"Purpose of Education"
Sydney M. Williams
Essays from Essex.
“Purpose of Education”
August 17, 2018
“Education is
the movement from darkness to light.”
Allan
Bloom (1930-1992)
The
Closing of the American Mind, 1987
With ten grandchildren, the two
oldest of whom will be off to college in the fall of 2019 and the youngest only
eight years behind, the state of higher education has been on my mind. Much has
been written about the need for greater emphasis on STEM classes – that China
and India outstrip us in graduates each year in those fields. We read of
cryptocurrencies and cyber theft and recognize the need to understand the
former and thwart the second. There are students talented in these fields, and
they should be encouraged. Less, however, has been written and said about the
decline in humanities and the concomitant attenuation of morals, values and
character that are their progeny. When a student at Morehouse College in 1947,
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote for the college newspaper: “The function of education is to think
intensively and critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of
true education.”
No country in the world has colleges and universities so well endowed,
and so highly regarded as does the United States. Yet, too often, university
administrators see their job as letting students design faddish majors that reflect
a cultural-relevancy, advocating diversity in all ways, excepting ideas and preparing
students for what is their view of a multi-cultural and globally-competitive
world. There have been consequences.
One is the politically-correct model they follow. Students are deprived
of needed contrary and, at times, uncomfortable, speech and opinions. Thus,
there is no open and free debate. Insularity in a world of seven billion
people, awash with myriad philosophies and political system, does little to
encourage curiosity, increase understanding, reduce arrogance and hone rhetoric.
Another consequence is an emphasis on STEM that supersedes humanities.
Certainly, we need students to use their creative talents to invent new
products and services, but we also must consider the consequences, the “whats”
and “whys” of their creations. Why is it needed and what might be its longer-term
effects? Much of life is learning to balance and temper the proven versus the
unproven, dreams from reality. Humanities help. History teaches perspective. Literature
provides insights. Philosophy allows for nuances. Religion makes us think
beyond ourselves. Students need to consider all sides of an argument, even to question
the wisdom and motives of their instructors and professors. When 90% of the
teaching and administrative staff is of one political mind-set, prejudice sets
in. And, as Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote in National Review, “…bias is a force multiplier of ignorance.”
Why, for example, should trigger warnings and safe rooms be necessary if the cloistered
student is to become an unsheltered working woman or man? Do such actions
prepare them for the world, or do they only offer cocoon-like protection for
the duration of their time at university?
There is a fundamental purpose (and need) for education that stretches
beyond math and science, which are subjects more germane for graduate and trade
schools. Students should first read and learn classics that have stood the test
of time. They are the threads that bind generations. Students should study
philosophy and learn economics. They must read history to understand how governments
have evolved, to learn from other’s mistakes and successes. They should read
poetry to appreciate the beauty of words. They must think independently and
communicate effectively. The world is in constant flux, but basic principles of
morals, ethics and character do not change. Even vivid imaginations cannot
predict the positives and negatives of artificial intelligence: which jobs will
be created and which replaced. In a recent issue of National Review, Justin
Dyer and Ryan Streeter recently wrote, “As
artificial intelligence increasingly performs STEM-specific tasks, greater
expectations should be placed on the liberal arts to cultivate the creativity
and curiosity that robots cannot do.” Minds must be prepared for an
unknowable future.
As well, a good education allows people to live rich and rewarding
lives – not only in the material sense – but ones in which literature, art and
music can be appreciated; to understand other cultures and people; to know
one’s heritage and to recognize there are religions whose values do not match
ours; and that a moral sense, while not universal, does exist. C.S. Lewis once
wrote: “Education without values, as
useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” Theodore
Roosevelt went further: “To educate a man
in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, David Books referred to
a metaphor I have used – that the purpose of life is the journey, not the
destination. While agreeably reminiscent of Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, The Places You’ll
Go,” Mr. Brooks raises the question that such attitudes lead to narcissism and
away from social connections. Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute wrote
an article, “The Origins of Our Second Civil War,” in which he laments the role
of higher education that has fostered debt, radicalism and intolerance, and an
absence of shared knowledge, of works like the Bible, Shakespeare, writers during
the Enlightenment and the Founding Fathers. He concludes that religious and
spiritual reawakening are crucial to reforming the university. He suggests that
we confuse technological advancement with improvements in the human condition.
“…technology,” he writes, “is simply the delivery pump…That water can
be delivered ever more rapidly does not mean it ever changes its essence.”
Albert Einstein allegedly once said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” A liberal education should cultivate
curiosity. It is the fuel that fires the brain. A good education should make one
less certain they have all the answers and more eager to question, to debate
and to learn. My father, sitting at the dining room table, would talk to my
brother and me. There were times when we would find his ambivalence unsettling:
“on the one hand, on the other.” However,
we were being taught to question our conclusions. Aristotle allegedly said: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be
able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” You hold a thought or an
opinion in your mind, weigh it, view it from different angles, challenge it and
either accept or reject it. The university should urge its students to question
assumptions, and debate assertions, no matter their ubiquity, popularity and
province. The university should encourage and sate curiosity. Doing so, the
student will satisfy Socrates’ admonition to know thyself. Shakespeare has
Polonius say something similar to Laertes in Hamlet: “This above all: To thine own self be true,
and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst then be false to any man.”
The papers are filled with myriad examples of graduates of our best
universities confusing fiction with fact, praising their elite education, while
making outrageous and erroneous statements. Should not colleges, before
graduation, require students pass an exam, demonstrating proficiency in
history, literature, geography and government, showing to the world and future
employers they will be valued citizens and workers, and to their parents that
four years on campus was worth the $200,000 to $300,000 expended?
In his book, 12 Rules for
Life, Jordan Peterson writes of the struggle between order and chaos. We
require rules, values and standards, but “Order can become excessive, {while]
chaos can swamp us.” It is the search for
balance, for the dividing line between the two, that should be the goal. A
sound education helps. This is what I want for my grandchildren: An education that provides the tools for
considered decisions, to take responsibility for their own lives, to live
without bias, to understand that justice is blind, to be unafraid of contrary
opinions, to appreciate beauty, to find meaning and to be content with who they
are. That pathway blossoms with education, whose roots feed on the humanities.
And that, in my opinion, is the purpose of education.
Labels: Classical Education, Education, Grandchildren, Humanities, STEM, values, Victor Davis Hanson
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