The Philosophy of the Curriculum: The Need for General Education

147 Pages·1975·24.41 MB·English

by  Sidney Hook

/
THE
Other books published in cooperation with the OF THE
University Centers for Rational Alternatives:
Curriculum
:
THE IDEA OF A MODERN UNIVERSITY (1974)
THE NEED FOR GENERAL EDUG.A TION
THE ETHICS OF TEACHING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
(forthcoming)
edited by
Sidney Hook
Paul Kurtz
Miro Todorovich
Prometheus Books
Buffalo, N.Y. 14215
The Philosophy
of the Curriculum
Published by Prometheus Books
923 Kensington Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14215
Copyright O 1975 by Prometheus Books
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-3921
ISBN 0-87975-051-0
Printed in the United States of Amer~ca
Contents
Introduction
Sidney Hook xi
GENERAL EDUCATION -CHALLENGE AND JUSTIFICATION
General Education and the University Crisis
Wrn. Theodore deBary 3
General Education: The Minimum indispensables
Sidney Hook 27
On Reviving Liberal Education-in the Seventies
loseph I. Schwab 37
THE HUMANISTIC DISCIPLINES
Humanism and the Humanities
Frederick A. Ola fson 51
Justifying the Humanities
Ronald Berrnan 75
Observations on Humanism and History
Gertrude Hirnrnelfarb 81
The Language and Methods of Humanism
M.H.Abrarns 89
vii
Contents Contents
THE PLACE OF SCIENCE AND THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK On Sharpening the Horns
Sidney Hook
Science, Science Teaching, and Rationality
Gerald Holton 101 The Humanities as Scholarship and a Branch of Knowledge
Paul Oskar Kristeller
In Defense of Scientific Knowledge
Ernest Nagel 119 Questions of Viability in Nontraditional Education
Herbert I.L ondon
The Uses and Limitations of Science Teaching
Michael Rabin 127 On Interdisciplinary Education
Howard B. Radest
Multilevel Teaching of the Natural Sciences
Miro M. Todorovich 137 The Logic of the Social Sciences: To Be, To Do, or To Describe?
Henry R. Novotny
A Proposal for a New Division of the Curriculum
PROBLEMS AND DILEMMAS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Cra y Dorsey
The Social Sciences in Liberal Education On the Condition of Political Science
Nathan Glazer 145 loseph Dunner
The Economist Among the Social Scientists New Beginnings in General Education
Charles lssawi 159 Aldo S. Bernardo
Social Science and General Education Thoughts on a Social-Science Curriculum
Thomas Sowell 165 Feliks Gross
A Role for Social Science? The Specter at :he Feast
Robert L. Bartley 169 Reuben Abel
Contributors
REFLECTIONS ON THE CURRICULUM
Experiential Education and Revitalization of the Liberal Arts
Iohn B. Stephenson and Robert F. Sexton 177
Education for the Future: The Liberating Arts
Paul Kurtz 197
The Desirability of Pulling in One's Horns
Mortimer R. Kadish 205
viii
Introduction
Sidney Hook
New York University
One of the most notable contributions to the literature of higher edu-
cation is the five-foot shelf of books published under the sponsorship
of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. There is hardly a
facet of the mechanics and organization of higher education that it
does not treat, exhaustively and objectively. What it does not do is
address itself to the most important questions that can be asked about
higher education: What should its content be? What should we edu-
cate for, and why? What constitutes a meaningful liberal education in
modern times, as distinct from mere training for a vocation?
The fact that the Carnegie Commission addressed itself to these
questions only peripherally by no means-some critics to the contrary
notwithstanding-invalidates its contributions to the economics,
politics, and demographics of academic survival. But it does make the
reflective educator wonder why there has been no corresponding effort
to explore what the curriculum of higher education should be in our
modern age. The necessity for such a concern hardly needs elaboration
in view of the curricular chaos that prevails in our colleges today. The
fear of declining enrollment-and of the ensuing consequences-has
intensified a process of intellectual erosion already in evidence before
the current economic pinch was felt. This was reflected in the aban-
donment of all required courses in many institutions, grade inflation to
a Point where students received grades for courses they never attended,
Introduction Sidney Hook
and the calm, sometimes explicit, assumption that newly enrolled col- topical. That there should be differences among humanist scholars
lege students are better judges of their educational needs than the concerning how best to nurture the human mind should not be surpris-
wisest of faculties could be. ing. There is no unanimity even among natural scientists concerning
The lengths to which self-characterized liberal-arts colleges are what best nurtures the human body. In both cases there must be a con-
willing to go is apparent in the advertising and promotional materials cern for what is common and what is individual or personal. In both
they distribute to lure students into enrolling. Their theme song is a cases it is false to szy that, because prescriptions are not universal,
promise to students that they will be put to no intellectual strain and therefore no objective and reliable judgments can be reached in the
that whatever they learn will be not merely painless but pleasant. Some context of this time, and this place, and for these men and women.
