As we prepare to launch another school year, this excellent article by Wesleyan University President Michael Roth is a welcome invitation to consider a most elemental question; what is the purpose of education?
With anxiety levels understandably rising among students and parents, fueled by an uncertain economic future and the ever-increasing cost of education, there has been a predictable movement towards a more utilitarian view of education and an increased emphasis on learning as a tool for economic advancement.
Roth articulates several strong arguments against adopting this narrower conception of the purpose of learning. Some of these arguments are high-minded (and, I think, deeply compelling) abstractions such as the need to prepare critical thinkers who will be active and contemplative citizens, or the added richness that such an education brings to the very experience of living. Others, though, are every bit as pragmatic as the "more you learn the more you earn" hard-liners could ask for. In short, and with no small dose of irony, this more practical line of reasoning holds that a liberal education is the best remedy for the very uncertainty that has propelled us towards the vocational emphasis so much in vogue these days.
The logic is clear; vocationalism requires that we know what a student's work is likely to look like in both the near and distant future (and, therefore, the knowledge they will need to do that work). With the exponential acceleration of change, though, one thing we know for certain is that we truly can't imagine what jobs and skills will be in demand even in 2025 and certainly not in 2050. Futurists are fond of citing the fact that of the 10 fastest-growing professional fields today, a majority didn't even exist a decade ago. Therefore, the classical education model - which focuses on learning how to learn rather than absorbing a discrete and fixed body of knowledge - is the best preparation for the many and varied jobs and skills our students will assume over the course of their lifetimes.
At Friends, we certainly believe in this approach, which is why our Teaching and Learning Paradigm focuses on the timeless qualities we seek to develop in our students so that they will be prepared to thrive in and help to shape a future we can't yet fully conceptualize.
