Ronald Grimes is an expert in Ritual Studies. He is also, of course, a guy. Here are some quotations from his book, Marrying and Burying: Rites of Passage in a Man's Life (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995):
Teachers and students constitute a lineage. Though Academic paternity is even more questionable than biological paternity, it is nevertheless a powerful, sometimes nurturing force. In passing through the hallowed halls of academe, one gains fathers, mothers, children, sisters, and brothers. The brotherhood is not always kind. (p. 40)
The educational process constitutes a ritualization of passage. Academic passage generates ancestors, spawns progenry, and consolidates cohorts. It constellates power and defines outsiders. So we do well not to minimize the impact of academic ritual in either its admirable or its contemptible forms. (p. 41)
Education is our society's most sustained effort at initiation. (p. 45)
Agree? Or?
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