//essays//
Fall 2019
Fall 2019
My Family's Core Curriculum
Yaira Kobrin
I have a confession: I’m one of those Core Curriculum junkies. You know the ones—the people who, when you start complaining about your huge Literature Humanities reading load, interject with “but isn’t Sappho just amazing?” I’m the person who visits the Met to prepare for Art Humanities, who takes all of her Global Core classes a little too seriously, who talks about Music Humanities at EC parties, and who tears up at the Contemporary Civilizations final, because it’s the end of year-long Core classes.
While it sounds cliche, my Core classes have actually profoundly impacted me during my time in Columbia. My small Literature Humanities and Core Curriculum classes have given me the forum to test out thoughts and ideas with students from vastly different backgrounds than my own. My Core classes have put faces to the large, anonymous, Columbia College student body, enabling me to connect with other students in a meaningful way. And, of course, my Core classes have connected me to Columbia’s canon and to the readers of that canon, which for me include several of my family members. As a third generation Columbia student (both my parents, as well as my grandfather, are Columbia College graduates), I’ve grown up surrounded by Core texts and stories, vague memories of a curriculum that in many ways has changed dramatically and in other ways has remained entirely the same. In honor of the Core’s centennial, and in an attempt to learn more about lived experiences of the Core over the years, I sat down with my dad, Jeffrey Kobrin (CC ’92), and my grandfather, Lawrence Kobrin (CC ’54, CLS ’57), to talk about the Core.
YK: Let’s start with a basic question. What was your favorite Core text?
Jeffrey Kobrin: It’s hard for me to narrow down the texts that made such a great impression on me to one favorite or most memorable. I’d include Shakespeare, Homer, Thucydides, and Aristotle.
Lawrence Kobrin: Oh I don’t know, I mean I really got a great deal out of the CC textbook, I don’t know if they still use that. Stop the recording, I’m going to get the textbook.
At this point, my grandfather got up, walked over to his overstuffed bookshelves, and returned a few moments later with a four volume set of books labeled Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West and Chapters in Western Civilization.
LK: They had all kinds of stuff—I still see where I underlined—which was a huge amount of reading, and a great deal of texts that most of us had never really been exposed to before. I mean, while Ramaz high school, where I went for high school, was very outward looking in its curriculum, the kinds of texts that were involved in CC were not the type of things we were exposed to in high school. So we got these four volumes, and there was a huge amount of text material—texts written by people who we may have vaguely known their name, and we were required—it was a lot of reading—and we were required to read that, and then we’d sort of discuss it under the guidance of the instructor in the small sections that we were in for CC. So I can’t say that there was a particular text, it was just this whole body of texts.
It’s not surprising that my dad could pick specific texts, while my grandfather could not—my dad majored in English Literature at Columbia, and went on to get a PhD in the teaching of English Literature, while my grandfather majored in History and became a lawyer. Oh, and my favorite Core text? Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, which neither my dad nor my grandfather read as part of the Core.
YK: If you could change anything—structure, curriculum, etc.—about any of the Core classes, would you change anything?
JK: I would allow more time for rumination on each text, although I understand the need to cover ground. It was impossible to get more than a taste of many of these works, only some of which I returned to later in college or later in life.
LK: Oh, I don’t know. I mean I’m sure there’s texts—you know what, if you master this [points to CC textbooks], you got pretty much Western civilization. You could always add, you could always double up on material, and I know that there’s been great pressure to do so, that it shouldn’t all be “dead white men” and all that. But I think—this was a real big mouthful to bite off, and I thought it was good, and I thought it was also good (and that’s why they call it the “Core” Curriculum) that everyone had to take it. Whether you’re going to be pre-med or pre-law, or you know, who knows what, a science major, or hadn’t decided what you wanted to do, and we were all basically exposed to the same material. Everyone would bring their own, you know, intellectual baggage to it, how you would understand it, but we were all sort of wallowing around in the same kind of atmosphere and intellectual framework.
Yes, the disdain for “science majors” runs in my family—while we have multiple PhDs and JDs, there have yet to be any Kobrin MDs. And for those of you holding your breath—I’m an English major, so it’s not going to be me....
YK: In what ways has the Core Curriculum impacted you?
JK: I can say that I constantly draw on the foundation—the bekiyut (knowledge)—that the Core classes gave me. My teachers Rabbi Haskel Lookstein and Herman Wouk both independently made a similar observation about their own lives and their own thinking. Exposure to the greatest minds of Western civilization, even on the most superficial level, opened my mind to ideas in ways that continue to ripple to this day.
LK: Well in college, it gave me a window into things that I would want to pursue. I ultimately ended up being a history major, but before that, I had taken some advanced humanities material—I had taken a Humanities II course, which was more literature, and where you read more famous literary works, and I think that the exposure in Art Humanities and Music Humanities was something completely new to me. I mean in high schools they’re now trying to do some of that, but we never really had any kind of in-depth exposure to artworks, and to try to appreciate them, or to music works and to try to appreciate them.
