A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free (Latin : liber) human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment. [1] It has been described as "a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ... characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study" by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. [2] Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education curriculum which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area.
Liberal education was advocated in the 19th century by thinkers such as John Henry Newman, Thomas Huxley, and F. D. Maurice. The decline of liberal education is often attributed to mobilization during the Second World War. The premium and emphasis placed upon mathematics, science, and technical training caused a shift away from a liberal concept of higher education studies; however, it became central to much undergraduate education in the United States in the mid-20th century, being conspicuous in the movement for general education.
Wilfred Griffin Eady, the Principal of the Working Men's College from 1949 to 1955, defined the liberal education his institution sought to provide as "something you can enjoy for its own sake, something which is a personal possession and an inward enrichment, and something which teaches a sense of values". [3]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science describes a liberal education in this way: "Ideally, a liberal education produces persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds." [4] Liberally educated people are skeptical of their own traditions; they are trained to think for themselves rather than conform to higher authorities. [5]
It also cultivates "active citizenship" through off-campus community service, internships, research, and study abroad. [6] Some faculty see this movement towards "civic engagement" as more pedagogically powerful than traditional classroom teaching, but opponents argue that the education occurring within an academic institution must be purely intellectual and scholarly. [7]
A liberal education combines an education in the classics, literature, the humanities, moral virtues, and others. [8] The term liberal education in the modern sense should not be confused with liberal arts education ; the latter deals with academic subjects, while the former deals with ideological subjects. Indeed, a liberal arts education does not necessarily include a liberal education, and a liberal arts program may even be as specialized as a vocational program. [9] For practical purposes, liberal education is not actually differentiated from liberal arts education today, except by scholars.[ which? ]
Unlike a professional and vocational education that prepares students for their careers, a liberal education prepares students to utilize their leisure time. Such an education helps the individual navigate internal and external conflicts in life. For example, a liberal education aims to help students be self-conscious and aware of their actions and motivations. Individuals also become more considerate for other beliefs and cultures. According to James Engel, the author of The Value of a Liberal Arts Education, A liberal education provides the framework for an educated and thoughtful citizen. [10]
Definitions of a liberal education may be broad, generalized, and sometimes even contradictory. [11] "It is at once the most enduring and changeable of academic traditions." [12] Axelrod, Anisef, and Lin suggest that conceptions of liberal education are rooted in the teaching methods of Ancient Greece, [12] a slave-owning community divided between slaves and freemen. The freemen, mostly concerned about their rights and obligations as citizens, received a non-specialized, non-vocational, liberal arts education that produced well-rounded citizens aware of their place in society. At the same time, Socrates emphasized the importance of individualism, impressing upon his students the duty of man to form his own opinions through reason rather than indoctrination. Athenian education also provided a balance between developing the mind and the body. Another possibility is that liberal education dates back to the Zhou Dynasty, where the teachings of Confucianism focused on propriety, morality, and social order. Hoerner also suggests that Jesus was a liberal educator, as "he was talking of a free man capable of thinking for himself and of being a responsible citizen," but liberal education is still commonly traced back to the Greeks. [13]
While liberal education was stifled during the barbarism of the Early Middle Ages, it rose to prominence once again in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially with the re-emergence of Aristotelian philosophy. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a revolt against narrow spirituality and educators started to focus on the human, rather than God. This humanist approach favored reason, nature and aesthetics. [14]
Study of the Classics and humanities slowly returned in the fourteenth century, which led to increased study of both Ancient Greek and Latin. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, liberal education focused mostly on the classics. Commoners, however, were not too keen on studying the classics, so they instead took up vernacular languages and literature, and also the sciences. Until at least the twentieth century, both humanist and classicist influences remained in the liberal education, and proponents of a progressive education also embraced the humanist philosophy. Study of the classics continued in the form of the Great Books program. [15] Robert Maynard Hutchins brought this program to the University of Chicago. Upon Hutchins' resignation, the university got rid of the program, but an adapted version still exists at Shimer College.
