What Is a Generally Educated Person

Abstract

The late Joseph Katz defined general education as knowledge, skills, and attitudes that all of us use and live by during most of our lives-whether as parents, citizens, lovers, travelers, participants in the arts, leaders, volunteers, or Good Samaritans (AAC 1988, 3). This definition invites individuals into a discussion about which knowledge, skills, and attitudes are most important for students to acquire and about which curricular and instructional practices are most likely to cultivate them. It is important for campuses periodically to hold such conversations because the reasoning behind decisions previously arrived at tends to fade with the passage of time, eroding the social compact that explicitly defines the expectations for student learning and provides a rationale for the curriculum. Then faculty members tend to focus narrowly on their own courses and the interests of their departments and to forget the larger educational agenda facing their students. In such situations, faculty often advise students to get their general education requirements out of the way or teach their own courses in ways that neglect the broader purposes that nurture the qualities that characterize an educated person. Another reason for initiating periodic conversations about the aims of education and the best curricular configurations for achieving them is that large numbers of todays faculty have not been involved in such conversations. In August, I visited three universities launching campus-wide conversations about general education curricula. One had hired more than half of its faculty in the last five years, and the other two had large minorities of new faculty. The new faculty often did not understand the rationale behind certain requirements and lacked commitment to a curriculum that they inherited rather than invented. Most junior faculty welcomed conversations that invited them to participate in making decisions about the best curriculum for their students. When an institution s faculty and other constituencies are asked what is most important for their students to learn, they typically put the liberal arts and sciences-their content, methods, and perspectives-at the top of the list. For example, they commonly decide to emphasize knowledge of history and culture and of science and mathematics; skills such as logical and critical thinking and communication; and knowledge about diversity, intercultural skills, and engagement in the local community. Indeed, there appears to be a convergence about what used to be called the marks of an educated person across a wide variety of groups. Leaders of the professional accreditation bodies for business, education, engineering, and nursing have declared the qualities of liberal education to be central to the successful practice of all those professions. They and their colleagues in regional accrediting and in several educational associations have agreed that students should acquire the following attributes: breadth of knowledge and capacity for lifelong learning; abilities to analyze, communicate, and integrate ideas; and effectiveness in dealing with values, relating to diverse individuals, and developing as individuals (AAC&U 2004a). The General Education We Need Today Why are liberal and general educational outcomes valued so highly today? In part, it is because the United States has moved from an agrarian economy, through an industrial economy, to a knowledge-based economy. Labor economists have determined that, for a knowledge-based economy where many people work on solving unscripted problems, a liberal education is excellent preparation for the best careers (Carnevale and Strohl 2001). These views reverse the old saw, derived from the time of the industrial economy, that liberal and general education are impractical, irrelevant, or unnecessary and that only the major or professional preparation is of value. Indeed, a contemporary liberal or general education may be the most useful career preparation for the knowledge-based economy. …