Liberal Education:
In what is known as
a "liberal" education, several assumptions serve as
the foundations of learning:
1) Societies whose ideals
include governments representative of their people stand on the
principle that each human being has certain rights simply by
the fact of being human:
freedom to determine one's own
destiny and course of action;
freedom to choose one's own beliefs,
values, and philosophies;
freedom to use one's own reasoning
ability to discover meaning and truth;
freedom of movement;
freedom to enter and exit relationships
according to one's own volition;
freedom-and obligation-to participate
in governing the society; and so on and so forth
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2) Societies who determine
to thrive also recognize conversely the balance that must be
maintained between the rights of the individual and the good
of others in that society. Hence, we all participate in what
the Age of Enlightenment (the Eighteenth Century-the age that
birthed our nation) called the "Social Contract" into
which we all enter by virtue of living with other human beings
in societies.
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3) The ability to
reason is the human capacity that enables all the above. Such
reasoning ability can grow-will only grow-with formal
education added to the life experience.
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4) Formal education-education
in the forms of thinking and behaving-determines both
to pass along the accumulated knowledge and experience of past
generations and to train the reasoning populace to be able to
build on that knowledge and experience toward an ongoing flowering
of the society and the individual.
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5) Education, therefore,
strives to balance the value of the collective past with the
aspirations of the collective and individual future.
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6) Such education
in a world where dissimilar cultures and sub-cultures increasingly
meet, mingle, and even clash is continually rethought and overhauled
to incorporate emerging realities with the cultural and social
identities already in place. Hence, such education will include
varying acquaintances with an accepted core (or "canon,"
if you will) of texts along with representative experiences with
new and emerging texts.
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What is a liberal
education?
First, the word "education"
comes from the Latin e "out of" coupled with
the verb "ducare" which means "to lead."
In other words, the very heart of the word means "to lead
out" or "to be led out."
Such a core meaning to the idea of education implies that there
is a someone who leads and another someone who gets led. So far,
this may seem to contradict the assumptions listed above.
However, the leading and following are "out of," and
that little additional letter e makes all the difference.
If I am being led out of somewhere, or if I am leading you out,
then evidently we place a greater value on getting someplace
other than where we are presently. Embedded in the word is the
concept of progressing.
Presumably, if I am being led out of one place, then there must
be some larger place beyond it. In other words, the word may
suggest a journey-
Perhaps a linear journey during which we move from one "place"
to another and eventually to a destination. Traditionally, this
works if the destination is "knowledge" or the more
idealistic idea of "truth."
The journey may be
more of a set of ever-larger concentric circles.
Consider how such a
set of ever-wider concentric circles conveys a different message
than the linear journey.
Maybe the idea is one circle that just grows larger:
How do each of these
diagrams-or "images" shape your conception of the term
"education"?
This
is only one-half the term. The other half is the first part,
the modifier "liberal."
Quickly, now-what is
the first thing you think of when you read/hear the word liberal?
Politics? There is much more to it.
First, the word liberal pertains to being a "freeman"
or that which is "befitting a freeman, noble, liberal."
(Terms taken from an old Unabridged Webster's Dictionary)
Such terms pull us back into history and the distinctions between
those who are free and therefore part of the ruling classes and
those who are bound in service to those classes. If you are of
European descent, most ancestors of Americans found themselves
in the second class and came here to flee that situation. Or
they found themselves in the first class but usually without
the "noble" heritage. In a tightly structured society,
everyone has a place of sorts, and those who roam freely get
shut out of many places and much company. Others may be "free,"
but find themselves "bound" by the strictures of the
society and the economy.
If you are Black/African American, then you know that most of
your ancestors came to this continent under extreme duress. The
idea of becoming "free" has special meaning-and certain
ironies.
If you are American Indian/Native American, the whole discussion
takes on tragic twists and contradictions.
Whatever your cultural/ethnic heritage, try to discover what
these ideas mean to you and your blood relatives.
Using a dictionary or encyclopedia, define the following in words
you would normally use in everyday conversation:
a) liberal arts
b) liberal (as a noun and in the general, not political sense)
c) liberality
d) liberate
e) liberty
f) library (this is no accidental term-find the root word and
think about how it relates to the previous words).
I'll define one more
for you: liberal education-"a general extensive education,
not necessarily preparing the student for any specific profession."
Why on earth would anyone want this? Why would we as a society
make this kind of education the "ticket" into the world
of financial and social "success" (as we increasingly
do)?
Reflect
on the above ideas to consider what you have discovered a liberal
education to be and how you think it ought to relate to your
academic pursuits, your lifelong learning, and to the particular
liberal arts course you are taking.
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