Monday, September 20, 2004
Practices in Liberal Education
I found Carol Geary Schneider's views on Changing Practices in Liberal Education thought provoking, though I haven't had a chance to fully process the article. I thought I'd put the link up and come back to it. I'll re-edit this entry with some comments later.
After a couple of days of processing, here's a bit of discussion. In looking at Schneider’s article, I am continually reminded that I did not have a “liberal education”; my Scottish degree did involve two years of “general education”, but they consisted of medieval history, philosophy, and Greek, during which I time I also did my general survey English courses. They were all full-year courses, which makes for a very different dynamic. Schneider paints the general twentieth-century model for “liberal education” in America as one that emphasises “breadth” and “depth”. Clearly, my own background leaned more towards the latter, and I am partial to it. So that is where I am coming from.
Schneider actually makes a more sophisticated analysis of the history of liberal education in this country, arguing that the model has shifted over the course of the twentieth century from one in which the general education courses designed to encourage breadth simultaneously formed the foundation for the disciplinary courses to follow to a model in which the general education courses were essentially disconnected from the disciplinary field (major) selected by the student. All sorts of factors have contribute to this: the increasing popularity of “professional” majors and the tendency for general education courses to be taken at community colleges (or even at high schools if the students take Advanced Placement courses which allow them to skip lower-division requirements at the university level). Essentially, the disciplinary major (whether in traditional or “professional” fields) can no longer provide education in depth. I will return to this point below.
This scenario has far-reaching consequences for those teaching in the liberal arts. First and foremost, their fields are likely to be marginalised, as they become associated with lower-level study. This will add to an already present tendency in our society to see studying these fields as anything more than a luxury. Funding will be diverted in other directions.
Schneider suggests that we meet this challenge by adapting our curriculum. She summarises the common themes of current innovative thinking (the “New Academy”) as follows:
I confess that a lot of this doesn’t look very new to me. Much of it is old rhetoric about the value of a liberal arts education. Some of it reflects the same thinking motivating my own university's attempts to become more learning centred. Schneider argues that the new generation of faculty members should be prepared to embrace innovations in the curriculum to meet today’s challenges. She provides a number of suggestions for how graduate education can be adapted to better prepare graduate students to work in this environment. I’ll comment on these in another entry soon.
But as far as undergraduate education goes, what seems to get lost in the attempts to find a new model curriculum is the requirement for depth of learning, and, as I have mentioned above, this now seems like an impossibility at the undergraduate level. Here is one opportunity for educators in the liberal arts to make their case for relevance in today’s world. They can at least strive for a properly integrated educational experience, whereas the “professional fields” are simply two-year introductions. Furthermore, since study in professional fields is so limited, it really conveys no advantages. A liberal arts student will easily close the gap with a few months of on-the-job training. This case must be made to potential employers. One way in which students in “professional” majors have an advantage is through organised internships. Liberal arts majors must engage in the same practices. This means a variety of things. Those who are inclined towards graduate school in their field must become assistants on their professors’ research projects. Those who wish to go out into the work force must have experience prior to graduation. Departments and universities must make programmes available to encourage students along this route. In particular, departments should have well-advertised student assistant opportunities, and business and government internship opportunities should be clearly open to all students, not just those in the relevant majors.
Our society’s “widespread resistance to the very idea of liberal education” might also be countered if standards were raised in liberal arts majors (even in lower-division courses). If we can show employers that liberal arts majors are better qualified, they will hire them; a field such as English will be more esteemed as a subject, and more people will want to study it. A common complaint about university graduates is that they “know nothing”. This is the problem we must really tackle. How can we teach students to acquire and retain knowledge. This is the most vital intellectual skill.
I think I agree with Schneider that the loss of “depth” is a result of the fragmentation of the curriculum, and I would add that a side effect has been the loss of the ability to acquire a body of knowledge. For the liberal arts, this is increasingly dangerous, as liberal education courses are being relegated to lower division work. In my view, this was actually always the case; one got a BA or BSc before going off to, say, a medical or law school. But what is happening is that the BA/BSc is being reduced to two years (or the equivalent thereof in units) and the professional schooling is begun earlier. But what are the implications of this? Should we be giving upper-division English courses a more vocational orientation?
Well, I find I’ve run out of energy on this topic. I want to write about the implications for graduate education at another time, but hopefully I’ve generated enough issues for comment.
