Download or read book In Defense of a Liberal Education written by Fareed Zakaria and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.
Download or read book From Perception to Meaning written by Beate Hampe and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-08-22 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1987 landmark publications by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson made image schema one of the cornerstone concepts of the emerging experientialist paradigm of Cognitive Linguistics, a framework founded upon the rejection of the mind-body dichotomy and stressing the fundamentally embodied nature of meaning, imagination and reason - hence language. Conceived of as the pre-linguistic, dynamic and highly schematic gestalts arising directly from motor movement, object manipulation, and perceptual interaction, image schemas served to anchor abstract reasoning and imagination to sensori-motor patterns in the conceptual theory of metaphor. Being itself informed by preceding crosslinguistic work on semantic primitives in the linguistic representations of spatial relations (carried out by L. Talmy, R. Langacker, and others), the notion has inspired a large amount of subsequent research and debate on diverse issues ranging from the meaning, structure and acquisition of natural languages to the embodied mind itself. From Perception to Meaning is the first survey of current image-schema theory and offers a collection of original and innovative essays by leading scholars, many of whom have shaped the theory from the very beginning. The edition unites essays on major issues in recent research on image-schemas - from aspects of their definition and linguistic formalization, their psychological status and neural grounding to their role as semantic universals and primitives in language acquisition. The book will thus not only be welcomed by linguists of a cognitive orientation, but will prove relevant to philosophers, psychologists, and anthropologists interested in language, and indeed to anyone studying the embodied mind.
Download or read book College written by Andrew Delbanco and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.
Download or read book Observations Upon Liberal Education written by George Turnbull and published by Natural Law and Enlightenment. This book was released on 2003 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observations upon Liberal Education, the first modern edition, arose from a longing for a liberty of mind and tried to lay the groundwork for a society of free, virtuous, and educated citizens. The work's influence was by no means confined to Scotland. Benjamin Franklin drew generously from the work of Turnbull. The Liberty Fund edition of Observations upon Liberal Education is the first modern edition of this work ever published.
Download or read book Redefining Liberal Arts Education in the Twenty First Century written by Robert E. Luckett Jr. and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions by William D. Adams, Sarah Archino, Mario J. Azevedo, Katrina Byrd, Rico D. Chapman, Helen O. Chukwuma, Monica Flippin Wynn, Tatiana Glushko, Eric J. Griffin, Kathi R. Griffin, Yumi Park Huntington, Thomas M. Kersen, Robert E. Luckett Jr., Floyd W. Martin, Preselfannie W. McDaniels, Dawn Bishop McLin, Lauren Ashlee Messina, Byron D'Andra Orey, Kathy Root Pitts, Candis Pizzetta, Lawrence Sledge, RaShell R. Smith-Spears, Joseph Martin Stevenson, Seretha D. Williams, and Karen C. Wilson-Stevenson Redefining Liberal Arts Education in the Twenty-First Century delves into the essential nature of the liberal arts in America today. During a time when the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and math dominate the narrative around the future of higher education, the liberal arts remain vital but frequently dismissed academic pursuits. While STEAM has emerged as a popular acronym, the arts get added to the discussion in a way that is often rhetorical at best. Written by scholars from a diversity of fields and institutions, the essays in this collection legitimize the liberal arts and offer visions for the role of these disciplines in the modern world. From the arts, pedagogy, and writing to social justice, the digital humanities, and the African American experience, the essays that comprise Redefining Liberal Arts Education in the Twenty-First Century bring attention to the vast array of ways in which the liberal arts continue to be fundamental parts of any education. In an increasingly transactional environment, in which students believe a degree must lead to a specific job and set income, colleges and universities should take heed of the advice from these scholars. The liberal arts do not lend themselves to the capacity to do a single job, but to do any job. The effective teaching of critical and analytical thinking, writing, and speaking creates educated citizens. In a divisive twenty-first-century world, such a citizenry holds the tools to maintain a free society, redefining the liberal arts in a manner that may be key to the American republic.