institutions have offered academic credit to students for a wide variety Every institution of higher education must periodically engage in a
of "life experiences" that have taken place prior to their enrollment self-assessment of its educational goals and the extent to which they
and outside the context of any academic test, control, or objective as- actually guide curricular practice. It can be said with confidence that
sessment of achievement. the reflections contained in this book will, at the very least, serve as a
Students themselves are beginning to reject the curricular pab- powerful catalytic agent in precipitating out insights into the educa-
lum and jello they are being offered-but often for the wrong reasons, tional condition of our institutions of higher education and ways in
chief among which is exclusive preoccupation with education for a which it can be improved.
career. But there are very few careers that can be adeauately prepared This volume contains the main papers and critical commentaries
for by bull sessions and innovative courses uncontrolled by competent developed in connection with the second national conference of the
faculty supervision. It is perfectly legitimate to expect a liberal-arts University Centers for Rational Alternatives, held at Rockefeller Uni-
education to prepare a student through the proper combination of re- versity, New York City, on September 27-22, 1973. Since the major drift
quired and elective courses and individual faculty guidance for a of the papers either ignored or opposed the newer currents of "experi-
meaningful vocation. In one way or another proper liberal education ential education," the editors have included an essay on this theme,
always has. But what we are observing today is emphasis upon a voca- written subsequent to the proceedings of the conference, by Dr. John
tionalism, a kind of preprofessionalism,t hat regards liberal general edu- B. Stephenson, dean of undergraduate studies at the Universitv of
cation as a frosting on the concrete business of education. As society Kentucky, and Dr. Robert F. Sexton, executive director of its office
becomes more technological, the tendency to narrow specialization for Experiential Education, as a rational alternative to traditional and
and vocational orientation becomes reinforced. modern conceptions of liberal education. This essay is noteworthy for
Scholars and teachers who understand the nature of liberal educa- its attempt to integrate within the liberal-arts tradition certain educa-
tion cannot accept these developments with complacency. They tional practices that have hitherto been considered foreign to it. Re-
realize that no matter how technological our society becomes there gardless of the extent of their agreement, readers will find it intellect-
are no important human problems that are purely technical, that all of ually challenging.
them pose choices, and that values and value judgments are at the UCRA, as the sponsoring organization, takes no stand on any of
heart of the great decisions we make, whether as citizens or as men the issues discussed. Each participant speaks for himself only. The third
and women. Without a liberal-arts education to undergird or accom- national conference of UCRA will be entitled "The Ethics of Teaching
pany or interpenetrate vocational or professional education, the latter and Scientific Research."
cannot be adequate. Art, literature, history, philosophy, religion, the
natural and social sciences are not frosting on the cake of education.
They are part of its very being, ignored at the price of our civilization,
and possibly-in an age in which the sudden death of cultures is a gen-
uine threat-of its very survival.
The real question with which all reflective educators must grapple
is what a liberal general education should consist of, not whether it
should be part of the prescribed curriculum of higher education. This
volume addresses itself to that perennial issue-an issue that is always
xii xiii
-
GENERAL EDUCATION
CHALLENGE
AND JUSTI FICATION
General Education and the University Crisis
Wm. Theodore deBary
Columbia University
In the calm that has mysteriously come over our campuses, it may
seem melodramatic to speak still of the "university crisis." Such omi-
nous language will sound anachronistic to some, evoking specters of a
nightmarish past well put behind us. To others it will seem a cliche,
signifyingonly that the inflation of all currencies and the escalation of
rhetoric continues unabated. The crisis I refer to, however, is not the
one that arose with the antiwar movement and has now subsided. It is
a condition of longer standing, the creeping crisis from the neglect and
erosion of general education in the last decade or so. While stirring up
no immediate alarm, the situation merits more serious concern than
many issues that do.
