It's a curious week when the New York Times runs two stories that defend traditional liberal arts education. And it's only Wednesday! First there is David Brooks writing to "stand up for the history, English and art classes, even in the face of today's economic realities." Then there is Stanley Fish arguing that we should "forget about the latest fad and quick-fix, and buckle down to the time-honored, traditional study and practice of the liberal arts and sciences." Fish weaves together Diane Ravitch, Martha Nussbaum, Leigh A. Bortins and his own rigorous high school education in Providence, Rhode Island. Brooks underscores the "rich veins of emotional knowledge that are the subjects of the humanities." Both commentators, like Peter Berkowitz, who recently published the op-ed "Why Liberal Education Matters" in the Wall Street Journal, insist that liberal education was never more relevant. As Berkowitz put it: liberal education "represents the culmination of a citizen's preparation for freedom."
I am cheered by this chorus of praise for a form of education in which I deeply believe (see "What is a Liberal Arts Education Good For"). We should all recognize that a broadly based education helps people develop capacities that will serve them well for decades after their formal schooling ends. For Brooks this means becoming conversant while in college with a wide range of examples that will serve as compelling analogies for any number of issues that will come up in one's personal, professional or civic life. For Fish it means becoming fluent in the fundamentals even before moving on to post-secondary education: understanding the grammar of intellectual, artistic and social practices so that one can participate in them, or at least understand them from the inside. Both commentators, like many others writing today, worry that in our results oriented regime, the study of history, literature and the arts is being compromised or eliminated in favor of narrow skills that fit into so-called objective tests. Instead of giving students the opportunity to have strong emotional and cognitive encounters with well-told stories, instead of helping them find their way to becoming absorbed in great works of art, we have drilled young people into thinking that effective reading and writing are techniques with measurable outcomes to be evaluated on standardized tests. A liberal education produces results, too, but they are less reducible to questions that can be answered by coloring in a bubble with a number 2 pencil.
There has been great disappointment that the Obama administration has continued the Bush era emphasis on accountability through narrow test taking. This emphasis is a diversion from the one thing shown to make a big difference at the secondary level -- outstanding teachers who can provide students with the kind of education that will make them ready for and desirous of a challenging and broadly based education at the post-secondary level. Despite the fact that the president and almost all the senior members of his administration have had the benefit of a broad, liberal education, their Race to the Top initiatives continue to emphasize technocratic accountability rather than the learning of basic content in the humanities and sciences that will translate from one grade to another, and from one field to another. As Diane Ravitch has recently noted:
Much of what policymakers now demand will very likely make the schools less effective and may further degrade the intellectual capacity of the citizenry. The schools will surely be failures if students graduate knowing how to choose the right option from four bubbles on a multiple-choice test, but unprepared to lead fulfilling lives, to be responsible citizens, and to make good choices for themselves, their families, and our society.
President Obama and Secretary Duncan underscore "that education is the key to our long-term prosperity in a global economy," but if they continue to operate with a narrow vision of an educated work force as a bunch of effective test takers, they will squander our long-term economic capital as well as the moral and political potential of the country.
It is certainly understandable that in these uncertain economic times families are more concerned than ever with the kind of education their students will receive. That's why it's so important to understand the deep, contemporary practicality of a liberal education. Patient and persistent critical inquiry has never been more crucial, and the development of this capacity is one of the defining features of a liberal education. One learns that successful inquiry is rigorous and innovative, and that one must be able to re-evaluate one's own practices and prejudices. Real inquiry is pragmatic, and it is also reflexive -- it includes rigorous self-examination. Given the pace of technological and social change, it no longer makes sense to devote four years of higher education entirely to specific skills. By learning how to learn, one makes one's education last a lifetime. What could be more practical? Post secondary education, I am fond of telling the undergrads at Wesleyan, should help students to discover what they love to do, and to get better at it. They should develop the ability to continue learning so that they become agents of change -- not victims of it.
