D'Glenn ([info]dglenn) wrote,
@ 2008-05-06 05:26:00
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QotD

"The thing is, that what we call a 'university' in the usa today is actually many trade schools pulled together onto the same campus. And yes, a person in her or his early years at college is required to take classes in all the different trades.

"The things that you bring up here, are not things which are specific to any trade, and thus they are never taught.

"I would love to see a new kind of college education - where perhaps the philosophy department could expand to become the overall auspices of the school. This would be a school for folks who want to learn how to think critically, and reason independently. Woven into the curriculum, there would be training in all the tools a person needs in this modern world, to start her own business. Computer programming, web design, introductory economics and business courses would be important. This would be a school for both thinkers, and for entrepreneurs."

-- Christopher vanDyck, , 2008-04-03, responding to a Things I Wish They Had Taught Me In School essay (which was pointed out by [info] siderea.)


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[info]keith_m043
2008-05-06 11:56 am UTC (link)
Heh, it seems to me that the thinking part is essentially what all liberal arts colleges are supposed to do, such as St Johns in Annapolis MD/Phoenix AZ

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Er?
[info]bunnyjadwiga
2008-05-06 12:21 pm UTC (link)
Having been dragged through listening to the core curriculum debates at our Liberal Arts college this year, I wondered what this was in reaction to (let's face it, everything vanDyck is advocating-- Computer programming, web design, introductory economics and business courses-- IS a trade school thing, thank you, and you can buy that education for peanuts at your community college). My brain hurts, because vanDyck's recommendations have nothing to do with the Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School, and in fact, many of the things taught in the classes he advocates, at least nowadays, are directly counter to what the writer wanted to learn in school.

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[info]realinterrobang
2008-05-06 03:35 pm UTC (link)
Weird. At least where I went to university (not in the US), you took things that have only tangential relevance to anything vocational -- the joke is that university graduates should learn to say "You want fries with that?" due to the inutility of most of the subjects taught. You may learn computer programming (although it occurs to me that it's basically useful to go into one of those kind of classes already knowing how), but it'll be in the context of computer science, which is definitely more theoretical. You might learn introductory economics, but it'll be a survey course of the most common schools of economic theory. I learnt an awful lot of obscure philosophy (like Transcendentalism) while doing a degree in English literature...

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[info]vvalkyri
2008-05-06 04:55 pm UTC (link)
That's what a liberal arts education used to be.

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[info]smallship1
2008-05-06 05:59 pm UTC (link)
I'd kind of like to see a school for human beings some day.

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