Download or read book Stairway to College Heaven written by Victoria Tillson Evans and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The college planning and application process is not an impenetrable mystery. The sooner you understand how it works, the sooner you can empower your child to make informed college decisions. Stop procrastinating!This book tells the story of Michelle, a determined mom who will stop at nothing to ensure that her son, Jack, has plenty of choices for college. When Jack announces he needs to start thinking about college, Michelle panics -- but only for a moment. Stairway to College Heaven traces Michelle's journey from confusion to confidence. Led by three enthusiastic, nacho-loving guides, Michelle discovers the obstacles that lurk ahead and finds the strategies to overcome them.Victoria Tillson Evans, Jonathan Perkins, and Phil Sung, have teamed up to bring you a wealth of practical advice about your family's college journey. Victoria earned her BA from Johns Hopkins University and her AM and PhD from Harvard University; she runs Distinctive College Consulting in Bethesda, Maryland. Jon earned his BA from Stanford University and his JD from Harvard Law School; he offers college counseling services through Essaywise in Palos Verdes Estates, California. Phil earned his BA from Stanford; he provides college counseling and ACT/SAT test prep services through Essaywise in Palo Alto, California. The Stairway to College Heaven awaits. Are you ready to take the first step?
Download or read book Tendencies in Secondary Education with Special Reference to the Situation in the Cape Province of the Union of South Africa written by Wouter de Vos Malan and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Meaning of Things written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1981-10-30 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The meaning of things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling.
Download or read book Dastardly Discourse written by Meg Gorzycki and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Screaming at the television, compulsively firing off tart little tweets, and blogging until we are blue; these signal that we are feeling the effects of dastardly discourse. We live in a world where people feel entitled to use words to hurt, exploit, and publicly degrade humanity. We daily consume rhetoric that makes a mockery of decency and civility. Leaders of key social institutions, including government, news media, and religious organizations, who are supposed to be role models of reasoned and compassionate communication are often the ones with the loudest lies and the hardest hate. We can change the channel. We can unplug. We can even encourage others to do the same. We may not do so, however, until we grasp what is fundamentally at risk in our current norms of communication. Nasty words are just the tip of the dastardly discourse iceberg. What lies beneath is a steady flow of propaganda that aims to control our personal narratives. This book is about that propaganda, the importance of owning our own narratives, and improving our own rhetorical capital--the ability to analyze and evaluate information--for the sake of sustaining human dignity, decency, and civility.
Download or read book Let s Be Reasonable written by Jonathan Marks and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-31 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A conservative college professor's compelling defense of liberal education Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. In Let's Be Reasonable, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks finds in liberal education an antidote to this despair, arguing that the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable—and revealing why the health of our democracy is at stake. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and other thinkers, Marks presents the case for why, now more than ever, conservatives must not give up on higher education. He recognizes that professors and administrators frequently adopt the language and priorities of the left, but he explains why conservative nightmare visions of liberal persecution and indoctrination bear little resemblance to what actually goes on in college classrooms. Marks examines why advocates for liberal education struggle to offer a coherent defense of themselves against their conservative critics, and demonstrates why such a defense must rest on the cultivation of reason and of pride in being reasonable. More than just a campus battlefield guide, Let's Be Reasonable recovers what is truly liberal about liberal education—the ability to reason for oneself and with others—and shows why the liberally educated person considers reason to be more than just a tool for scoring political points.
Download or read book Beyond the University written by Michael S. Roth and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.
Download or read book Virtue Politics written by James Hankins and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Helen and Howard Marraro Prize A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year “Perhaps the greatest study ever written of Renaissance political thought.” —Jeffrey Collins, Times Literary Supplement “Magisterial...Hankins shows that the humanists’ obsession with character explains their surprising indifference to particular forms of government. If rulers lacked authentic virtue, they believed, it did not matter what institutions framed their power.” —Wall Street Journal “Puts the politics back into humanism in an extraordinarily deep and far-reaching way...For generations to come, all who write about the political thought of Italian humanism will have to refer to it; its influence will be...nothing less than transformative.” —Noel Malcolm, American Affairs “[A] masterpiece...It is only Hankins’s tireless exploration of forgotten documents...and extraordinary endeavors of editing, translation, and exposition that allow us to reconstruct—almost for the first time in 550 years—[the humanists’] three compelling arguments for why a strong moral character and habits of truth are vital for governing well. Yet they are as relevant to contemporary democracy in Britain, and in the United States, as to Machiavelli.” —Rory Stewart, Times Literary Supplement “The lessons for today are clear and profound.” —Robert D. Kaplan Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; religious leaders preoccupied with self-advancement while feuding armies waged endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. “Men, not walls, make a city,” as Thucydides so memorably said. They would rebuild the fabric of society by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft. A landmark reappraisal of Renaissance political thought, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker. James Hankins reveals that what most concerned the humanists was not reforming institutions so much as shaping citizens. If character mattered more than laws, it would have to be nurtured through a new program of education they called the studia humanitatis: the precursor to our embattled humanities.
