Liberal Education: An Old Idea With New

Importance

UI100 – Fall 2010

McAllister

Historical view of education

Training of the ruling/religious classNot available to everyone

Was more exclusive than inclusive

Training of the skilled labor forceOften involved father-to-son transfer of knowledge of a particular field

On the job training

Underclass was generally not educated.

Purposes of liberal education

Training citizens for public lifeOriginally as rulers or leaders (meant the skills needed by the citizen elite or ruling class)

Now as voters

Some ideas of what a ‘liberal education’ means

General Education

Specific subject matters – such as the humanities or liberal arts classes

Reading the classics – the great books of the past

They are all partly right

Liberal education does consist of those elements and more

Traditionally included training in rhetoric and logic and study of languages (needed to study the classical works in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew)

What might be included in a modern definition of liberal education?

What are the humanities?

Roman citizens studied subjects that developed the human faculties of the mind and character – as opposed to the work/survival skills needed by the peasants and craftsmen

There was definitely an elitist sentiment in the goals of a liberal education

Origins of liberal education curriculums

In the Middle Ages: Seven liberal arts – trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy)

Updated in the Renaissance: grammar, rhetoric, politics, history, ethics, and mathematics.

Liberal Education in modern times

Study of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew exchanged for study of ‘modern’ languages

Study of ‘classical’ works of Greeks, exchanged for study of great books of last 2-3 centuries

Study of fine arts, philosophy, social sciences added

At Southeast we actualize liberal education as a set of skills

These skills are learned and practiced in all coursework, but explicitly in our University Studies Program

These skills are formalized as the University Studies Objectives

The University Studies program can be considered a ‘second major’.