Liberal Arts Rant, Part 2

We now return to the Liberal Arts and General Education.

So the challenge for General Education is to dismantle a monolithic legacy system and restructure the pieces. The new structure must take into account that today’s students do not come to higher education as blank slates.  Students now, as we know, are older, and they intuitively understand many general theoretical constructs by virtue of their experience in the real world.  They have already had to deal with ethical issues, and have had to think critically in making life decisions that have significant impact on themselves and others.  Accordingly, General Education must not assume that coursework should flow from theory to practice, or that students need to be lectured to about theory and how to apply it. 

Quite to the contrary, coursework must be able to demonstrate how students’ experience is part of a larger framework, and provide grounding that affirms their experience and enriches it. Students can appreciate the liberal arts more deeply and significantly if they understand that these foundational concepts are all around them and that they employ these ideas and models in their everyday lives.  In this way, coursework must work from practical reality back to a larger theoretical framework that provides for self-reflection and contextualization of life experience for students.  In this way General Education should help adults learn to be reflective and gain multiple perspectives.  For adults, this is not a search for identity, but represents a mark to achievement and a way to make better sense of the world.

It is also the case that students today often come to institutions of higher education with prior experience in postsecondary studies. Students often stop out of college (maybe even multiple times) and may return at the same or a different institution. In an ideal system, these transitions would be seamless and students would progress at their own pace as life circumstances permit.  Sadly this is not the case, due in large part to the antiquated notion of “prerequisite” course sequences and mandatory General Education distribution requirements that dictate a specified number of course that must be completed in a variety of liberal arts categories.

 As I have noted, the notion that today’s students should complete a fixed liberal arts curriculum prior to pursuing a major is outdated and does not reflect how students learn. This becomes a significant obstacle to academic progression as students are forced to take (or retake) courses in order to meet institutional credit structures.  In short, it is not in adults’ (or anyone else’s) best interests to require that they take an insulated set of courses that a given institution has decided ex cathedra provides a solid base of skills and knowledge, regardless of previous learning or experience.  Nor is it useful for transfer students to be forced to retake general education courses simply because a given institution’s prescribed sequence does not match the prescribed sequence at a previous institution. 

So where do we look for a solution?  Stay tuned…..