My experience of the Core’s impact on my life has been some combination of my dad’s and grandfather’s. My Core classes give me a foundational, albeit basic, understanding of canonical Western literature and philosophy, art, and music; my experience in Literature Humanities was ultimately what pushed me to become an English major. More importantly, though, my Core classes give me the opportunity to have interesting, meaningful conversations with other members of my Columbia class, connecting us through our exploration of, and attempts to challenge and complicate, an overview of Western culture and civilization.
YK: Okay, final question: do you feel that the Core connects you to me, your other Columbia-alumni family members, or other members of the Columbia community?
JK: Yes. I will meet people who I learn are Columbia graduates and immediately have a common language, both intellectually and experientially. It’s remarkable. This is true within my own family (both up and down) as well as with my own spouse [Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, CC ’96, CLS ’99]. It’s made me a bit of a snob, too, which I also like.
LK: I can’t say so. I mean, I’m still friendly with some of the people that I knew in college, but that had nothing to do with the Core. The nexus of alumni friendships that I’ve maintained is primarily from extracurricular activities, and primarily from the Spectator, the student newspaper. That’s been the way in which we maintained contact—I don’t think it had anything to do with the Core.
YK: Well, do you feel like it connects you with me or my dad, given that we’re all reading the same texts and listening to the same music and looking at the same artworks?
LK: No, I don’t think so.
YK: Hm. Well. Ok. They say that, if nothing else, the Core curriculum gives you something to talk about at cocktail parties. Would you agree with that?
LK: Well, yes and no. I just think it was an opening for high school students, whatever high school they came from, to a whole world of cultural background, of literary background, and sort of forced you to read material that you otherwise might pass by. Now I had obviously read a lot of the Bible because I went to a Jewish day school, but there were people who had never read any parts of the Bible. And in the [Literature] Humanities course, you were required to read certain parts of the Bible. I had never read any of the New Testament, at all; part of the selections that we had to read in the [Literature] Humanities course were portions of the New Testament, which was of course something brand new for me, and was an important opener to greater and broader cultural background.
Though my grandpa doesn’t see the Core Curriculum as a point of connection between three generations of Kobrins, his definition of the Core, as “an important opener to greater and broader cultural background” is precisely the way in which the Core connects my family. We all have similar books on our shelves and a shared language of what constitutes “Western Civilization,” giving us a common “background.” Though the Core is fair from perfect, it has given three generations of my family a shared set of ideas and perspectives, connecting us and shaping us in unexpected and deeply profound ways.
While it sounds cliche, my Core classes have actually profoundly impacted me during my time in Columbia. My small Literature Humanities and Core Curriculum classes have given me the forum to test out thoughts and ideas with students from vastly different backgrounds than my own. My Core classes have put faces to the large, anonymous, Columbia College student body, enabling me to connect with other students in a meaningful way. And, of course, my Core classes have connected me to Columbia’s canon and to the readers of that canon, which for me include several of my family members. As a third generation Columbia student (both my parents, as well as my grandfather, are Columbia College graduates), I’ve grown up surrounded by Core texts and stories, vague memories of a curriculum that in many ways has changed dramatically and in other ways has remained entirely the same. In honor of the Core’s centennial, and in an attempt to learn more about lived experiences of the Core over the years, I sat down with my dad, Jeffrey Kobrin (CC ’92), and my grandfather, Lawrence Kobrin (CC ’54, CLS ’57), to talk about the Core.
YK: Let’s start with a basic question. What was your favorite Core text?
Jeffrey Kobrin: It’s hard for me to narrow down the texts that made such a great impression on me to one favorite or most memorable. I’d include Shakespeare, Homer, Thucydides, and Aristotle.
Lawrence Kobrin: Oh I don’t know, I mean I really got a great deal out of the CC textbook, I don’t know if they still use that. Stop the recording, I’m going to get the textbook.
At this point, my grandfather got up, walked over to his overstuffed bookshelves, and returned a few moments later with a four volume set of books labeled Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West and Chapters in Western Civilization.
LK: They had all kinds of stuff—I still see where I underlined—which was a huge amount of reading, and a great deal of texts that most of us had never really been exposed to before. I mean, while Ramaz high school, where I went for high school, was very outward looking in its curriculum, the kinds of texts that were involved in CC were not the type of things we were exposed to in high school. So we got these four volumes, and there was a huge amount of text material—texts written by people who we may have vaguely known their name, and we were required—it was a lot of reading—and we were required to read that, and then we’d sort of discuss it under the guidance of the instructor in the small sections that we were in for CC. So I can’t say that there was a particular text, it was just this whole body of texts.
It’s not surprising that my dad could pick specific texts, while my grandfather could not—my dad majored in English Literature at Columbia, and went on to get a PhD in the teaching of English Literature, while my grandfather majored in History and became a lawyer. Oh, and my favorite Core text? Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, which neither my dad nor my grandfather read as part of the Core.
