{"id":179,"date":"2019-05-01T18:11:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T22:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/?p=179"},"modified":"2019-05-01T18:13:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T22:13:19","slug":"reforming-liberal-education-and-the-core-after-the-twentieth-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/2019\/05\/01\/reforming-liberal-education-and-the-core-after-the-twentieth-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Reforming liberal education and the core after the twentieth century"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wudel, D., Weber, R., & Lee, J. S. (2006). Reforming liberal education and the core after the twentieth century: Selected papers from the eight annual conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses, Montreal, Canada, April 4-7, 2002. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.<\/p>\n

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This selection of papers from the eighth annual conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses offers selected brief papers grouped under five headings: Building Programs, Assessment, Core Texts (Old, New, nontraditional), Science & Humanities, and Problems and Possibilities of a Liberal Education.\u00a0 A common theme is the centrality of \u201ccore text programs\u201d to liberal education.<\/p>\n

Describing a four-semester \u201cCollegiate Seminar\u201d at St. Mary\u2019s College of California, Hamaker & Sweeney emphasize faculty engagement, institutional support, mentoring for new faculty, seminar-style classes and seminar-related activities as elements making the seminar a campus wide \u201ccore culture of shared inquiry\u201d (p.3). Buerk & Harper stress collaboration and shared discourse among eight faculty members from diverse disciplines in developing common readings and assignments for a Global Civilization seminar. \u00a0Ann Kirkland relates her experience in developing a weeklong summer \u201cvacation\u201d and weekend reading program \u201cPursuing the Classics\u201d for adults \u2013 an interesting idea to apply to students and\/or faculty. \u00a0A refreshing contribution is Joy Castro\u2019s description opening a Core course \u201cCultures and Traditions\u201d to staff at Wabash College and its positive effects on the campus community. Groake & Smith recount the challenges of starting \u201cCore Program Campus\u201d in the small city of Brantford, Ontario.\u00a0 Their explanation of the slow initial enrolment has broad applicability to liberal education (Brantford later combined the Core program with \u201cCompanion\u201d majors and minors that were more attractive to students, but the \u201ccore program\u201d does not appear to be included on the university website).<\/p>\n

The prospective students we wished to attract (and their parents) \u2026. Had little interest in core texts or broader intellectual reflection, and identified \u2026 with a culture that was instead defined by popular music, television sitcoms, the World Wide Web, and other forms of mainstream culture \u2026. Most of the students and parents we hoped to reach did not appreciate the value of liberal arts education and were instead preoccupied with a desire for career-oriented programs (p. 33).<\/p>\n

Because \u201cliberal education\u201d and \u201cscience education\u201d are frequently treated as two different (often competing) endeavors, I was particularly interested in the section \u201cthe Sciences and Humanities Together\u201d.<\/p>\n

George Lucas\u2019s \u201cReading Descartes\u2019s Meditations through the lens of mathematics\u201d is a long (although often amusing) essay, but worth persevering.\u00a0 In contrast to the other essays in this book it does not focus at all on Core texts or Core courses, and yet to my mind it is the most relevant and penetrating among them.<\/p>\n

As well as offering some excellent insights on students and teaching, he addresses the arbitrary separation of disciplines and their \u201cpossession\u201d of texts through the example of Rene Descartes.\u00a0 Descartes was both a mathematician and a philosopher, but math texts typically ignore his philosophy and philosophy texts treat his contributions to mathematics as a \u201chistorical sidebar\u201d.\u00a0 Lucas relates how teaching Descartes in a philosopher class while also teaching mathematics made \u201ca subtle but profound difference\u201d in the way he viewed and interpreted Meditations; \u201cthe things that we think we understand [and present to our students] take on a different shading when read against the backdrop of Descartes as a mathematician<\/em>\u201d (p.130). He observes that what philosophy professors \u201cpossess that their students do not [is a] received, sanctioned, disciplinary \u201ctake\u201d or widely shared perspective\u201d (p.133) that promotes such separation and impedes interpretations from different perspectives.\u00a0 Lucas gives the wonderful example that contrary to mainstream interpretation, Descartes was not hopelessly mired in the famous \u201cmind-body problem\u201d but gives a lucid explanation:\u00a0 \u201cI am not merely present \u2018in\u2019 my body a sailor is present in a ship \u2026 I am very closely joined as it were intermingled with it\u201d (p. 134). He speaks of \u201cdisciplinary glaucoma \u2026 in which there is a loss of horizon or perspective, a narrowing of the intellectual vision\u201d versus a perspective unrestricted by \u201cdisciplinary lenses\u201d that sees \u201ca larger, comprehensive project as viewed from a horizon or perspective that is not initially subdivided\u201d (p. 135). With regard to Descartes, Lucas bemoans that \u201chis works now belong to two distinct groups or disciplines whose members rarely communicate with one another\u201d (p. 136).\u00a0 His approach is to illustrate to students the mathematical approach that underlies much of Descartes\u2019s philosophy, so that \u201ceach step \u2026 in Descartes\u2019s essay increasingly comes to look to them exactly like what they would expect a mathematician, who is developing a reliable model of the world, to do\u201d (p. 143).\u00a0 The final part of the essay offers interpretations of Meditations from a mathematical perspective, along with echoes of Descartes warning that there are some questions (such as God\u2019s purpose) that are beyond the scope of reason.<\/p>\n

Anne Leavitt gives a much briefer illustration of a work that scorns the separation of disciplines, Edwin A. Abbot\u2019s Flatland: a Romance of the Many Dimensions,<\/em> which \u201cboth playfully and seriously reveals that in the multi-dimensional world of lived human experience such neat divisions are abstractions, capable of revealing some things but also of burying others below our visual and cognitive horizons\u201d (p. 150).<\/p>\n

The essay that stands out in the final section is David Neidorf\u2019s \u201c(Mis)using the Odyssey as \u201cCourse Materials\u201d: How to Subvert Liberal Education by Mistake, which takes the discussion beyond \u201cchoosing core texts\u201d to \u201cusing core texts\u201d.\u00a0 Neidorf notes that \u201cthere are lots of ways to use core texts \u2026 that have nothing to do with liberal education\u201d (p. 178).\u00a0 One of these is using texts to support or illustrate one\u2019s own argument.\u00a0 He concludes that subverting \u201cgreat books\u201d as \u201ccourse materials\u201d prevents them being read with the \u201cexcitement and attention\u201d they deserve (p. 179).<\/p>\n

Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n