Never have I been the type of girl to question anyone of an authority or superior figure, but I must say that after reading Mark Edmundson's essay On the Uses of a Liberal Education I do question his motives and opinions. In his essay, Mr. Edmundson worries mainly about receiving a good evaluation from his students rather than worrying about the academic interests of those students. He states, "I don't teach to amuse, to divert, or even, for that matter, to be merely interesting...I want some of them to say they've been changed by the course. I want them to measure themselves against what they've read" (96-97). So he says that he doesn't try to please his students, yet he expects them to change and grow from his class. You would think a person of his status and in his profession should be more concerned with the curriculum and not the secret popularity contest between him and his colleagues.
             What I don't understand in this essay is why Mr. Edmundson is so upset that his students seem so uninterested and unmotivated in his class. Does he really think that all of his students are going to love Freud? Most students heard that he was a decent teacher and some thought his topic of choice was interesting so they decided to enroll in the class, but that doesn't mean that everyone is going to love the class and get something out of it. Mr. Edmundson is definitely expecting too much of his students. A man at his status of a college professor should understand that not everyone chooses or wants to learn in the same manner that he wants to teach. Although he is given the freedom to teach the material in a manner that he somewhat has a decision in, he must realize that not all with agree with his choice, and he can't get upset when those few who don't agree and he doesn't connect with don't give him the evaluation responses that he's looking for. So what if he's not the ...