SECTION 1 - via - School of Visual Arts

There are those who would dismiss such thinking as absolutist. They would quickly point out
that wisdom, goodness, and genuineness are relative terms and that democratic peoples should
do all in their power to resist the imposition of such absolutes on education. And so they
should. But that is not what is being advocated here. This effort is not saying that wisdom,
goodness, and genuineness are commodities that can or should be imposed on anyone, least of
all future teachers. What is being advanced here is the simple notion that the uncivilizing
existential vacuum can be avoided through a dialogue between colleges of education and their
students concerning ideals such as wisdom, goodness, genuineness, justice, and beauty (to
name a few) that are to be found only in the fine arts and humanities Further, it advances the
notion that these dialogues must take place if future teachers are to be able to continue the
dialogue concerning such ideas with his /her own future elementary or secondary students
(which surely must minimally at least be a better place to begin necessary changes).
The intent here is not to use colleges of education to attempt to impose ideals such as wisdom
and goodness on its students. Nor is it the intent to even try to use colleges of education to
attempt to define such ideals for its students. The plan suggested here is an attempt by colleges
of education, through the fine arts and humanities, to convene and conduct a dialogue with its
students to simply discuss these ideals. The goal of such a plan is not to discover to everyone’s
satisfaction a commodity labeled wisdom or beauty or truth. In a pluralistic society this may not
even be possible. Wisdom and other such ideals are illusive when we try to treat them as
commodities to possess or goals to attain. But paradoxically, as St. Francis found inner riches
through external poverty, we may find that wisdom, goodness, genuineness, and beauty are byproducts
of the dialogues that schools of education can hold with their students through the
fine arts and humanities. It is a simple plan. But as the spirit of Assisi turns his back on the
hollow canonizations and empty basilicas, so too must schools of education turn their backs on
the market place mentality, and the teacher as technocrat ideal and concentrate, through the
arts and humanities, on the inner riches sustained through dialogues about the great ideas.
“These are the aims of life, [and colleges of education] and society should be organized to
promote them first of all. It is the sign of a backward civilization when in a financial crisis the
first thing a community thinks of is to close the art museums and reduce expenditures on
education. A civilization without art and thought, or one that does not value these, is a pack
rather than a civilization” (Hutchins, 1953, pp 17-18). The plan being advanced here is the
only plan for education that can bring with it a brightening of the soul, a spark to the soul, a
civilizing influence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brubacher, J. (1965). Bases for Policy in Higher Education. New York: Viking Press.
_________. (1991, August). “Businesses Adjust to Ill-educated Workers.” The Billings Gazette.
p. 7-A.
Chase, A. (1993). “The Rise and Fall of General Education: 1945-1980” Academic Questions.
6 (2), 23-26.
Clark, K (1969). Civilisation. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
Frankl, V. (1975). Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. New York:
Pocket Books.
Hutchins, R. (1943). Education for Freedom. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State
University Press.
Hutchins, R. (1953). The University of Utopia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
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