should serve. So what exactly do we mean by liberal education, and why do we…
Several authors, like Bill Coplin and Marshal Gregory have very strong views about liberal education. Coplin, believes schools should be more job preparation oriented, while Gregory feels the need of liberal arts isn’t just about getting a job, but about being able to find our purpose in life and live our lives fully. Another article written by Jerry Logan and Janel Curry expresses feelings very similar to those of Gregory’s. The approach taken by Gregory, Logan, and Curry gives a very strong case for why Christians should pursue a liberal education. Christian liberal arts education prepares people for their careers, while also preparing people to be ready to do whatever God may ask of them.…
In “Can a liberal arts education really make us better?” by Richard Kamber, he argues that even though a liberal arts education can make us better, it depends solely on that person’s definition of better. Now the question on everyone’s mind, “What are liberal arts?” A liberal arts education gives us a general review of humanities, arts, and sciences. Liberal arts are usually delivered in small classes, full of active participants, by “seasoned faculty.” They aim to develop our character and provide us with an immense amount of skills, which ultimately gives us more money. Though often looked down upon, liberal arts have helped shape many great people such as Socrates, Giordano Gentile, Galileo, and Martin Heidregger.…
Mark Edmundson is a professor of English at the University of Virginia additionally, he is the author of the article “On the Uses of the Liberal Education: As Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students.” In the article, he describes how the students perk up during the evaluation of him as a teacher. The student evaluations commend him as being interesting and humerous which leads him into the rant about what he thinks of college students today. The article describes students as having “little passion and little fire” and indicates their more devoted to “consumption and entertainment.” Edmundson argues students education would be more effective if it is treated as a privilege rather than a commodity.…
When Cronon describes a liberal education, he expresses that it includes not only the freedom to study your personal interests, but human growth and the ability to use your knowledge for the greater good of the world and engage positively with society.…
In the most recent debates regarding higher education, a particular issue of whether a liberal arts education can benefit students is relentless. While most people directly connect a liberal arts education to a bright future in terms of a career, others argue against that. On one hand, Sanford J. Ungar strongly believes that despite some hardships that come along with college, everyone should take the opportunity to go. On the other hand, Charles Murray, Stephanie Owen, and Isabel Sawhill suggest that it can depend in terms of money and only those that are academically capable and enjoy learning should attend college. My view is that although some students…
Liberal arts are defined as “college or university studies (as language, philosophy, literature, abstract science) intended to provide chiefly general knowledge and to develop general intellectual capacities (as reason and judgment) as opposed to professional or vocational skills.” (Merriam-Webster). Wallace however argues that a liberal arts education means being conscious about your thoughts, and having some sense of control over them and the experience you’ll gain from them. That could mean exercising control over what you think, and changing it to benefit more people than just…
Robert Harris’ article, “On the Purpose of a Liberal Arts Education” on page 1-6 of the website VirtualSalt (March 14, 1991), is written in enumeration mode. The purpose of the article is persuading the reader to think about the advantages of liberal arts education. The article has a positive tone because it is optimistic, and respectful. Harris lists several rewards of liberal arts education. First, liberal arts education can help you become a broad thinker. Second, liberal arts education gives you a chance to learn and empower you to discover the world. Also, it elevates you to increase your knowledge and teach you how to become a good leader. Finally,…
For my Concurrent English class we are reading your book, In Defense of a Liberal Education. In chapter four you address the story of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and their educational journeys. Franklin only received two years of education and then learned his craftsman skills in an apprenticeship. Jefferson posed the Virginia plan at the Constitutional Convention, he stressed that education is the key to his plan.…
Although liberal education produces individuals with critical thinking and analytical reasoning, but it…
Jeremiah Conway writes The liberal Arts and Contemporary Culture and is bothered about how liberal arts is being taken for granted. He feels that this is a problem and it needs to be addressed. He makes it known that children will lack becoming educated in the future because science and technology is hindering there learning. If this problem is not approached then liberal arts would be ignored. They will be at risk of living in this world without any regards of life. Conway used an example of a “fish” not knowing what water was. This informs readers that people take education and life for graduated (2010, 4). What children do not understand is that they have the opportunity to gain knowledge but cannot due to technology and money. It becomes hard for them understand that being educated in liberal arts is better than having a one-track mind. If they want to become a scientist they will only learn the scientific method and equations. Moreover, they may not know basic home economic skill because they do not have an understanding of other disciplines.…
The world is quickly changing; less people spend time in any one career. Liberal Education prepares students to be a responsible at both the local and national level, as well as competent global citizens. The main difference between regular education and Liberal Education is at the end, where regular education provides access to prosperous careers, while Liberal Education had always had an ambitious end. Liberal Education has always been about the education of the whole person, providing multiple ways of thinking and creating, making people able to develop lifetime skills and…
Mark Edmundson’s essay, “On the Uses of a Liberal Education,” was published in Harper’s magazine in the fall of 1997. Edmundson begins the article by giving us a glimpse into his own experiences teaching. He speaks on how, he dreads evaluation day at the end of each term, he feels he is being reviewed more on his entertaining ability and less on if the student felt changed by his course. Near the end of the article, Edmundson states, “My overall point is this: It’s not that a left-wing professional coup has taken over the university. It’s that at American universities, left-liberal politics have collided with the ethos of consumerism. The consumer ethos is winning.” (pg. 48) This article is about how the younger generation has been raised with…
I think it’s the type of person who has a general passion for learning. Not just one thing but a plethora of things. In Mark Jackson’s, “The Liberal Arts: A Practical View”, he stated “a liberal arts education is valuable to students because it helps to develop their analytical-thinking skills and writing skills” and “thinking skills that are critical for success” (YAH p. 207,208). If this the mission of a liberal education, why doesn’t everyone want this? In Earnest Boyer’s “Specialization: The Enriched Major” he expressed that “general education is an irritating interruption – and annoying detour on their way to their degree” (YAH p 217). If anyone thought that general education was an annoyance, why not skip it all and go for the money…
In order to fully understand the benefits of going to a liberal arts institution, we need to have a good understanding of what a liberal arts education actually entails. First, a liberal arts education will often require students to develop the skills needed to be able to provide in-depth examination and critical distillation of material. A liberal arts education is defined as being a broadly based education in which students explore many different fields of study in order to gain a better working knowledge of the world, rather than focusing on one specific subject. Liberal arts institutions have a goal of educating the whole person, in order to develop a meaningful community for learning. Another goal of a liberal arts education is to try…