One of the strong features of the university and college sector in this country is the variety of paths for achieving a broadly based education. Learning through the liberal arts energizes capacities for innovation and for judgment. Those who can imagine how best to reconfigure existing resources and project future results will be the shapers of our economy and culture. Let's hope their education includes the ability to think reflexively so as to reexamine continually the direction they've chosen and the assumptions they've used. Students today must learn how to make sense of extraordinary amounts of information, and they must recognize that they will have to make responsible decisions before they have "finished" their research. Inquiry is never finished. Educators in the liberal arts aim to develop habits of mind that thrive on ambiguity and that foster combinations of focus and flexibility, criticism and courage.
Brooks and Fish, and the authors they cite, are defending the core values of a humanistic education because this form of learning is under intense economic and political pressure. We need to articulate a pragmatic approach to the liberal arts that helps us to create what a friend of mine here at Wesleyan calls "intellectual cross-training." We must educate individuals broadly so that they are capable of moving from one problem to another with confidence, capable of moving from one opportunity to another with courage. We must educate citizens broadly so that they understand the value of freedom and the virtue of compassion. When we do so, we will have plenty of defenders of the liberal arts.
The Gatekeepers.
Follows the adm. dept. there for about a year or more, as they tackle the thousands of app's
and try to decide who to let in. Well written, follow several kids as they and parents deal with
the pressure and decisions.
My pet peve, the crazy idea we all need higher math. Most of us will Never us it. It's boring
and it brings down your grade average [no, I did well, I just hated it knowing I had no interest
in any profession requiring it...] If by chance you did need some of it for a job later you then would be motivated and could learn it far better and faster; you would have it fresh in your mind and not forget it also immediately as most of us do.
This is from the space race, and over the last decades the idea that Japanese kids do so well in it. But their colleges are not well respected around the world, they pick up most of their math once they go to work at Honda or Toyota, etc.; so many kids could do better in school, especially high school, if they did not have to waste time on higher math.
Liberal Arts Education is the way to go!
The hiring committee of twelve (?) has only five English teachers. So, they are outvoted at ever turn. One candidate was rejected because she had a publication stream and was actively writing poetry. Reason: she won't pay enough attention to the students.
Another was rejected because she said that she didn't think that she would have time to, say, coach a sports team for trivial money because she wanted to devote time to her students.
Their choices? Newbies that also want to coach and have grammatical and spelling errors on their applications and writing submissions.
My sisters final comment? "I would just like to hire someone that seems to actually read".
We have a real and growing problem in our secondary schools which is affecting students' abilities to achieve and prosper in a liberal arts environment. These poor kids don't even know what they are missing.
I worked for a University (that shall remain nameless), where the hiring criteria was ridiculous. They would make hiring decisions based on how much they felt they would have to mentor the new faculty member. If they felt the faculty member was too young, they would reject them because they thought the candidate would demand too much of their time. They were so busy with their own research that they didn't have time for students OR other faculty. The reasons behind their hiring decisions were so outrageously stupid. There was even a rather conspicuous connection between the ethnic candidates and the words "inarticulate" or "green." hmm...
But yes, there is a huge problem in both secondary and post-secondary education today with people hiring for the absolutely wrong reasons.
-- a faculty committee at Harvard produced a report on the purpose of education
It is astounding the ignorance of most Americans regarding the political process and American history behind it.
I think that it is a great disservice to our youth that we place so much emphasis on those scores, and in so doing, we limit their ability in later life to even think globaly. A "narrow" education, makes a "narrow" mind.
"If we stop drilling in the Gulf, people will lose their jobs."
"Obama lied so he is as bad as George Bush".
"All you libs think that..."
"Al Gore has made money off of the Global warming myth."
The reichwing has demonized the word "liberal" so much that people tend to believe that a liberal arts education is political indoctrination.
"The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts
Please tell me what or who this example statement in my post disagrees with?
"All you libs think that..."
Your point NOT taken.
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education: Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html