After a couple of days of processing, here's a bit of discussion. In looking at Schneider’s article, I am continually reminded that I did not have a “liberal education”; my Scottish degree did involve two years of “general education”, but they consisted of medieval history, philosophy, and Greek, during which I time I also did my general survey English courses. They were all full-year courses, which makes for a very different dynamic. Schneider paints the general twentieth-century model for “liberal education” in America as one that emphasises “breadth” and “depth”. Clearly, my own background leaned more towards the latter, and I am partial to it. So that is where I am coming from.
Schneider actually makes a more sophisticated analysis of the history of liberal education in this country, arguing that the model has shifted over the course of the twentieth century from one in which the general education courses designed to encourage breadth simultaneously formed the foundation for the disciplinary courses to follow to a model in which the general education courses were essentially disconnected from the disciplinary field (major) selected by the student. All sorts of factors have contribute to this: the increasing popularity of “professional” majors and the tendency for general education courses to be taken at community colleges (or even at high schools if the students take Advanced Placement courses which allow them to skip lower-division requirements at the university level). Essentially, the disciplinary major (whether in traditional or “professional” fields) can no longer provide education in depth. I will return to this point below.
This scenario has far-reaching consequences for those teaching in the liberal arts. First and foremost, their fields are likely to be marginalised, as they become associated with lower-level study. This will add to an already present tendency in our society to see studying these fields as anything more than a luxury. Funding will be diverted in other directions.
Schneider suggests that we meet this challenge by adapting our curriculum. She summarises the common themes of current innovative thinking (the “New Academy”) as follows:
- A new focus on inquiry skills and intellectual judgment. The New Academy is strongly concerned not just with what students "know"--the implicit agenda in the era of "breadth and depth"--but also with what they are prepared to do with their knowledge.
- A renewed concern with social responsibility and civic engagement. The New Academy is increasingly concerned with students' preparation and disposition to connect their learning with issues beyond the academy and to take an active role, both as citizens and as professionals, in a diverse, contested, and global community.
- A new interest in integrative learning. The New Academy is taking seriously the fragmentation of knowledge, not just in our courses, but through the knowledge explosion in the world around us. Many of the most interesting educational innovations clearly are intended to teach students what we might call the new liberal art of integration. Not only do these innovations invite students to integrate learning from different sources, but they also provide models, frameworks, and practice in actually doing so.
I confess that a lot of this doesn’t look very new to me. Much of it is old rhetoric about the value of a liberal arts education. Some of it reflects the same thinking motivating my own university's attempts to become more learning centred. Schneider argues that the new generation of faculty members should be prepared to embrace innovations in the curriculum to meet today’s challenges. She provides a number of suggestions for how graduate education can be adapted to better prepare graduate students to work in this environment. I’ll comment on these in another entry soon.
But as far as undergraduate education goes, what seems to get lost in the attempts to find a new model curriculum is the requirement for depth of learning, and, as I have mentioned above, this now seems like an impossibility at the undergraduate level. Here is one opportunity for educators in the liberal arts to make their case for relevance in today’s world. They can at least strive for a properly integrated educational experience, whereas the “professional fields” are simply two-year introductions. Furthermore, since study in professional fields is so limited, it really conveys no advantages. A liberal arts student will easily close the gap with a few months of on-the-job training. This case must be made to potential employers. One way in which students in “professional” majors have an advantage is through organised internships. Liberal arts majors must engage in the same practices. This means a variety of things. Those who are inclined towards graduate school in their field must become assistants on their professors’ research projects. Those who wish to go out into the work force must have experience prior to graduation. Departments and universities must make programmes available to encourage students along this route. In particular, departments should have well-advertised student assistant opportunities, and business and government internship opportunities should be clearly open to all students, not just those in the relevant majors.
Our society’s “widespread resistance to the very idea of liberal education” might also be countered if standards were raised in liberal arts majors (even in lower-division courses). If we can show employers that liberal arts majors are better qualified, they will hire them; a field such as English will be more esteemed as a subject, and more people will want to study it. A common complaint about university graduates is that they “know nothing”. This is the problem we must really tackle. How can we teach students to acquire and retain knowledge. This is the most vital intellectual skill.
I think I agree with Schneider that the loss of “depth” is a result of the fragmentation of the curriculum, and I would add that a side effect has been the loss of the ability to acquire a body of knowledge. For the liberal arts, this is increasingly dangerous, as liberal education courses are being relegated to lower division work. In my view, this was actually always the case; one got a BA or BSc before going off to, say, a medical or law school. But what is happening is that the BA/BSc is being reduced to two years (or the equivalent thereof in units) and the professional schooling is begun earlier. But what are the implications of this? Should we be giving upper-division English courses a more vocational orientation?
Well, I find I’ve run out of energy on this topic. I want to write about the implications for graduate education at another time, but hopefully I’ve generated enough issues for comment.
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