Analyzing John Ciardi's Another School Year – What For?

“A Bachelor of Science certifies that you have been exposed to some of the ideas mankind has generated within its history.” once said by John Ciardi. In the short story “Another School Year – What For?” written John Ciardi is a response to a question (from one of Ciardi’s students) as to why at a university you must take classes that require you read books of philosophy and/or art and/or books that some subjectively believe don’t assist in the completion of the degree they are pursing. Ciardi gives his response in such a complex way that it questions the student as to why they’re at a university, which the he uses to try to persuade his audience of what he believes the purpose is of a student attending a university. According to Ciardi universities

are meant to put students in touch, both as humans and as specialist, with the experiences of those in history that he believes every mind needs to include.
To be persuasive, Ciardi wants his audience to ponder on why they wanted to enter into a higher learning institution such that as a university.

To emphasize the importance of the process of a university education Ciardi explains to the audience through rhetorical questions how a university education can help you in your civilization and substation of morals that have been set in place by previous generations. For an example Ciardi uses democratic and how it’s learned to demonstrate to the audience how your education isn't just meant to help you professionally, but in addition, in your personal life while at home with your family “But having finished the day’s work, what do you do with those other eight hours [while at home]…What sort of family will you be raising?” is a direct indication to the audience the point Ciardi is making. He wants the audience to think about future generations and how current morals will be carried on through them. Ciardi is expressing to the audience how a university education helps to make those eight hours of your life (that isn’t working or sleeping) significant and noteworthy by taking the time while you’re at a university completing your degree to actually read the books assigned because they will one day have great

benefit.
Ciardi wants the audience to know that the university they attend isn’t just here for training purposes, but to “put you in touch with that the best humans thought.” is a belief Ciardi emphasizes throughout his short story many times. He wants the audience to understand that reading plays and books of philosophy by Shakespeare or Aristotle or Sophocles or listening to music by Bach or understanding the theories of Einstein all help make you a better person. These individuals left a piece of their mind behind before they died to share with all about their experiences and knowledge gained during life. According to Ciardi, embracing what these individuals left behind for us in books “is a gift that offers you a life you have not time to live yourself” and a world majority of us don’t have time to explore in our lifetime. Ciardi simply wants the audience to understand that attending a university isn’t just merely a place to get professional training, but an intuition where you’re put in touch with great minds that teach you to be human and you also get to become a specialist.
In conclusion, Ciardi wants his audience to ponder on why they should read those assigned books while in college pursing their degree. He wants the audience to understand that through reading you open yourself up to experiences and exposure you wouldn’t have acquired during your lifetime. Which is conveyed to the audience through rhetorical questions and a complex response that the audience to understand that Ciardi’s argument is rather accurate and very applicable.