The title is a bit misleading here. Basically, I'm working on drafting a dialogue (of all things) about the future of liberal arts education for my "Future of English Studies" course. The goal is, in short, to reimagine the St. John's College Great Books program - or something like it - with an eye towards important modern concepts like multiculturalism and technology. The fundamental question is, how much do you lose from the radical dialogic pedagogy of the college in modernizing it (or post-modernizing* it, I guess).
* Post-modernism still makes me viscerally uncomfortable, even as I recognize that almost everyone - including myself - with any semblance of education in the modern world believes in it implicitly. Truth is relative? Of course. Context matters? Duh. Moral sensibilities have more to do with culture than with eternal, Platonic forms? Yeah, I guess so. That doesn't change, though, that I also dislike post-modernism. I think this is in part due to its horrible name. Someone should have foreseen a problem with future naming of philosophical movements when they called their own time "modern." Someone else should have realized that calling the next movement "post-modernism" was also silly. What comes next? Post-post-modernism?
The goal in this post is not to write my draft, but to pose questions. That is, I don't even plan on trying to answer or discuss those questions here: that's what the dialogue will do. I just want to pose questions. So without further ado, here are, in no particular order, questions for the liberal arts major:
- Is it desirable for every student in a college to share a reading list with every other student?
- Is it possible to share a reading list in a multicultural curriculum?
- What makes for a good classroom discussion, and how important is a shared reading list - or even a shared reading - to that project?
- How could a St. John's-like program teach writing effectively without abandoning its pedagogical roots?
- What is more important to St. John's pedagogy: the illusion of equality in the classroom, the apparent absence of grades, the commitment to the shared reading (and no outside sources), or the participation of a sufficient percentage of the students in the class?
- How many students and tutors is ideal?
- What is the purpose of a liberal arts education? How can we justify it in the modern world?
- Could St. John's work as a multicultural institution? That is, is it merely the reading list, or is it the entire structure that is racist and sexist? (Can the subaltern speak?)
- Indeed, is higher education in general (not just St. John's) not culturally hegemonic?
- What subjects should make up "tutorials?" At St. John's we do Math, Laboratory, Music, and Language. Are these the best options? What is the goal of the tutorial?
- If Husserl's "Crisis of the European Sciences" organizes the traditional St. John's, what text or texts would best organize a modern St. John's?
- How should a student be assessed in a dialogic classroom?
- Is it possible to just update the reading list and keep everything else about St. John's the same?
- If we did update the reading list, what would be thrown out or condensed, and what would be added? Isn't it too ironic to have a multicultural, post-modern canon?
- What about increasingly prominent non-textual works of art and philosophy, like movies, documentaries, albums, and born-digital documents like blogs or video games? What would it mean to study these, and would it be possible to do so in a dialogic classroom?
- Can elements of the St. John's program be recreated online?
- What would a fully digital St. John's seminar look like; what would it gain over the traditional model, and what would it lose?
- How important is the credential to a liberal arts education? Practically and theoretically.
- How should questions like these even be decided? That is, how should a modern liberal arts program be run politically and socially?
I'm sure I could pose more questions, but this seems to me a good start. Of course, if you have any thoughts, I'm happy to hear them.
Monday, November 21, 2011
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Came to this way too late, but I'm absorbed by the same question. I would love to read the dialogue that emerged from your paper. My specific incarnation, in addition to 'what does the Liberal Arts look like in the 21st century?', is 'what does the Liberal Arts look like in China?'
ReplyDeleteRather cursory answers:
- Is it desirable for every student in a college to share a reading list with every other student?
*Perhaps not a reading list, but a kind of compilation of meaningful media as a starting point for dialogue. Do you read Brainpickings? They are all about curation of ideas. Perhaps something like that: a curated exhibition
- Is it possible to share a reading list in a multicultural curriculum?
* Even bigger than possible translation challenges might be the bias towards reading. What about cultures where reading is not valued as highly and oral tradition or some other form is more dominant, would they be left out?
- What makes for a good classroom discussion, and how important is a shared reading list - or even a shared reading - to that project?
* Whew, hard. A shared something definitely proves useful to keeping the discussion focused- an important element of good discussion. But a shared reading can also limit perspective and creativity. A shared problem or scenario might be better.
- How could a St. John's-like program teach writing effectively without abandoning its pedagogical roots?
*Having students share their writing with one another and provide responses. 1) students would write better simply because of desire for peer esteem and 2) would reinforce the collaborative learning process rather than maintain the tutor as the sole arbitrator of good writing.
- What is more important to St. John's pedagogy: the illusion of equality in the classroom, the apparent absence of grades, the commitment to the shared reading (and no outside sources), or the participation of a sufficient percentage of the students in the class?
*illusion of equality in the classroom and that every student in the community takes the same classes so that conversation can occur within and outside class.
- How many students and tutors is ideal?
*In terms of total in the college, I don't have enough experience with larger institutions to really know. I
- What is the purpose of a liberal arts education? How can we justify it in the modern world?
*Huge question and needs more discussion for sure. I would say the purpose is to foster the ability to examine and solve problems from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. The other purpose is to instill in students that education is life itself, not a preparation or supplement to it. I would say the two strongest justifications are the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of global problems and the increasing trend that shows how important passion and interest are to effective innovation.
The other responses exceed the limit of characters, so I've emailed them to you.