Poskanzer Report: I

After 14 months of hundreds of hours of interviewing and thinking and writing by 52 members of a Special Committee on Education, the "Poskanzer Report" has arrived. The newest analysis of the current Harvard education is well worth the long wait. It represents in one neat package both the sentiments of a sizeable sampling of undergraduates and the synthesizing and creative thinking of an alert and acute committee which wanted to find out what was wrong or right with this education.

Few readers will think the report perfect. Some will doubt the validity of certain statements or perhaps of entire chapters; others will think the committee has drifted out of the area of practicality; and still others will question whether all portions of the book represent a majority of the College.

But education is a tricky subject for which the word "perfect" may have little meaning. The major contribution of this committee has been to present to the College community the hard, unavoidable fact that students are not taking part in their own education; the fact that much of the blame for this condition must be attributed to the College's methods--or lack of methods--of education; and to offer several suggested remedies for the situation.

Poskanzer's group has thrown the book--77 pages worth--at the College. Now the Faculty with student cooperation, should mull it over (much as Dean Bender's committee has been doing for the past few months) and figure out a way to dispose of the one big piece of unfinished business before the College: that of turning a passive process of education into one that is active and alive.