Educators need to start by showing them that the liberal-arts curriculum is a “bridge” to a new life.
In doing so, they must begin by asking students to think critically about what they are learning.
“The most important thing we can do as educators is to start to understand the ways that the world is changing and the world that is going to be,” said Emily Bowers, an education professor at Dartmouth College.
“How will we make sure that our children are going to live in a world that respects human rights, and that values freedom of expression and freedom of thought?”
As a result of the rise of the internet, she said, educators have become more open to the notion that students may not always be fully engaged in learning the liberal classics or history.
They may be more interested in playing video games or watching movies that are produced by other people.
“You need to ask students how they think they are going and how they will think about learning in the future,” Bowers said.
“If we’re going to talk about a new era of liberalism, we need to have a discussion about the role of education in this new era.”
In fact, as a result, more than a quarter of college students are no longer taking the liberal art courses they had in college.
“I think we are seeing a change of mindset on the part of students, especially in higher education,” said Dr. William A. McManus, president of the National Association of College and University Teachers, which represents educators and colleges.
“When I was in college, I was really into a lot of the classical arts, and then I moved into liberal arts and liberal history and I realized that those were the subjects that were not in the core curriculum of what I was learning.”
In the last three years, a growing number of colleges and universities have opened up their liberal arts offerings.
At the University of Southern California, for example, the liberal humanities and social sciences classes are now taught by faculty who teach the classics, with a focus on the history of Western civilization.
“We have more and more of our students that are interested in exploring the liberal sciences,” said Steve DeAngelo, associate dean for higher education and research.
At Northwestern University, the humanities and liberal arts classes are taught by a new faculty member, Dr. John L. Meehl, who was appointed last year to the faculty of the university’s humanities and public affairs department.
He is expected to become the first faculty member at a university to teach liberal arts.
Other universities, such as the University at Buffalo and the University and State of Washington, are offering liberal arts courses that are more liberal in their approach.
The reason, according to Meehler, is that “liberal arts courses are designed to be a bridge from one subject area to another, and it’s important to know the history, the sociology, the anthropology of that subject.
It’s important for students to have an appreciation of history and the history in the context of a wider context.”
A few years ago, there were few courses in the liberal studies field.
“A lot of students don’t know the difference between the liberal and liberal sciences, or liberal arts, or they don’t understand that the history and sociology of the subject matter is important,” said DeAngelo.
“So I think we have to start educating students that liberal arts is a bridge, not a replacement.”
He noted that students are now more likely to take liberal arts electives, including liberal arts majors.
He said they may have a more informed view of the liberal curriculum, and thus, they may be better able to plan for a career as a teacher.
“It’s important that we’re not just teaching liberal arts for a few students,” he said.
In addition to making sure students are taking the right liberal arts curriculum, educators need to also make sure they understand what they have to teach students in a way that is consistent with their values.
“What we want to do is teach students the values of freedom, the rule of law, and the human rights of everyone, and we want them to understand that we have a responsibility to protect that,” DeAngelo said.
And the importance of those values cannot be overstated.
A recent study published in the Journal of Politics found that students who were exposed to an article on human rights in the news that reflected their values saw a decline in the number of negative statements they made about people from those groups.
The research also found that when students were exposed with a book on the topic, the students did not perceive their own values as being threatened by the book.
Instead, the values they were exposed from the article made them more likely not to use the book as a source of information about their own personal values.
What educators can do to help students understand what their values are and how to apply those values, according the study, is to teach them that they are responsible for protecting their values and their own rights, including their rights
