EDITORIAL
Sacrificing education
just for productivity?
Productivity — the savior of the University.
Like an Arthurian hero riding up on horseback to save
the day, productivity is being heralded as the solution
to two of the University's most pressing problems — a
shrinking budget and an expanding enrollment.
i ne icif?a, as a is i.um*
monlv expressed, is lhai by
increasing productivity,
the University can serve
more students and spend
less money doing so.
Most of the time the
claim should be taken with
a grain of salt. Students
and taxpayers should raise
their eyebrows with skep
ticism whenever produc
No one want*
the University to
water down its
degrees in Ns
quest to Increase
productivity
tivity is touted as a way to "get more lor less. It rarely
works that way.
But every once in a while, it does.
As part of the quest for increased productivity, the
University Assomoly decider! earlier this term to change
the credit value for certain courses. Many classes cur
rently worth throe credits each will soon be worth four,
beginning fall 1994.
Of course, this means that graduating in four years
will be easier. Most students are happy to hear that.
After ail, who wants to stay in school an extra year and
pay an extra year’s tuition?
However, since merely increasing the credit value of
a course hardly means increasing its educational value,
some students might ask whether they are getting the
same amount of education as they did before. And
assuming that the University is here to educate, rather
than just dispense degrees, that is a serious question in
need of answer.
The question is easily answered when it comes to
lower division courses. Although the amount of time
spent in lecture in most of these courses will remain the
same as before (roughly three hours a week), an extra
hour will be added as a required supplement to each
class, making up the fourth credit. Computer labs and
GTF-Ied discussion classes, among other possibilities,
are being considered as ways of giving students that
fourth hour.
However, some of the courses which are going up to
four credits — particularly those at the upper division
level — may not actually involve any increase in seat
time. Unless the class instructors miraculously manage
to cram more information into the same amount of time,
then a crodlt increase may not be warranted.
As long as the University makes good on its promises,
and rosists the temptation to just inflate each course's
credit value without also correspondingly increasing its
level of education, then students will surely benefit
from the changes.
However, students should keep a watchful eye out to
make sure that that actually happens. No one wants the
University to water down its degrees in its quest to
increase productivity.
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COMMENTARY
History leads to tolerance
By Dr Linda Scheie
ontrary to expectations, the
first history of the Ameri
V_Jianv one whose writing
began when Home was still a
republic, continues in an unbro
ken tradition today
The Spanish ended the use of
the ancient writing systems and
replaced it with their own letters,
but they did not in the tradition
of history among the Maya The
books of history and prophet \
uilletl the Qiilam Balam are still
being kept and written toda\
They an* the Ah T/.ih, the scribe,
of the Cruitob Maya of Quintana
inscriptions of the Maya hold
more than just history, because
the political events and the li\ es
of the individuals recorded in
these inscriptions played them
selves out within a world view
that explained what it is to be
human, how humanity relates to
other living beings, where we
come from, where we are going,
what is justice, good government,
social expectation and moral
behavior.
It is a view of the world so
powerful and adaptive that it sur
vives today among the numerous
Mayan communities even after
500 years of deliberate and dead
ly suppression. That history has
the potential of changing the way
ail of us. whether we are descen
dants of recent immigrants or
more ancient ones, perceive the
past of the New World in which
we all live.
Archaeology is a discipline
that studies the past as a way of
understanding the present and
the nature of being human. Dur
ing the past three decades, the
archaeology of the Maya has been
transformed from a prehistoric
field into a historical one because
of the on-going deciphering of the
Maya writing system. Now we
have research available from the
two. sometimes opposing, points
of view — the outsider's view
derived from the "science of
archaeology" and the insider's
point of view from the decipher
ing of the Maya writing system
and the study of images on them
are artifacts of the past
Both points of view have
advantages because people who
use them ask different kinds of
Koo, Mexico. And the ancient
questions about the past. The
most successful approaches have
combined the insider's history
with the outsider's interest in
how economic, ecological and
political systems worked. But as
a historian of the Maya past. I
believe that we must recognize
that "science" also has its limi
tations
I do not imply that the insid
er's view is a perfect one either.
All of the epigraphers. who are
translating and interpreting this
ancient history, are people from
the modern European tradition.
How is the history we are now
writing and the world \ itnv we
are now reconstructing any less
biased by our point of view than
an v other approach' The answer
is that it is not.
World view is so profoundly a
part of every human’s mental
software that I do not believe we
can disarm it. but we can try to
minimize its effects by tiecoming
aware of the problem and paying
attention to it For me, the impor
tant thing is that the histories
written by the ancient Maya give
them a voice that speaks across
the gulf of time and culture. And
when the dead speak, we are no
longer free to make them into
images of what we want them to
have been
The Maya created a written
history that is tied to linear time
with a precision that far exceed
ed similar histories in the Old
World. It is precise to the day and
sometimes to a 12-hour period,
and it is full of heroes and vil
lains. ambitions and disasters,
and human stories as rich as the
lives of Alexander and Augustus
that have fascinated many of us.
This written history is a potent
resource for all Native Americans
just as the history of the ancient
Greeks and Romans is a source
of inspiration for us.
I have no Greek or Roman
blood in me because my ances
tors came from the Germanic
tribes who finally destroyed the
Roman Empire. Yet I have been
taught my entire life that the
foundation of my cultural tradi
tion was Athens and Rome. The
native peoples of the United
States and Canada are as distant
from the ancient Maya as I am
from the ancient Romans. But as
I learned of Julius Caesar and
Claudius as famous fieople in my
cultural past, so Native Ameri
cans may one day learn of Yax
un-Balam. king of Yaxchilan, or
Manab-Pakal, king of Palenque.
For me, this newly recovered
history and all its rich detail is
an important legacy for all of
humanity — world history as it
is taught everywhere in the
Americas consists mainly of
European history. Rarely are oth
er cultural traditions explored,
and usually those are only from
the Old World. Our children, no
matter their ethnic heritage, need i
to know the emerging history of
the ancient Americas.
There were five “cradles of civ
ilization" in the human past, and
two of them — Middle America j
and the Andes — were in the j
Americas. These cultural tradi
tions coalesced thousands of
years before any people Irom the
Old World encountered them.
They have much to teach us
about what it is and what it had
Iteon to be human. It is my hope
that one day all children will
learn of these great people of the
American past just as they learn
about the heroes and sages of the
Old World, i believe we need to
create a world history that
includes all of the people of the
world.
In the end, it may be less of a
question of what is the ethical
thing to do and more a question
of survival. The world is chang
ing around us in ways we cannot
anticipate or control. The Maya
and their cousins throughout the
Americans have been dying for
500 years as they have fought to
salvage their identities and way
of living from the disaster of
European contact. They are still
fighting and dying even as I write
these words.
In other parts of the world, eth
nic groups are surfacing again
and demanding the right to be
who they are without penalty or
death. The nightmare of Bosnia
looms over us all unless we learn
to respect other ways of under
standing the world and embrace
the diversity of the human com
munity with joy. Learning the
history and world views of the
people of the New World could
be a start in fostering tolerance of
that diversity.
Dr. Linda Scheie is from the
University of Texas. Austin