I was previously involved with the fate of general education at a
large conference, in which great apprehension was expressed over
the threat to academic freedom and academic standards. There was
bewilderment over the seeming failure of the younger generation to re-
spect academic freedom or appreciate what its loss could mean. There
was also loud lamentation over the danger to scholarship posed by the
attempted subjection of all learning to the dictates of political rele-
vance. Young barbarians, passionate and perverse, were thought to be
shattering the very foundations of rational discourse and civilized life.
General Education and the University Crisis Wm. Theodore deBary
ACADEMIC VALUES AND GENERAL EDUCATION distinguish, then, between a prophetic role or pontificial authority,
which the university cannot assume without predetermining its con-
I am as concerned as anyone over the survival of academic freedom clusions in the search for truth, and a magisterial function that it can-
and independent scholarship, and yet it seemed obvious to me that the not abdicate as long as it claims any competence in the intellectual
mere invocation of these values alone would not suffice as a remedy. preparation and training of the young.
Civility cannot be restored so easily to a generation already turned off
on civilization (if, indeed, one can speak in such sweeping terms about THE NEGLECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION
today's students as a whole). The highest standards of scholarship may
impress them in a lofty and remote way without actually enlisting their Education in the basic values and the larger purposes of the human
sympathies. "Academic excellence" appears to exist on the high plane community has been one of the major tasks of what we have called
of advanced scholarly research and training, far removed from their "general education," and its neglect or mismanagement has been dele-
mundane education. terious both to the university community and the larger society. By
If it is too much to expect that "pure," untrammeled scholarship saying this, I imply neither that the raison d'Ctre of general education is
will be accepted unquestioningly as the highest human good and that the defense of academic freedom, nor that the survival of the latter can
all study be taken merely as preparation for this, may we not have to be assured simply by a renewed attention to the former. What should
recognize a restiveness over the narrowing of educational goals and a be near and dear to the scholar, however, I take as illustrative of the
legitimate resistance to the defining of excellence in terms meaningful larger problem. If he cannot cope with the challenge even in respect to
only to the cognoscenti? If many in the new generation seem to care his own basic needs and functions, how can the scholar discharge his
little about "pure" scholarship, perceive much of it as irrelevant, or responsibilities as an educator in respect to the needs of the larger
think its freedom not their business to defend, does this not point to an community?
educational failure for which scholars themselves, and not just others, One explanation of our recent difficulties with youth has focused
are to blame? on their appetite for instant gratification and their inability to appre-
At issue, it seems to me, is the question of whether in recent years ciate the processes, sometimes laborious and time-consuming, neces-
the academy has not enjoyed such prestige, such fashionable atten- sary to provide for its satisfaction. There is a similar weakness among
tion, and indeed such privilege (I refer to the competition for "star" academics, especially in the graduate and professional schools, who
scholars and the improper concessions made to free them from teach- have expected instant recognition of their own highest values. without
attending to the educational processes needed to justify and sustain
ing) that its members had come to take their own existence, rights,
them. It has always been easier to find fault with general education
and freedoms for granted. Today nothing less than an active commit-
than to do anything about it; to dismiss it as simplistic, given to over-
ment to education-and not just the training of scholars-can reestab-
generalization or lacking in rigor; and then to complain about the re-
lish these on a sound basis. Converts cannot be won over if that free-
sults of undergraduate education when it failed to produce nice people
dom is represented by no more than "pure" or "critical" scholarship, if
with an appreciation for the finer things in life, namely one's own
it seems to set no larger purposes before the student than the scholar's
brand of scholarship.
right to pursue his own interests or to sequester himself in a specialty
In a major study, The Purposes and the Performance of Higher
where no one else can get to him. Positive values supportive of intel-
Education in the United States,' the Carnegie Commission on Higher
lectual and cultural freedom can be reestablished only if they are re-
Education does not fail to acknowledge the importance of general
sponsive to more widely shared concerns, so that the scholar's auton-
education. Their report cites it as a prime need of students (page 13), as
omy is exercised in behalf of something more than his own predilec-
first among six fundamental educational responsibilities of the univer-
tions, undisturbed by the needs and problems of others.
sity (pp. 17-18), and as first among a series of sixteen university func-
I am aware of the dangers in committing the university to such
$educational activism. Itw ill seem that the university is being asked to tions (pp. 65-66). Yet nowhere in the one-hundred-and-seven-page re-
Port is there a description of prime need, responsibility, and function
assume a prophetic, if not pontifical, role in regard to the teaching of
values or the solution of human problems, whereas, in fact, I ask only in any but the briefest, simplest terms: "acquiring a general under-
that it discuss them in as thoroughgoing a way as it knows how. I would Standing of society and the place of the individual within it,. . . [in-
General Education and the University Crisis Wrn. Theodore deBary
pense of the liberal arts, nor has he set vocationalism in opposition to
cluding] contact with history and the nature of other cultures" (p. 13);
the humanities. For him, "career education" represents a combining of
and "broad learning experiences-the provision of opportunities to
"career training" and "liberal education."
