speak up, but at the same time, we are in a technology era and all types of information are out there to support a claim or argument. It is difficult to convince people what should happen, what did happen, and what is happening now because those people were already taught falsified history. I think it is easy to tell someone why and how the higher education system became a business but is the point of that to educate them about what is going on to have them blindly follow those statements? If people blindly follow those statements than it turns into radical decision making and conclusions that make a problem worse. I personally thought college was a money scheme just to get a piece of paper to prove that you can do something, but that thought is straight forward with no critical thinking behind what is really happening. With my drilled in values and goals, whether I liked it or not, I would have to follow this system to make a successful living. Is the baseline lesson, during childhood, of going to college and getting a higher education the issue?

Sources

Valverde, C. (January 31,2019). Lecture 8.

Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (2014). Introduction: The Imperial University: Race, war, and the nation-state. The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent, 1-50.

Billy Eckstine (n.d.). Retrieved from https://izquotes.com/quote/billy-eckstine/if-you-want-to-be-a-doctor-a-lawyer-you-must-go-to-college-but-if-you-want-to-be-a-musician-or-55636

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