While liberal education is a Western movement, it has been influential in other regions as well. For example, in Japan during the general liberalism of the Taishō period, there was a liberal education movement that saw the establishment of a number of schools based on liberal education in the 1920s – see 大正自由教育運動.
Liberal education and professional education have often been seen as divergent. German universities moved towards more professional teaching in the nineteenth century, and unlike American students, who still pursued a liberal education, students elsewhere started to take professional courses in the first or second year of study. [16] In the early twentieth century, American liberal arts colleges still required students to pursue a common curriculum, whereas public universities allowed a student to move on to more pragmatic courses after having taken general education courses for the first two years of study. As an emphasis on specialized knowledge grew in the middle of the century, colleges began to adjust the proportion of required general education courses to those required for a particular major. [17]
As University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum points out, standardized testing has placed more emphasis on honing technical knowledge, and its quantitative, multiple-choice nature prompts rote learning in the classroom. At the same time, humanistic concepts such as imagination and critical thinking, which cannot be tested by such methods, are disappearing from college curricula. [18]
Thirty percent of college graduates in the United States may eventually work in jobs that do not exist yet. [19] Proponents of a liberal education therefore argue that a postsecondary education must prepare students for an increasingly complex labor market. Rather than provide narrowly designed technical courses, a liberal education would foster critical thinking and analytical skills that allow the student to adapt to a rapidly changing workforce. [20] The movement towards career-oriented courses within a liberal education has begun at places like Dartmouth College, where a journalism course combines lessons on writing style with reading and analyzing historical journalism. [21] An American survey of CEOs published in 1997 revealed that employers were more focused on the long-term outcomes of education, such as adaptability, than college students and their parents, who were more concerned with the short-term outcomes of getting a job. [22]
As of 2009, said only eight percent of colleges provide a liberal education to four percent of students in the United States. [23] Liberal education revived three times in the United States during periods of industrialization and shifts of social preoccupations—before World War I, after World War II, and in the late 1970s—perhaps as a reaction against overspecialization in undergraduate curricula. [24]
Currently, pressures from employers, parents and governments have defined the type of education offered at educational institutions. Such trends have curtailed the role of education offered in America. Universities have now provided education for the sole purpose to prepare students for the workforce. This idea has negatively influenced the credibility of liberal education which has impacted how students view higher education. The negative impact being a focus on specific disciplinary practices separating it from the original ideology of liberal education as "...a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ..." [25] Politicians have influenced the type of education provided at universities. These politicians have been recently cutting the funds for universities applying immense pressure on higher educational institutions. Lack of funds have caused many to abandon the liberal arts curricula. Therefore, universities have been forced to provide a curriculum useful for providing a vocational education. The lack of funds to maintain a balanced education system has caused American universities to provide an education with a lack of emphasis on liberal values. [26]
The disappearance of liberal education can also be traced to Liberal Art Colleges. Students are beginning to view higher education as a preparation for careers. This has then led to the natural selection of colleges. The thought of having education that instructs to enhance the individual for the purpose of improving society does not meet current demands. Thus, as a result, Liberal Art Colleges are diminishing along with the emphasis on providing a liberal education. [27]
Chinese universities began to implement liberal curricula between the 1920s and 1940s, but shifted to specialized education upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Higher education reform in the 1990s returned to liberal education. In 2000 Peking University started to offer a liberal education curriculum to its undergraduate students, followed by other institutions throughout the country. [28] In Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong has implemented a collegiate system since the establishment of the university in 1960s and since then, it has been known for its emphasis in general education in greater China.
Some of the universities in India have started offering Liberal Arts Education. Ahmedabad University is one such young university which offers students a liberal education focused on research and interdisciplinary learning.
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary school.
A community college is a type of undergraduate higher education institution, generally leading to an associate degree, certificate, or diploma. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an "open enrollment" for students who have graduated from high school. The term usually refers to a higher educational institution that provides workforce education and college transfer academic programs. Some institutions maintain athletic teams and dormitories similar to their university counterparts.
