Download or read book Liberal Learning as a Quest for Purpose written by William M. Sullivan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when higher education is introduced to the exploration of meaning and purpose? Liberal Learning as a Quest for Purpose analyzes a remarkable experiment--lasting over a decade and encompassing 88 independent campuses--to reconfigure undergraduate education as a journey toward life purpose. It ties together the liberal arts, personal development, and preparation for life all through the exploration of vocation. -- Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Quest for Purpose written by Perry L. Glanzer and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates how students and educators can resist narrow, utilitarian views of higher educations purpose. While the search for meaning and purpose appears to be a constant throughout human history, there are characteristics about our current time period that make this search different from any other previous time, particularly for college students. In this book, Perry L. Glanzer, Jonathan P. Hill, and Byron R. Johnson explore college students search for meaning and purpose and the role that higher education plays. To shed empirical light on this complex issue, the authors draw on in-depth interviews with four hundred college students from different types of institutions across the United States. They also analyze three sets of national survey data: the National Study of Youth and Religion, College Students Beliefs and Values, and their own Gallup-conducted survey of 2,500 college students. Their research identifies important social, educational, and cultural influences that shape students quests and the answers they find. Arguing against a utilitarian view of education, Glanzer, Hill, and Johnson conclude that colleges and universities can and should cultivate and aid students in their journeys, and they offer suggestions for doing so.
Download or read book Liberal Arts for the Christian Life written by Jeffry C. Davis and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over forty years, Leland Ryken has championed and modeled a Christian liberal arts education. His scholarship and commitment to integrating faith with learning in the classroom have influenced thousands of students who have sat under his winsome teaching. Published in honor of Professor Ryken and presented on the occasion of his retirement from Wheaton College, this compilation carries on his legacy of applying a Christian liberal arts education to all areas of life. Five sections explore the background of a Christian liberal arts education, its theological basis, habits and virtues, differing approaches, and ultimate aims. Contributors including Philip Ryken, Jeffry Davis, Duane Litfin, John Walford, Alan Jacobs, and Jim Wilhoit analyze liberal arts as they relate to the disciplines, the Christian faith, and the world. Also included are a transcript of a well-known 1984 chapel talk delivered by Leland Ryken on the student's calling and practical chapters on how to read, write, and speak well. Comprehensive in scope, this substantial volume will be a helpful guide to anyone involved in higher education, as well as to students, pastors, and leaders looking for resources on the importance of faith in learning.
Download or read book Teaching to Inspire Vocation written by Timothy C. Hohn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-01-15 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique handbook for collegiate faculty, instructors, administrators, and graduate students in education to help professional and technical students discover meaning, purpose, and vocation through their scholarship. College students are looking for more than instrumental career knowledge and skills, they are looking for something to care about and build their lives around: a vocation. The book provides recommendations to enhance and amplify collegiate professional and technical instruction and curricula to support student discernment of vocation. Teaching to Inspire Vocation begins by making a case for teaching for vocation and provides a historical perspective on vocation in Western education. However, the core of the book focuses on the specific elements for an instructional framework on teaching for vocation.
Download or read book Learning to Flourish written by Daniel R. DeNicola and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learning to Flourish offers a lucid, penetrating, philosophical exploration of liberal learning: a still-evolving tradition of theory and practice that has dominated and sustained intellectual life and learning in much of the globe for two millennia.   Daniel R. DeNicola weighs the views of both advocates and critics of the liberal arts, and interprets liberal education as aimed supremely at understanding and living a good life, as a vital tradition generating five competing but complementary paradigms that transcend theories of curriculum and pedagogy and are manifested in particular social contexts. He examines the transformative power of liberal education and its relation to such values as freedom, autonomy, and democracy, reflecting on the importance of intrinsic value and moral understanding. Finally, he considers age-old obstacles and current threats to liberal education, ultimately asserting its value for and urgent need in a global, pluralistic, technologically advanced society. Offering a bold yet nuanced theory of liberal education, this study will be of great interest to educators as well as those specializing in Philosophy of Education.  !--[if gte mso 9] Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9] ![endif]--!--[if gte mso 10] /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:Ɛ mso-fareast-language:Ɛ mso-bidi-language:Ɛ} ![endif]--
Download or read book Learning in Public written by Courtney E. Martin and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This "provocative and personally searching"memoir follows one mother's story of enrolling her daughter in a local public school (San Francisco Chronicle), and the surprising, necessary lessons she learned with her neighbors. From the time Courtney E. Martin strapped her daughter, Maya, to her chest for long walks, she was curious about Emerson Elementary, a public school down the street from her Oakland home. She learned that White families in their gentrifying neighborhood largely avoided the majority-Black, poorly-rated school. As she began asking why, a journey of a thousand moral miles began. Learning in Public is the story, not just Courtney’s journey, but a whole country’s. Many of us are newly awakened to the continuing racial injustice all around us, but unsure of how to go beyond hashtags and yard signs to be a part of transforming the country. Courtney discovers that her public school, the foundation of our fragile democracy, is a powerful place to dig deeper. Courtney E. Martin examines her own fears, assumptions, and conversations with other moms and dads as they navigate school choice. A vivid portrait of integration’s virtues and complexities, and yes, the palpable joy of trying to live differently in a country re-making itself. Learning in Public might also set your family’s life on a different course forever.