survey the cultural heritage of mankind, to understand man and
Yet it disturbs me that in combining these two terms the word "lib-
societyM( p. 65).
eral" has been displaced in favor of "career." I do not suggest that
I do not wish to commit the common sin of book reviewers who
combining them to produce "liberal training" is a practicable alter-
belabor authors for what they have left unsaid rather than what they
native, but one can nevertheless see that a shift in emphasis is taking
have actually written. I simply point to the discrepancy between the
place and that liberal education comes out second best-if it is in the
high priority assigned to general education and their comparative
running at all. Somehow the impression is conveyed that one can have
silence in regard to its nature, content, and practice. Nor is this lack
made up in any of the numerous other reports issued by the Carnegie the fullness of education without paying the whole price. This impres-
sion is strengthened by two related factors: the program's close identi-
Commission. Here then is a major need, explicitly acknowledged, for
fication with proposals to shorten the time spent in college, and the
which an up-to-date answer is conspicuously missing.
The term "general education" conveys the impression of some- comparative lack of any discussion as to how the liberal arts or human-
ities are to be fortified to meet this all-out competition for the student's
thing that is inherently diffuse, and when one speaks of it in the same
attention over such a short length of time.
context as "humanities," "liberal education," and even "continuing
education" (with its connotations of adult education, night school and One need not question the sincerity of the intention in order to
demonstrate how empty is the gesture being made to liberal education.
all that), one risks unlimited confusion, if not the charge of being
It can no longer be assumed, as both Dr. Marland and the Carnegie
hopelessly vague and woolly.
Commission seem to have done, that the basic elements of humanistic
education are there for the taking or that general education is
LIBERAL EDUCATION, GENERAL EDUCATION, AND CAREER
something for which one only needs to make a place. After years of
TRAINING'
neglect, the problem for general education is not how to make allow-
General education-though to me, as to the Carnegie Commission, a ance for it but how to make active provision for it.
vital part of liberal education-is not the whole of it. Liberal educa- Paying tribute to humanistic education is not the same thing as
working at it, and uttering the usual pieties will do little to restore hu-
tion, most people would agree, aims to liberate the powers of the indi-
manistic values if they have been eroding away while everyone took
vidual by disciplining them; and that discipline, in turn, immediately
them for granted. Without a more conscious effort being made in gen-
relates the individual to the values of his or her culture and to certain
eral education, the vocational stress in Dr. Marland's program and the
social necessities. I do not, then, have any difficulty in accepting even
pressures of the speedup will leave the humanities in an even weaker
professional training or vocational education as contributing to those
and more disadvantaged position. Thus, rather than allowing "liberal
aims. The educated man or woman, the member of society, even the
education" to be subsumed under career education in a sterile and life-
purported citizen of the world, needs this everyday discipline if he or
less form, I would urge restoring it to full primacy. This can only be
she is to be liberated from a sense of total dependence on others. He
done through the active development of general education as a vital
must have something of his own that he can contribute to the work of
complement to career training, and by recognizing both of these as
the world, and if he learns to do it well, that will be part of his liberal
essential to a liberal education that is worthy of the name and not just
education. It is not to be scorned as "mere vocationalism."
window dressing for vocationalism.
For this reason I can appreciate the concerns that have given rise
If this seems to be mere quibbling over terms, other factors in our
to the current drive for "career education" among public policymakers
current situation make it more than a terminological issue. Besides the
and funding agencies. The US. commissioner of education, Dr. Sidney
crisis of values and the breakdown of language, there is today the ines-
Marland, is not mistaken in believing that most Americans, old or
capable political involvement. Quite apart from the threat of overt
young, attach great importance to career preparation as an educa-
pol' icization, heavy dependence on public funding exposes us to the
tional objective, and in finding much of our educational system defec-
vicissitudes of political fortune and bureaucratic rationalization in fed-
tive in meeting this goal.2 I recognize too that in seeking to rectify this
eral and state governments. As just one example, I would cite the
defect Dr. Marland has not meant to advance career training at the ex-