The Philosophy of the Curriculum-The Need for General ...

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General Education :The Minimum IndispensablesSidney HookNew York UniversityExcept -on one point, my agreement with Professor deBaryfs essay ismuch more profound than my differences. If I stress the latter, it is withthe hope of provoking discussion and avoiding a premature consensus.First, however, I wish to say something about certain basic questionsthat neither he nor, so far as I can judge, the other contributors toour symposium have raised-answers to which are in effect really presupposedwhen we concern ourselves with the content of general education.When we consider the movement for the abolition of curricularrequirements that has swept like a tidal wave in recent years over theacademic community, we must conclude that our presupposed answers(for example, that there should be curricular requirements) arenot merely problematic to vast numbers of our faculty colleagues; theyare, seemingly, clearly unacceptable.What makes,the situation even more difficult, now that the misunderstoodprinciples of participatory democracy have given studentsrights and powers in making curricular decisions, is that these answersare not acceptable to many students as well.When we speak of general education, in the present context, regardlessof how we define it we are speaking of a prescribed course ofstudy for all students with the exception of those who can provide evidenceof adequate mastery in the subject matters and skills that constitutethe curricular requirement. And if our discussion is to have any
General Education: The Minimum IndispensablesSidney Hookpoint or relevance for higher or tertiary education today, we must notlose sight of the fact-deplore it as one may (and I do not deplore it)-that it must be germane to the general education not just of an elite orselected body of students at Columbia, Harvard, or Swarthmore but ofall students beginning their college careers.The first question we must face is this: If the course of study is tobe related to the student's individual needs, capacities, and background,by what right or justification do we impose any general requirementsupon him, aside from the power we have to award or withholddegrees? In the affairs of the mind, coercive power should be irrelevant.Besides, we do not need reminding that in education todaypower is a very uncertain and shifting commodity. It has been in thewake of student power-as a corollary of student strength and potentialfor disruption, not as a corollary of reasoned analysis-that requirementson many campuses have been replaced by an unrestricted electivesystem at the outset of the student's career. The situation has beenaggravated by shrinking enrollments in many institutions; many areluring applicants to enroll with the promise that they can write theirown educational ticket so long as they pay their tuition. In such institutionsthere is no field of inquiry, no skill, no body of knowledge that allstudents are expected to have some familiarity with, not to speak ofcompetence in, before being awarded a baccalaureate degree. Eachdoes his own thing-and not always on the campus.The challenge to us to justify a required course of general educationis often quite explicit. I recall one occasion not so many years agowhen a highly vocal and not unintelligent student put it to us at afaculty meeting at Washington Square College."After all," she said, "the intrinsic value or interest of a subjectisn't enough to justify prescribing it. Every subject has intrinsic valuebut not to everybody, and judging by some of our teachers, not even tothose who make their living teaching it. If education is to be effectiveand relevant, it must be related to the personal needs of the students.Without us, you have no justification for your being as teachers." And,turning to me, the acting spokesman for the curriculum committee,she let fly: "Who are you, or anyone else, to tell me what my educationalneeds are? I, and I alone, am the best judge of what I want andwhat I need. What goes for me, goes for everybody. That's democracyin education."This seems to me now, as it did then, a fair challenge. We mustmeet it not as specialist scholars but as educators. It is a challenge veryoften evaded because so many teachers in our colleges do not regardthemselves as educators but as scholars, whose primary, if not exclusive,allegiance is to their subject matter. Teaching, for them, is thetraining of apprentices, who will someday be their successors.We can grant two things in this challenge to us. The first is that aneducation that will bear permanent intellectual fruit must be relatedin larger measure to students' individual needs. The second is that studentsare aware of what they want although they may not know theconsequences of what they want. But these two