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

IntroductionSidney Hookand the calm, sometimes explicit, assumption that newly enrolled collegestudents are better judges of their educational needs than thewisest of faculties could be.The lengths to which self-characterized liberal-arts colleges arewilling to go is apparent in the advertising and promotional materialsthey distribute to lure students into enrolling. Their theme song is apromise to students that they will be put to no intellectual strain andthat whatever they learn will be not merely painless but pleasant. Someinstitutions have offered academic credit to students for a wide varietyof "life experiences" that have taken place prior to their enrollmentand outside the context of any academic test, control, or objective assessmentof achievement.Students themselves are beginning to reject the curricular pablumand jello they are being offered-but often for the wrong reasons,chief among which is exclusive preoccupation with education for acareer. But there are very few careers that can be adeauately preparedfor by bull sessions and innovative courses uncontrolled by competentfaculty supervision. It is perfectly legitimate to expect a liberal-artseducation to prepare a student through the proper combination of requiredand elective courses and individual faculty guidance for ameaningful vocation. In one way or another proper liberal educationalways has. But what we are observing today is emphasis upon a vocationalism,a kind of preprofessionalism, that regards liberal general educationas a frosting on the concrete business of education. As societybecomes more technological, the tendency to narrow specializationand vocational orientation becomes reinforced.Scholars and teachers who understand the nature of liberal educationcannot accept these developments with complacency. Theyrealize that no matter how technological our society becomes thereare no important human problems that are purely technical, that all ofthem pose choices, and that values and value judgments are at theheart of the great decisions we make, whether as citizens or as menand women. Without a liberal-arts education to undergird or accompanyor interpenetrate vocational or professional education, the lattercannot be adequate. Art, literature, history, philosophy, religion, thenatural and social sciences are not frosting on the cake of education.They are part of its very being, ignored at the price of our civilization,and possibly-in an age in which the sudden death of cultures is a genuinethreat-of its very survival.The real question with which all reflective educators must grappleis what a liberal general education should consist of, not whether itshould be part of the prescribed curriculum of higher education. Thisvolume addresses itself to that perennial issue-an issue that is alwaystopical. That there should be differences among humanist scholarsconcerning how best to nurture the human mind should not be surprising.There is no unanimity even among natural scientists concerningwhat best nurtures the human body. In both cases there must be a concernfor what is common and what is individual or personal. In bothcases it is false to szy that, because prescriptions are not universal,therefore no objective and reliable judgments can be reached in thecontext of this time, and this place, and for these men and women.Every institution of higher education must periodically engage in aself-assessment of its educational goals and the extent to which theyactually guide curricular practice. It can be said with confidence thatthe reflections contained in this book will, at the very least, serve as apowerful catalytic agent in precipitating out insights into the educationalcondition of our institutions of higher education and ways inwhich it can be improved.This volume contains the main papers and critical commentariesdeveloped in connection with the second national conference of theUniversity Centers for Rational Alternatives, held at Rockefeller University,New York City, on September 27-22, 1973. Since the major driftof the papers either ignored or opposed the newer currents of "experientialeducation," the editors have included an essay on this theme,written subsequent to the proceedings of the conference, by Dr. JohnB. Stephenson, dean of undergraduate studies at the Universitv ofKentucky, and Dr. Robert F. Sexton, executive director of its officefor Experiential Education, as a rational alternative to traditional andmodern conceptions of liberal education. This essay is noteworthy forits attempt to integrate within the liberal-arts tradition certain educationalpractices that have hitherto been considered foreign to it. Regardlessof the extent of their agreement, readers will find it intellectuallychallenging.UCRA, as the sponsoring organization, takes no stand on any ofthe issues discussed. Each participant speaks for himself only. The thirdnational conference of UCRA will be entitled "The Ethics of Teachingand Scientific Research."xiixiii