Download or read book Why Choose the Liberal Arts written by Mark William Roche and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2010-08-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where the value of a liberal arts education is no longer taken for granted, Mark William Roche lucidly and passionately argues for its essential importance. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience in higher education as a student, faculty member, and administrator, Roche deftly connects the broad theoretical perspective of educators to the practical needs and questions of students and their parents. Roche develops three overlapping arguments for a strong liberal arts education: first, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake, including exploration of the profound questions that give meaning to life; second, the cultivation of intellectual virtues necessary for success beyond the academy; and third, the formative influence of the liberal arts on character and on the development of a sense of higher purpose and vocation. Together with his exploration of these three values—intrinsic, practical, and idealistic—Roche reflects on ways to integrate them, interweaving empirical data with personal experience. Why Choose the Liberal Arts? is an accessible and thought-provoking work of interest to students, parents, and administrators.
Download or read book The Politics of Liberal Education written by Darryl Gless and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversy over what role “the great books” should play in college curricula and questions about who defines “the literary canon” are at the forefront of debates in higher education. The Politics of Liberal Education enters this discussion with a sophisticated defense of educational reform in response to attacks by academic traditionalists. The authors here—themselves distinguished scholars and educators—share the belief that American schools, colleges, and universities can do a far better job of educating the nation’s increasingly diverse population and that the liberal arts must play a central role in providing students with the resources they need to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Within this area of consensus, however, the contributors display a wide range of approaches, illuminating the issues from the perspectives of their particular disciplines—classics, education, English, history, and philosophy, among others—and their individual experiences as teachers. Among the topics they discuss are canon-formation in the ancient world, the idea of a “common culture,” and the educational implications of such social movements as feminism, technological changes including computers and television, and intellectual developments such as “theory.” Readers interested in the controversies over American education will find this volume an informed alternative to sensationalized treatments of these issues. Contributors. Stanley Fish, Phyllis Franklin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry A. Giroux, Darryl J. Gless, Gerald Graff, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, George A. Kennedy, Bruce Kuklick, Richard A. Lanham, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Alexander Nehamas, Mary Louise Pratt, Richard Rorty, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Download or read book Restructuring General Education and Core Curricula Requirements written by Tatlock, Julie Christina and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2024-02-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In academia, a looming challenge threatens the very foundations of education as we know it. This formidable adversary is none other than the demographic cliff, a phenomenon that casts a long shadow over the future of higher learning. Simultaneously, the shifting perceptions of education in our modern world have given rise to fierce competition for students. This has resulted in a series of revisions in admission and transfer policies, causing enthusiastic debates about the rightful place of credits within a student's academic journey. Restructuring General Education and Core Curricula Requirements is a groundbreaking book that emerges as the solution to these pressing challenges. This remarkable work serves as a beacon of hope in these turbulent times, offering a comprehensive exploration of the core curricula dilemma and paving the way for transformative change. It addresses the need for thoughtful reflection on the meaning of core curricula in the modern world, diving into its history, and presenting innovative solutions for institutions seeking to provide students with a rigorous and relevant core education.
Download or read book Liberal Studies written by Vivek Mishra and published by IndraStra Global e-Journal Hosting Services. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Liberal Studies journal is a trans-disciplinary bi-annual journal of the School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, INDIA. Each issue of the journal amalgamates research articles, expert opinions, and book reviews on various strands with an endeavor to inquire the contemporary world concerns. Vol. 4, Issue. 1, January-June, 2019 ISSN 2688-9374 (Online) ISSN 2455-9857 (Print) OCLC No: 1119390574
Download or read book Rescuing Socrates written by Roosevelt Montas and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life—and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities. Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college. Weaving together memoir and literary reflection, Rescuing Socrates describes how four authors—Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi—had a profound impact on Montás’s life. In doing so, the book drives home what it’s like to experience a liberal education—and why it can still remake lives.
