An Industrialized Education part two
Editor’s note: The following is part two of a series on issues within the higher education system.
University professor Surendra Subramani sat across from me on Tuesday, sipping a drink from Cafe Roma that he calls his “medicine.” The man at the register didn’t even ask Subramani what drink he wanted — he briefly locked eyes with him and then turned his attention towards me as if to say, “I know what he’s getting, now what do you want?” As always (because I hate looking at the menu feeling like an idiot) I did the good old, “I’ll have what he is having,” and watched the barista whip up our caffeinated concoctions within the blink of an eye.
Subramani stirred several scoops of brown sugar into his sleeved cup and sat down at a wooden table amongst the idle chatter of counter-culture college kids, homeless youth and University faculty members. Our conversation that day would directly concern everyone in the room (if they were rude enough to eavesdrop); it was a conversation in which Subramani would tell me about his experiences fighting to teach industrialized students to be individuals, and how our education trains us to be cold, calculated and inhuman.
“They’ve taken away moral and spiritual education,” said Subramani. “Education was not meant to be a monologue of a coroner’s report.”
A Singapore native and Australian citizen, Subramani earned his doctorate degree in education from the University in 2000. Besides serving as the diversity coordinator for the School of Education, Subramani instructs various courses at the University, including Family and Human Services 216: Diversity in Family and Human Services.
I took FHS 216 last fall and honestly, I feel like it should be required for every student on this campus.
Instead of sitting in front of us telling us about the different experiences people face in different cultures, Subramani invites tons of speakers from diverse backgrounds to come talk about their experiences as both Americans and Eugene residents.
We heard stories of pleasure, comedy, death, fear, disparity and love — successfully tapping into just about every human emotion.
In the span of 10 weeks, we saw something more than an exam, more than a chalkboard and more than cramming all night to memorize some damned sociological term: In that dimly-lit morgue of a room on the bottom floor of McKenzie Hall, the students of FHS 216 saw life.
“I really enjoyed hearing from perspectives I had never heard from,” sophomore Allyana Wiviott said. “I learn more when knowledge is applied to my own life.”
Students in FHS 216 were responsible for several self-reflections, a midterm paper and a final. There was no textbook because, well, no textbook can ever teach you to be tolerant or aware.
Subramani knows that tolerance is something that we acquire within ourselves, and that we must be guided through the process.
“Are you going to be the ringmaster? Or are you going to unlock the true potential of each and every student?” Subramani rhetorically asks.
Ironically, Subramani, the proponent of social justice, received his bachelor’s degree in economics and went to Oregon State to earn his M.B.A. (he uses the acronym Me Before Anyone to describe it). His change of heart came as he thought to himself, “If I am going to be a manager, I can only influence those who are around me — Is that all I can do?”
Instead of paper-pushing and working with the system, Subramani now seeks to “contaminate” students’ minds with messages of self-thought and true equality. And he isn’t afraid to break the objectivity line in order to do so.
“In the field of social sciences, there needs to be an understanding of the human soul,” he said.
Unfortunately, not many professors like him exist on our campus and in our nation. Most of them lob you that multiple-choice exam, term-defining quiz, or some other hoop to hop through that you won’t remember the next day. Sure, it’s a student’s job to retain that information and find a way to make it applicable, but when a professor instructs a course in a fashion that is not applicable, just how great of an educator can they be?
We need our academia to challenge us to be true innovators — a belief that I uphold, and Subramani acts upon:
“The real sense of education is not to put information into the brain, but to use information to train the brain to be as dynamic and creative as possible,” Subramani said, as he took another brief sip of his highly-caffeinated medicine — you know, energy for the good fight.
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Harris: Professor aims to inspire true potential
Daily Emerald
February 9, 2011
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