Currently in the bridge at Hampshire for its 40th birthday. It's amazing that in only 40 years, Hampshire has solidified itself as one of the strongest innovators in higher education.
Too often in our country, education - at all levels - is focused on standardization and memorization, creating an unhealthy reliant relationship of the students on their teachers. Instead of ecnouraging critical thinking, we encourage direction following. And it is a surprise that we are loosing our place in the world as innovators?
Proper education, and I don't mean grades, degrees or 'academia' by that, is a foundation to a free democracy. People must have the skills and ability to respond to challenges that they will face at various points in their lives and be equipped to make the best and most thoughtful decisions possible. And Hampshire does a great job at encouraging a set a of values in its students that place importance on an external focus of using knowledge as a means to better one's community and world, and I hope that this type of educative philosophy someday becomes the mainstream in this country as we realize how important critical thinking is for a free society.
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