I am tired of hearing people denigrate the liberal arts - including my chosen field, English Literature - without knowing anything about it. I am tired of hearing - as I did just yesterday - that all liberal arts professors could be dumped in the ocean and "nothing would change" in our world; in fact, our world may even be a better place because those artsy-fartsy people with such high esteem for themselves and yes, with liberal politics as well as liberal arts, would be gone, and we would be free to live in a word where no opinion need be challenged.
Below I am listing my main three points on the issue of liberal arts as a field of study (avoiding the political issue for the moment, though I don't suppose it can entirely be separated), and I would like to hear more comments about this.
1) I submit that the ultimate goal of teaching is to encourage critical thinking, and that to reach a higher level of thinking in our chosen subjects, we need to provide the basic tools of our subject. Those would be the seemingly useless facts and figures. To be able to have any sort of idea what a scientist does in a lab, we need to work with the formulas, and to be able to use the formulas, we need to understand the basics. This can be applied to the humanities as well - it bothers me that the skills necessary for science and math are seen as separate from English. English, like those subjects, is a discipline. You need certain skills and facts to be comfortable working in this discipline. Scientists look for patterns in nature; the literati look for patterns in novels and poetry.
And while we're at it,
2) People who claim that they will never "use" the information they learn in high school - like Calculus equations and the language of literary analysis - cannot predict the future. I have plenty of friends who thought they'd never need high school or college chemistry but later discovered a desire to practice medicine. I have friends who thought they hated a subject until they took it with a teacher who inspired them. Who knows when (or if) that knowledge will be needed - and if not the knowledge itself, the way of thinking and imagining that the acquisition of that knowledge required you to learn. In Calculus, I had to learn to work with a line that never ended; multidimensional planes; imaginary numbers. In Literature I had to break down complex sentences, formulate arguments based only on a text in front of me and with a time constraint, find evidence for my arguments, recognize ways an author was trying to manipulate my emotions or my ideas. Are these not "useful" skills?
And finally,
3) Do the people who constantly look for a "purpose" to everything dislike sunsets? In other words, do I have to have a reason for admiring a rainbow, or a poem, or a perfectly balanced equation? My friend Dru, a theoretical (as opposed to experimental) physicist, is often asked what his work is "for," or what practical purpose the equations he works on can be put to. He can speculate, but the honest answer is that he does not know. But he is still discovering - patterns, puzzle pieces. And perhaps one day these patterns will have a purpose, but for now, they are just beautiful.
Please add your own comments on this subject!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Here, here! When I tell people I teach Latin, there is a certain amount of reverence for the old girl, but it quickly turns to questioning the purpose. "Oh, that's great for English vocabulary, or learning the Romance Languages," is usually what someone politely says, as if she is trying to justify my job, to herself as much as to me, poor lost soul that I am.
Yes, learning Latin helps in both these ways, but it does so much more. Understanding Latin helps to refine an individual's logic and critical thinking. Aside from enabling one to decode an incredible source of knowledge, literary and scientific, from two millenia, Latin helps sharpen analytical and reasoning skills word by word.
And beyond Latin, or Calculus, knowledge builds on itself,in individuals and within and between disciplines or cultures. The more connections you have in your brain, the better you are able to use them to solve new problems. This is how metaphors and similes work, is it not? By tying an idea to a previous experience a direct and deeper connection is made. Teachers of science use them all the time.
Scientist must write to share their ideas with one another and must have mastery over the literary tradition to do so effectively. A good novelist must understand how the world works in order to create a believable piece of fiction, so anyone who studies either literature or science should be well rounded in both to understand either effectively.
Each idea, be it scientific, linguistic, or literary, is a tool for living.
When time comes for the naysayers to toss us all into the ocean, they might be surprised at the survival skills a Liberal Arts education can offer.
Well said. I'm continually surprised by the number of educated and thoughtful individuals who don't see the value of learning in & of itself or the purpose of the classes they send their children to. I believe that somehow we (as a society) have gotten into a routine and forgotten what the point of these courses we teach are. I sometimes almost wish for a set up closer to the one-room schoolhouse, where students of all ages worked together and subjects were less divided into arbitrary disciplines.
Post a Comment