YK: If you could change anything—structure, curriculum, etc.—about any of the Core classes, would you change anything?
JK: I would allow more time for rumination on each text, although I understand the need to cover ground. It was impossible to get more than a taste of many of these works, only some of which I returned to later in college or later in life.
LK: Oh, I don’t know. I mean I’m sure there’s texts—you know what, if you master this [points to CC textbooks], you got pretty much Western civilization. You could always add, you could always double up on material, and I know that there’s been great pressure to do so, that it shouldn’t all be “dead white men” and all that. But I think—this was a real big mouthful to bite off, and I thought it was good, and I thought it was also good (and that’s why they call it the “Core” Curriculum) that everyone had to take it. Whether you’re going to be pre-med or pre-law, or you know, who knows what, a science major, or hadn’t decided what you wanted to do, and we were all basically exposed to the same material. Everyone would bring their own, you know, intellectual baggage to it, how you would understand it, but we were all sort of wallowing around in the same kind of atmosphere and intellectual framework.
Yes, the disdain for “science majors” runs in my family—while we have multiple PhDs and JDs, there have yet to be any Kobrin MDs. And for those of you holding your breath—I’m an English major, so it’s not going to be me....
YK: In what ways has the Core Curriculum impacted you?
JK: I can say that I constantly draw on the foundation—the bekiyut (knowledge)—that the Core classes gave me. My teachers Rabbi Haskel Lookstein and Herman Wouk both independently made a similar observation about their own lives and their own thinking. Exposure to the greatest minds of Western civilization, even on the most superficial level, opened my mind to ideas in ways that continue to ripple to this day.
LK: Well in college, it gave me a window into things that I would want to pursue. I ultimately ended up being a history major, but before that, I had taken some advanced humanities material—I had taken a Humanities II course, which was more literature, and where you read more famous literary works, and I think that the exposure in Art Humanities and Music Humanities was something completely new to me. I mean in high schools they’re now trying to do some of that, but we never really had any kind of in-depth exposure to artworks, and to try to appreciate them, or to music works and to try to appreciate them.
My experience of the Core’s impact on my life has been some combination of my dad’s and grandfather’s. My Core classes give me a foundational, albeit basic, understanding of canonical Western literature and philosophy, art, and music; my experience in Literature Humanities was ultimately what pushed me to become an English major. More importantly, though, my Core classes give me the opportunity to have interesting, meaningful conversations with other members of my Columbia class, connecting us through our exploration of, and attempts to challenge and complicate, an overview of Western culture and civilization.
YK: Okay, final question: do you feel that the Core connects you to me, your other Columbia-alumni family members, or other members of the Columbia community?
JK: Yes. I will meet people who I learn are Columbia graduates and immediately have a common language, both intellectually and experientially. It’s remarkable. This is true within my own family (both up and down) as well as with my own spouse [Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, CC ’96, CLS ’99]. It’s made me a bit of a snob, too, which I also like.
LK: I can’t say so. I mean, I’m still friendly with some of the people that I knew in college, but that had nothing to do with the Core. The nexus of alumni friendships that I’ve maintained is primarily from extracurricular activities, and primarily from the Spectator, the student newspaper. That’s been the way in which we maintained contact—I don’t think it had anything to do with the Core.
YK: Well, do you feel like it connects you with me or my dad, given that we’re all reading the same texts and listening to the same music and looking at the same artworks?
LK: No, I don’t think so.
YK: Hm. Well. Ok. They say that, if nothing else, the Core curriculum gives you something to talk about at cocktail parties. Would you agree with that?
LK: Well, yes and no. I just think it was an opening for high school students, whatever high school they came from, to a whole world of cultural background, of literary background, and sort of forced you to read material that you otherwise might pass by. Now I had obviously read a lot of the Bible because I went to a Jewish day school, but there were people who had never read any parts of the Bible. And in the [Literature] Humanities course, you were required to read certain parts of the Bible. I had never read any of the New Testament, at all; part of the selections that we had to read in the [Literature] Humanities course were portions of the New Testament, which was of course something brand new for me, and was an important opener to greater and broader cultural background.
Though my grandpa doesn’t see the Core Curriculum as a point of connection between three generations of Kobrins, his definition of the Core, as “an important opener to greater and broader cultural background” is precisely the way in which the Core connects my family. We all have similar books on our shelves and a shared language of what constitutes “Western Civilization,” giving us a common “background.” Though the Core is fair from perfect, it has given three generations of my family a shared set of ideas and perspectives, connecting us and shaping us in unexpected and deeply profound ways.
//YAIRA KOBRIN is a junior at Columbia College and Managing Editor of The Current. She can be reached at yk2761@columbia.edu.
Photo courtesy of Columbia University Digital Archives
Photo courtesy of Columbia University Digital Archives