truths by no meansentail that students know what they need, or know what is educationallygood for them. Indeed, after more than forty-five years of teachingon the college level, the proposition that most students, uponimmediate entry, know what their genuine educational needs areseems to me quite dubious. As a rule, they no more know what theireducational needs are than they know their medical needs. Sometimestheir needs, and almost always their wants, are altered as they becomeacquainted with different fields of study. The notion that the generalityof students (I am not speaking of the precocious or exceptionallygifted) can make an informed and intelligent decision about theirabiding educational needs before being exposed to the great subjectmatters and disciplines of the liberal tradition is highly questionable.The notion that they are capable of making sensible, lifelong vocationalor professional commitments in late adolescence-which is expectedof them in some institutions-seems to me gratuitously cruel, andoverlooks students' natural capacities for growth and the difficulties ofself-knowledge.Cranted that students will ultimately have to make their own curricularchoices when the time comes for specialization or the choice ofa career. Cranted the important role of formal critical education in resistingthe tyrannies of the peer group and other social pressures as maturingmen and women make the free choice of the pattern of theirlives. But so long as we believe that the wisdom of such choice dependsupon its being informed, the less occasion there will be for regret.This justifies the exposure to a variety of disciplines, problems,and challenges that general education counterposes to a too earlyspecialization.There is another point about need. The educational needs of studentscannot be considered in isolation from the needs of the societyin which they live, which nurtures and subsidizes them and which justifiablyexpects that they will be active, mature, and responsible citizens.Indeed, the chief justification for the community's underwritingthe immense costs of universal access to higher education is not that itwill increase earning power or social status or even provide enjoymentbut that it will enhance the prospects of developing an intelligent andresponsible citizenry. But that depends on what students learn andhow.
Page 1 and 2: THEOther books published in coopera
Page 3 and 4: ContentsIntroductionSidney HookxiGE
Page 5 and 6: IntroductionSidney HookNew York Uni
Page 7 and 8: GENERAL EDUCATION -CHALLENGEAND JUS
Page 9 and 10: General Education and the Universit
Page 19: General Education and the Universit
Page 23 and 24: General Education: The Minimum Indi
Page 25 and 26: General Education: The Minimum Indi
Page 27 and 28: On Reviving Liberal Education-inthe
Page 29 and 30: On Reviving Liberal Education-in th
Page 31 and 32: On Reviving Liberal Education-inthe
Page 33 and 34: Humanism and the HumanitiesFrederic
Page 45 and 46: Justifying the HumanitiesRonald Ber
Page 47 and 48: Observations on Humanism and Histor
Page 49 and 50: Observations on Humanism and Histor
Page 51 and 52: The Language and Methods of Humanis
Page 57 and 58: Science, Science Teaching, and Rati
Page 67 and 68: In Defense of Scientific Knowledgei
Page 69 and 70: In Defense of Scientific KnowledgeE
Page 71 and 72:
The Uses and Limitations of Science
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Multilevel Teaching of the Natural
Page 79 and 80:
The Social Sciences in Liberal Educ
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
The Economist Among the Social Scie
Page 89 and 90:
The Economist Among the Social Scie
Page 91 and 92:
Social Science and General Educatio
Page 93 and 94:
A Role for Social Science?Robert L.
Page 95 and 96:
Experiential Educationand Revitaliz
Page 97 and 98:
Experiential Education and Revitali
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Education for the Future: The Liber
Page 109 and 110:
Education for the Future: The Liber
Page 111 and 112:
The Desirability of Pulling in One'
Page 113 and 114:
On Sharpening the HornsSidney Hooki
Page 115 and 116:
~ The Humanities as Scholarshipand
Page 117 and 118:
The Humanities as Scholarship and a
Page 119 and 120:
Questions of Viability in Nontradit
Page 121 and 122:
On Interdisciplinary EducationHowar
Page 123 and 124:
On Interdisciplinary EducationHowar
Page 125 and 126:
The Logic of the Social Sciences: T
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
A Pro~osal for a New Division of th
Page 133 and 134:
A Proposal for a New Division of th
Page 135 and 136:
New Beginnings in General Education
Page 137 and 138:
Thoughts on a Social-Science Curric
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
The Specter at the Feastevaluated.
Page 147:
ContributorsContributorsLearned Soc
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