by Assad Meymandi, MD, PhD, DLFAPA
Dr. Meymandi is in private practice as a psychiatrist and neurologist and serves as an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a noted physician, editor, and philanthropist who frequently speaks and writes on diverse topics that relate to his interests in medicine, the arts, religion, and philanthropy. He lives in Raleigh with his wife Emily.
Psychiatry (Edgemont) 2010;7(8):53–55
America’s greatness is in danger. Not because as a nation we are economically bankrupt. Not because China owns us and could cash in their vast holdings of United States treasury bonds and send us in a tailspin. Not because we keep borrowing without restraint and spend the money among other things to buy oil from our declared enemies in the Middle East and pollute the oceans and the air we breathe. But because America is in mortal danger of ominous decline in education. Every day some flagship universities announce that they are doing away with teaching foreign language, revising their curricula to include more courses on cultural diversity and women studies and fewer courses in math, history, and liberal education. The latest such diatribe is from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Inside Academe, a publication of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), reports that the University of Arkansas is going down the slippery slopes of academic mediocrity.
Here is a bit of history. In order for students to graduate from J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, University of Arkansas, all students were required to take English composition, philosophy, mathematics, world literature, Western civilization, American history, fine arts, science, and foreign language. ACTA reports that the University is planning on gutting its stellar core by cutting away important requirements. The University has announced that the foreign language requirement would be eliminated, along with Western civilization, philosophy, and literature. Math and science would be trimmed too. These actions bear disastrous results. For example, 78 percent of the University of Illinois (campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield, Illinois) students surveyed did not know who said, “of the people, by the people, for the people.” America is losing its memory. We are denying the type of education that imparts love of learning and prepares graduates to become effective workers and informed citizens.
The late Senator James William Fulbright is turning in his grave. We have replaced studies in chemistry for healthy cooking, understanding trigonometry for mortgages, and a student will be more likely to read Harry Potter than anything by Thomas Jefferson. Most disturbing is that our young college students are better versed in a peculiar guilt for their forefathers’ misdeeds than in the proud history of the West’s pre-eminent society. That guilt will further compromise the basic understanding of what is sacred about our nation and the United States Constitution. American students are competing with children around the world, who are in many cases spending 4 to 6 weeks longer in school each year; and their school day is much longer—as long as nine hours a day. Survey after survey shows these startling facts: 1) Americans know more about the television cartoon “The Simpsons” than they do about the First Amendment and 2) only 1 out of 4 American students of higher education can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. As a reminder, the five freedoms are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of grievances.
There are numerous instances today of individuals trying to deprive us of our freedom. For instance, our freedom of speech is threatened by those who say that the only allowable speech on our college campuses should be politically correct speeches. Our freedom of religion is routinely targeted by groups who want to ban God from our schools, courthouses, and civic buildings. Freedom of assembly is challenged by those who believe the only legitimate protests are the left-oriented kind. I support ACTA because it has many colleges, universities, and places of higher education under surveillance to sound the alarm if the basic curriculum of liberal education is diluted.
Readers may recall my review of the book Take the Risk by Ben Carson, MD, Professor, Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who truly epitomizes the fulfillment of American virtues and what it means to be an American. Carson has performed numerous delicate neurosurgical operations at Johns Hopkins and throughout the world, including separation of twins conjoined in the head and brain. He is a consummate physician, skilled neurosurgeon, and has the soul of a saint. He is a Moses Maimonides of Cordoba, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and the Moslem philosopher, theologian, and music lover, Ibn Khaldoun, all wrapped in one package of decency and humility. In Take the Risk, he talks about how education and education alone rescued him from the depth of a segregated neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, marred by drugs and gangs, to become one of the world’s most eminent neurosurgeons. He emphasizes (and admonishes) that America is on the slippery slopes of abandoning education and replacing it with sports and entertainment. He argues that America is producing 50,000 engineers a year, while we need 350,000. How much longer can we import engineers from Bangalore, China, and other developing nations. We are NOT producing nearly enough scientists. America ranks below Ethiopia and Somalia in math and basic science tests, and we do not know much about our own history, language, arts, and basic humanities that connect us with the rest of the world. Look at our daily newspapers; the sport section is the fattest, followed by the entertainment section. We reward coaches with enormous salaries and perks, often in the millions, yet a dedicated professional teacher who trains and prepares our children for college education makes a meager salary and is often unable to make ends meet. Take the Risk is a wakeup call worth reading by parents, educators, rabid sports fans, and university chancellors. America needs to turn back to its roots. Our founding fathers gave their lives and their sacred honor to fight a formidably powerful enemy to give us this beautiful republic. In 235 years life of America, we have done very little to protect, preserve, and nurture the gift of America—the gift that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and other patriots gave us. We submit that every American child by the fifth grade ought to memorize George Washington’s farewell address, The United States Constitution, and John Adams’ inaugural address. We should also support organizations, such as ACTA, to keep a critical eye on the conduct of our colleges and universities lest under social pressure and political correctness, they may dilute the curriculum to accommodate the lowest common denominator in education. In my university lecture tours, I come across splendid examples of liberal arts curricula that have kept faith. These schools demonstrate reverential devotion to the notion of liberal arts as it was meant to be. They insist on teaching English composition, philosophy, mathematics (math in Greek means knowledge), world literature, Western civilization, American history, fine arts, science, and literature. One such school is our own Davidson College in North Carolina. Another is Hillsdale College in the boonies of Michigan, which has provided education to young people since 1844. Hillsdale President, Larry Arnn, insists that the secret of their success is a devoted corps of alumni with a principled administration that have not accepted and do not accept a penny of federal government assistance. What an illustrious history. We need more schools like Hillsdale and more support for organizations, such as ACTA.