Educational perennialism is a normative educational philosophy. Perennialists believe that the priority of education should be to teach principles that have persisted for centuries, not facts. Since people are human, one should teach first about humans, rather than machines or techniques, and about liberal, rather than vocational, topics.
A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and general sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional or vocational curriculum. Students in a liberal arts college generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including general sciences as well as the traditional humanities subjects taught as liberal arts. Although it draws on European antecedents, the liberal arts college is strongly associated with American higher education, and most liberal arts colleges around the world draw explicitly on the American model.
Liberal arts education is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. Liberal arts takes the term art in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. Liberal arts education can refer to studies in a liberal arts degree course or to a university education more generally. Such a course of study contrasts with those that are principally vocational, professional, or technical, as well as religiously based courses.
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including the fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term 'humanities' referred to the study of classical literature and language, as opposed to the study of religion or 'divinity.' The study of the humanities was a key part of the secular curriculum in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more frequently defined as any fields of study outside of natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and applied sciences. They use methods that are primarily critical, speculative, or interpretative and have a significant historical element—as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of science.
An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree.
Shimer Great Books School is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, originally founded in 1853.
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. They are typically undertaken by students and graduates looking to gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field. Employers benefit from these placements because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Internships are usually arranged by third-party organizations that recruit interns on behalf of industry groups. Rules vary from country to country about when interns should be regarded as employees. The system can be open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
Martha Craven Nussbaum is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosophy department. She has a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy, existentialism, feminism, and ethics, including animal rights. She also holds associate appointments in classics, divinity, and political science, is a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and a board member of the Human Rights Program. She previously taught at Harvard and Brown.
Education in Singapore is managed by the Ministry of Education (MOE). It controls the development and administration of state schools receiving taxpayers' funding, but also has an advisory and supervisory role in respect of private schools. For both private and state schools, there are variations in the extent of autonomy in their curriculum, scope of taxpayers' aid and funding, tuition burden on the students, and admission policy.
In education, a curriculum is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experiences in terms of the educator's or school's instructional goals. A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives. Curricula are split into several categories: the explicit, the implicit, the excluded, and the extracurricular.
An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-secondary, undergraduate or graduate programs, and can also offer a broad-based range of programs. There have been six major periods of art school curricula, and each one has had its own hand in developing modern institutions worldwide throughout all levels of education. Art schools also teach a variety of non-academic skills to many students.
The Core Curriculum was originally developed as the main curriculum used by Columbia College of Columbia University in 1919. Created in the wake of World War I, it became the framework for many similar educational models throughout the United States, and has played an influential role in the incorporation of the concept of Western civilization into the American college curriculum. Today, customized versions of the Core Curriculum are also completed by students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of General Studies, the other two undergraduate colleges of Columbia University.
Paul Douglas Axelrod is a Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education at York University, of which he was dean from 2001 to 2008. He has written widely on the history and political economy of schooling and higher education.
Education in South Korea is provided by both public schools and private schools. Both types of schools receive funding from the government, although the amount that the private schools receive is less than the amount of the state schools.
The history of education in Japan dates back at least to the sixth century, when Chinese learning was introduced at the Yamato court. Foreign civilizations have often provided new ideas for the development of Japan's own culture.
Education in the Philippines is compulsory at the basic education level, composed of kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. The educational system is managed by three government agencies by level of education: the Department of Education (DepEd) for basic education; the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for higher education; and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for technical and vocational education. Public education is funded by the national government.
The history of formal education in Estonia dates back to the 13–14th centuries when the first monastic and cathedral schools were founded. The first primer in the Estonian language was published in 1575. The oldest university is the University of Tartu which was established by the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf in 1632. In 1919, university courses were first taught in the Estonian language.
Dance education is a practice whereby students are taught a broad understanding of dance as an art form or trained professionally in specific dance genres. Dance education also encompasses a research area in which scholars conduct original research on ways of teaching and learning dance. Currently, dance itself is considered an allied form of art and music, thus dance in formal education is closely knit with these disciplines.
