Pragmatic Liberal Arts

Education
John Dewey: I am not here to knock going to college, ever young person has the
opportunity to go and has the character and intelligence to take advantage of it, its a
good thing. But going to college is not the same thing as getting an education for the
two are often confused. A boy or girl can often go to college and get a degree and not
much else. On the other hand a boy or a girl in a shop, factory, or store can get an
education without a degree if they make up their mind to it. They have to want to
learn they have to be willing to talk to those wiser than themselves, to be observant,
to keep their ears and eyes open, and to set apart some time every day to read. They
have to struggle harder than those that go to college. But if they are willing to make
the effort the struggle gives them power. They get their education from contact with
the realities of life and not from books.

The Liberal Arts are under attack. While criticism is often a good thing
and can foster growth, what is happening in todays educational
environment, work environment, and political attacks on the Liberal
Arts has crossed a boundary and put our best interest at risk. When
Americans started to build learning institutions across the nation they
decided to take a novel approach that was vastly different than the
model set fourth by our European family. These new approach was
called the Liberal Arts and was markedly different than anything that
had come before it. Americans sought an education to enlighten the
individual to think for themselves. One that would improve their lives in
the future and wasnt focused on the trends of the day but on the
ideals of the ages. It was also critical to have these characteristics if
we had any hope of making a democracy succeed. With this in mind
lets examine, the view of education in the early 1910s and what we
think about it now in 2016, we will also look at several writers and see
how their views on education put the liberal arts in line with the other
great American tradition of Pragmatism, finally we will look at some
experimental colleges.
As the quote at the beginning of this essay states, education and
degrees are very different. John Dewey was a important figure in the
American Educational landscape, he helped to form the bases of what
makes the Liberal Arts. He refused to allow education to turn into a
simple fact memorizing exercise and instead pushed for a dynamic
fluid education focused on inspiration and critical thinking. Some
people of his day thought he was being overly critical. However he was
determined to make sure that we keep the tradition of real education
for the betterment of the learner. Today we have the exact same
struggle. Across the board people are critical of the liberal arts and see
them as useless. This stems from a very different idea on human life.

Those who find the liberal arts useless often say this with the
preliminary assumption that college education is solely about getting a
job. I argue that this assumption is based on maybe a more base
assumption and acceptance of the idea of life as a simple model of
work, earn, consume, die. Within the context of this framework I argue
that one sees college as a pure investment in increased earning
potential, that is the point of college. This leads one to believe that
when one goes to college the aim is to get job A. If your aim is to get
job A then it makes sense you should get a degree in A. Therefore
studying Aristotle, Young, Dewey, and company seems silly and like a
waste of time. This school of thought, the simple work earn consume
die model of life, is wrong on almost every level, from the level of the
human condition all the way down to the fact and logic they use.
Before we break down their argument we first need to get some more
background information.
Lets examine some readings first, Dewey, Addams, and Uleman, and
see how their views fit into the Pragmatist school of thought. I think
Dewey would agree with the statement: we seek a good education so
we can live the good life. Lets not get caught up with what the good
life is but instead focus on how best to equip a person to aim for the
good life. Like if you were in charge of sending a search crew out into
the wilderness to find something you would want to make sure they are
equipped with tools to handle multiple situations likewise Dewey wants
to educate people to handle multiple situations. This hits on the
pluralism and the meliorism aspects of Pragmatism. It is pluralistic in
the fact that Dewey says there are multiple ways to get to an
education, the college student v. the factory worker, and there is
multiple educations to get, while there is a loose sense of definition of
the goal of education many different types fit within the parameters.
Hes idea is melioristic in the fact that the goals all aim at improving
the self, and hopefully the community as well. This sense of pluralism
takes on a different form in Addams writing, instead of focusing on a
multitude of paths to take to education she focuses on the pluralism
needed to form a well function society with the hope of improving the
overall quality of society. Finally looking at Ulemans writing we see a
focus on the empirical facts. Simply put the notion that the liberal arts
majors make less money and are less suited for todays labor force is
wrong. Empirical data does not support this notion that the liberal arts
are out of touch with whats needed today.
Perhaps a good example of this is Black Mountain College. While only
open a relatively short time period, the college had a large impact on
the way arts are taught and the ideas of education as a whole. Black
Mountain was an experimental learning college that focused on doing
more than most colleges. An interesting aspect of Black Mountain was

its emphasis on the arts. From my time at Rollins studying the sciences
as well as learning the arts I can see an important aspect of this. Often
the argument will go that arts have no place in the sciences and visa
versa. Why? Well because science is about being objective, sterile, and
logical, and the arts are about emotion, expression, and feeling.
However many fail to see how much of the arts is already in science. A
good scientist needs to care about what they are studying, they should
have some emotional investment, thats what keeps you in the lab till
4am. Likewise, its important to have a way to express yourself in the
sciences, often there are multiple ways to find a solution to a problem,
one person might do it one way while another might do it differently,
both are equally valid, but each person has a different way of going
about doing it. Much like a photographer or a painter might look at a
scene and come up with different ideas of what it means or the best
way to express it. In this way it is important to have a familiarity with
the arts, it helps one to be a better problems solver. We all agree that
artist are creative, is creativity not needed in todays work force? In
solving scientific problems?
In closing I would like to make 3 more points to the value of a liberal
arts educations, 1) empathy, 2)meaning and 3) exercise. I think often
we dont time the time to show how exactly a liberal arts education is
supposed to hit these lofty goals while a purely technical or vocational
educations will not. I offer 3 points, there are many more, to help
alleviate this problem. Firstly often today we lack an understanding of
how our action impact those around us now, and how they will impact
us and others in the future. How can we solve this? I think that one of
the cores of a liberal arts education is the study of others. The Liberal
Arts take us out of our own world and focus us to think of the life of
someone else. This fosters empathy, it shows us how to thing from
anothers point of view. Secondly, humans often seek meaning in their
lives. There are multiple ways people do this, through religion, art,
charitable work, money, fame, or power. The liberal arts exposes us to
all these, and lets us make a decision as to which we want to pick. I
cannot see how vocational training can foster a sense of meaning in
ones life. Reading a technical manual on todays procedures isnt as
useful to a persons flourishing as learning how to be a life time learner,
how to love a subject, how to see beauty in something. Finally, I want
to make the point that we train ourselves to play a sport we do cross
training. For example as a sailor I practice sailing every week in order
to get better. This is a given, however we also spend time in the gym
gaining strength, time at the barre learning ballet, and time on the mat
practicing yoga. All these extra activates make me a better sailor than
I would be if I just sailed. Why do we not take the same approach to
learning? We should offer a variety of mental activities to improve our
overall cognitive function.

On my honor,