This post was motivated by a quote (see it below) from an unpublished piece I wrote a few years ago.
Individuals who have developed the skills we once taught as a liberal education seems to be exactly what we need in society right now. We could also use educators, law makers, regulators, philanthropists, and other groups to value such an education as well.
The value of liberal education is lost on many, including those who advocate for coding, STEM, and other specialized fields in K-12 schools. A few years ago, I had the chance to visit a student who was working as an intern in an “IT shop;” the company developed and sold specialized data products and he and the team on which he worked spent their days writing code, managing databases, and checking for data consistency. I arrived on a day on which they were preparing to migrate to a new data center. The manager for of the office described the team that was undertaking the project as, “all talented people, none of whom studied computer science, they were all curious and good thinker and very active learners who developed expertise that they share.
What exactly is a liberal education? What different commentators include will vary, but in general, a liberal education will promote:
- A broad education—This is why we have “distribution requirements.” Unfortunately, when those courses are taught to “non-majors” in the same way they are taught to “majors” they represent permanent barriers to the ideas for students. Students always learn something in your course. In too many instances, they learn, “this is something I never what to think about again.”
- Communication skills—Writing, speaking, reading, and using graphs are all skills we develop during a liberal education. Of course, with generative AI, many of the steps we take to become good communicators can be done with technology. Negotiating your relationship with AI is a necessary skill for those who want a liberal education.
- Critical thinking—When we are critical, we learn to recognize bias, accurately self-access what we know, and determine what we need. Our own bias are the most difficult to recognize, so often we don’t.
- Ethics—When we are ethical, we apply our critical thinking skills to everyday situations and use empathy to engage with the world.
- Curiosity—A liberal education results in humans who are curious about the world. We find are interested in how things are changing in the world and we have the skills and deposition to continue to learn.
- Rejecting dogma—When we have a liberal education, we question authority in its many instantiations.