Connecting the Dots

In a recent article in Forbes magazine -- "Steve Jobs' Liberal, Hippie Education" -- Dave Serchuk draws a direct connection between Jobs' passion for such arts as calligraphy and music and his remarkable success as a technological and business innovator. Jobs himself acknowledged this connection in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, when he spoke of his relatively brief but formative time as a student at Reed College, where he studied things that would seem to have had no bearing on business or technology but that helped shape his creative work at Apple.

"You can't connect the dots looking forward," Jobs insisted, "You can only connect them looking backwards." Or, as Serchuk puts it, Jobs' study of the liberal arts did not seem at the time to have any particular practical application: "it only made sense later."

I was struck by the contrast between Serchuk's observation and an argument that had been made a few days earlier by Jeff Selingo, the editorial director at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Writing in the Chronicle, Selingo criticizes the complacency of American higher education and concludes by speculating that "maybe the customer of colleges is not the student, but the job market of today and the economy of the future."

Unlike some others, I am not especially troubled by Selingo's characterization of students as customers. It would not be my word of choice, and it is not even close to the first way that I think about students, but they are paying a considerable price for a service received and are, indeed, in that sense "customers" of the colleges they attend. Nor am I in fundamental disagreement with the contention that higher education needs to pursue more aggressively innovative ways to improve both its instructional and its economic models. We owe those students nothing less.

But the contention that colleges should focus chiefly not on the student but on "the job market of today and the economy of the future" could not in my view be more wrong. It is wrong because it sets up a false dichotomy between the interests of the student and the interests of the "economy." It is wrong because it assumes that we should define the aims of education exclusively in economic terms. It is wrong because it posits that we have the ability now to know what kinds of instruction will best drive the "economy of the future." It is wrong, to paraphrase Jobs, because it presumes that we can connect the dots looking forward.

It is dangerously easy during times of great economic stress to characterize the study of calligraphy or music -- or, as in some of our state houses and governor's mansions -- anthropology or literature or history or sociology or painting -- as a waste of time and of scarce resources. Yet the study of these and other subjects, that is, of the liberal arts, is perhaps the single defining feature of American higher education relative to the rest of the world and also among the reasons why the American economy has been more driven by innovation and creativity than the economy of any other nation.

Here is what we cannot know: what the impact of a young person's study of the liberal arts will be on the full arc of her or his life in the workplace and in civil society. It is perilously difficult to try to predict not only how a student will be enriched and informed by the particular things she or he studies, but even what the jobs 10 or 20 or 30 years from now will look like and what abilities they will require.

Here is what we can know, based on many decades of evidence: the failure to provide a broad-based education to more, rather than fewer, of our citizens will impoverish rather than enrich both our economy and our civic discourse. Those who receive such an education are more likely than those who do not to be economically successful and to assume positions of leadership.

Of course, there are exceptions. But unlike someone such as the billionaire Peter Thiel, who is paying young innovators on the condition that they not attend college, I do not believe that those exceptions disprove the rule.

Let me be absolutely clear: I am not suggesting that every institution of higher education should provide a liberal arts education. Another of the distinctive features of higher education in this country has been the variety of missions and access points, and this variety needs to be preserved. It may well be the case that the greatest need for expansion right now, given both our economic circumstances and our demographics, is in the area of vocational training. But if we do not support and preserve the segment of American higher education that provides instruction in the liberal arts, if we do not encourage at least some students from all backgrounds to receive an education that is more than narrowly vocational, we will be reducing the likelihood that we will continue to be global leaders in innovation and choosing to narrow our aspirations.

There appears to be no shortage at the moment of those who believe that, unlike Steve Jobs, they can "connect the dots looking forward." Perhaps they are unusually prescient. Or perhaps, I fear, they will lead us to make some very damaging mistakes and to lament, at some future moment, that the depth of those mistakes "only made sense later."

 

Comments

[Andrew Foster Davis]

01:29 PM on 10/19/2011

I have a fundamental disagreement with the argument made here that arts are worthy because they might prove to the economically useful. While I don't disagree that, indeed, the arts maybe economically useful, and that it makes economic sense to fund the arts and arts education, I disagree that the ultimate worth of any endeavor is determined by its economic usefulness.

We could equally argue that engineering and business education might prove to the useful to the arts. Engineers produce technologies that artists can use to broaden our understanding of what it means to be human. Businesses can create profits which can be used to fund the arts. Why not make this argument?

As a Presbyterian, I believe the chief purpose of humankind is to glorify God and enjoy God forever. I believe that truth, beauty, and goodness are important because they glorify God. I believe that it is incumbent upon liberal education to free us from "Pharaoh" theology (where our value is in making bricks) to YHWH theology. For YHWH, our ultimate humanness comes not in economic production, but in rest. Not in consumption, but in love.

While I realize that Mac can no longer directly espouse such theology, I do hope that Mac can continue to be a place where students are taught to be more than customers and producers.

[dbdel]

06:35 AM on 10/21/2011

Please re-read the commentary.

1. One paragraph says we should not define the aims of education exclusively in economic terms:

. . . But the contention that colleges should focus chiefly . . . on "the job market of today and the economy of the future" could not in my view be more wrong. . . . It is wrong because it assumes that we should define the aims of education exclusively in economic terms. . . .

2. Another paragraph states that a broad education is a key to innovative and creative approaches to problems, and it's clear Rosenberg is thinking about more than just economic matters (see the third point):

. . . Yet the study of . . . the liberal arts [is] among the reasons why the American economy has been more driven by innovation and creativity than the economy of any other nation.

3. Another paragraph implies many advantages from a liberal arts education -- civic discourse (social, cultural, and political activism) and leadership in a variety of organizations and occupations. The general tone suggests that broadly educated people can enhance the general welfare of the nation and the world:

. . . Here is what we [know:] the failure to provide a broad-based education . . . will impoverish rather than enrich both our economy and our civic discourse. Those who receive such an education are more likely than those who do not to be economically successful and to assume positions of leadership.