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 176 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 Higher Expectations written by Derek Bok and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How our colleges and universities can respond to the changing hopes and needs of society In recent decades, cognitive psychologists have cast new light on human development and given colleges new possibilities for helping students acquire skills and qualities that will enhance their lives and increase their contributions to society. In this landmark book, Derek Bok explores how colleges can reap the benefits of these discoveries and create a more robust undergraduate curriculum for the twenty-first century. Prior to this century, most psychologists thought that creativity, empathy, resilience, conscientiousness, and most personality traits were largely fixed by early childhood. What researchers have now discovered is that virtually all of these qualities continue to change through early adulthood and often well beyond. Such findings suggest that educators may be able to do much more than was previously thought possible to teach students to develop these important characteristics and thereby enable them to flourish in later life. How prepared are educators to cultivate these qualities of mind and behavior? What do they need to learn to capitalize on the possibilities? Will college faculties embrace these opportunities and make the necessary changes in their curricula and teaching methods? What can be done to hasten the process of innovation and application? In providing answers to these questions, Bok identifies the hurdles to institutional change, proposes sensible reforms, and demonstrates how our colleges can help students lead more successful, productive, and meaningful lives.
Download or read book Liberal Education and Value Relativism written by Patrick Malcolmson and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many if not most of the students who enroll in Bachelor of Arts programs do so without a clear sense of purpose. This book introduces new or prospective university students to the B.A. degree. It seeks to explain the nature and purpose of liberal education, and discusses how liberal education is being undermined in today's university.
Download or read book The Demands of Liberal Education written by Meira Levinson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What should the aims of education be in a liberal society and who should exercise control over education? How can children be taught to become good citizens of a pluralistic state? The Demands of Liberal Education seeks to answer these questions by drawing upon political theory, philosophy of education, and empirical research to develop a liberal theory of children's education that is provocative and new. The book argues that contrary to the assumptions of many philosophers, educators, parents and politicians, the liberal state is obligated as a matter of justice to help all children develop the capacity for autonomy. Levinson argues that liberal governments should exercise much greater control over schools than they now do.
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 Powers of the Mind written by Donald N. Levine and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2006-11-15 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book The Future of Liberal Education written by Timothy W. Burns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberal Education, once the whole of American Higher Education, has been displaced by technical training and career-oriented majors. But it has also suffered from the decline in genuine liberal learning found in humanities disciplines, owing to specialization, politicization, and the adoption of new literary and psychological theories. The social sciences, too, have arguably abandoned the kind of relentless and sometimes disturbing questioning that used to constitute the core of education. In this compelling volume, thirteen college educators describe in sparkling prose what liberal education is, its place in a liberal democracy, the very serious challenges it faces in the 21st century—even from some of its alleged friends—and why it is important to sustain and expand liberal education’s place in American colleges and universities. Proponents and critics of liberal education alike will benefit from these insightful essays. This book was originally published as a special issue of Perspectives on Political Science.
Download or read book The Quest for Meaningful Special Education written by Amy Ballin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-12-07 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every child should have access to an education that works. The Quest for a Meaningful Special Education follows the educational journeys of nine students with a language-based learning disability (LBLD) who, through a combination of parental advocacy and luck, were removed from a debilitating learning situation and enrolled in a school designed to address their particular learning needs. In the process of following their journeys, the book explores the role of cultures within and outside the school and examines some of the ways that the construction of special education has affected student learning. In the context of the ongoing national conversation about student academic success, high school dropout rates, the disproportionate number of prison inmates with learning disabilities, the costs of educating students, and the controversy over the placement of minorities in special education, The Quest For a Meaningful Special Education is a timely book that will add a new perspective to current debates
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.
Download or read book The Quest for Excellence written by Dustin Gish and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberal education aspires to excellence through the cultivation of free human beings who excel in thought, word, and deed. But what exactly is excellence, and why do we admire it? How do we conceive of what is excellent? What constitutes excellence—either for human beings, or in the realms of philosophy, literature, science, and politics? Why is excellence an aim of liberal education? What kinds of texts, courses, and inquiries contribute to achieving this end? Such questions animate the studies herein. The essays in this volume reflect on the idea of excellence embedded within core texts, as well as how such texts influence and ennoble higher education. In its chapters, we consider rival forms of excellence from ancient Greece and Rome, through modern Europe and America, and beyond. The world of antiquity and its accounts of excellence, as represented in the works of Euripides, Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, and Cicero, are here brought into dialogue with diverse modern perspectives on excellence, as articulated by Shakespeare, Descartes, Newton, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Austen, Darwin, Lincoln, Tennyson, and Nietzsche, as well as (more recently) by John Dewey, Martin Luther King Jr., Cardinal Newman, and Eboo Patel. Our desire to seek and understand excellence transcends borders, and the purpose of this volume is to help perpetuate in contemporary higher education the study of core texts essential to the cultivation of excellence in the liberal arts and sciences.
Download or read book HARDBARNED One Man s Quest for Meaningful Work in the American South written by Christopher J. Driver and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overeducated and underemployed? In love with learning but stumped on how to translate it into a paycheck? Desperately striving to make your seemingly useless liberal arts education work for you in any sort of satisfying or meaningful way? Trying to simultaneously engage your interests, skillset and values and still pay the bills while pleading for another student loan deferment? I feel your pain and have stories to share, but if you're looking for inspirational uplift, self-help or a life coach, please look elsewhere. HARDBARNED! One Man's Quest for Meaningful Work in the American South is a darkly comic, brutally honest and introspective memoir about working for a living--without being able to shake the feeling that there has got to be more to it than that.
