what a pipe fitter needs

Post #410,488 by rcareaga 5/27/16 2:50:02 PM 5/27/16 2:50:02 PM Reply	what a pipe fitter needs Does a pipe fitter need a Western Civilization course at the college level (junior college or 4-year)? Will it make him a better pipe fitter? Not necessarily, although it might make him a better human being, and that, I submit, would likely make him a better pipe fitter (one, for example, who regards sound craftsmanship as a good in itself, and not something to be compromised if no one's looking). And a pipe fitter trained in critical thinking and grounded in a humanistic cultural background that allows him to form political opinions based on historical context might be a harder target for a demagogue on the prowl for marks. There's no guarantee, of course: plenty of educated fools about. But we've raised a couple of generations now on a lewd, violent and trivial popular culture with little effort made to provide a body of coherent countervailing influences, and few people, including the products of that pedagogic malign neglect, appear altogether happy with the outcome. I recently came across a piece, opening a forum on "What is Education For?" that included these lines: To make judgments about the course of human events and our government’s role in them, we need history, anthropology, cultural studies, economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, not to mention math—especially the statistical reasoning necessary for probabilistic judgment—and science, as governmental policy naturally intersects with scientific questions. If we are to decide on the core principles that should orient our judgments about what will bring about safety and happiness, surely we need philosophy, literature, and religion or its history. Then, since the democratic citizen does not make or execute judgments alone, we need the arts of conversation, eloquence, and prophetic speech. Preparing ourselves to exercise these arts takes us again to literature and to the visual arts, film, and music. In other words, we need the liberal arts. They were called the free person’s arts for a reason. The essay can be found here. cordially,
Post #410,496 by mmoffitt 5/27/16 4:22:00 PM 5/27/16 4:22:00 PM Reply	Emphasis on "college level". That wasn't loose talk. I do not disagree that "we need liberal arts" for much the same reasons you cite. However, I think you'll agree that taking a U.S. History course in college is a different exercise than taking a U.S. History course (even properly taught - if such still exists) in high school. Going back to "what we can afford now that we're richer", in the 1960's and 1970's, elementary school children were afforded the opportunity to learn violin, viola, cello and bass beginning in the fourth grade. By junior high school, beginning orchestra students (of which I was one) were provided those instruments by the school itself. But not everyone was capable of playing in the college orchestra. That doesn't mean there was no value in making it possible for everyone to be exposed to classical music in their K-12 educations. I remain stunned that entire school systems where I live now have no orchestras of any type. The arts, foreign languages, literature, etc. are all necessary for all citizens. As are math and science (personal bias aside). I know I'll be called an elitist for this, but it's my position that not everyone is capable of success in the study of those topics at a true college level. My position on this can pretty much be summed up as: Give them decent K-12 educations, do not infect our institutions of higher learning with vocational training and allow the people who are actually performing the tasks of a given vocation to provide that training. I didn't go to college (or grad school for that matter) to be trained. I went for the opportunity to educate myself.
Post #410,500 by rcareaga 5/27/16 5:24:00 PM 5/27/16 5:24:00 PM Reply	No disagreement ...although I wonder at the use of the word "infect" in "do not infect our institutions of higher learning with vocational training." I don't see a necessary conflict there (and indeed, aren't the professional schools such as law and medicine themselves forms of vocational training?). Among the many regrets I have when I consider my line-of-least-resistance progress through college, a period in which I lazily exploited my existing strengths and made little effort to cultivate new ones, is that I passed up the opportunity to learn the craft of traditional letterpress printing under William Everson, even though I had already formed a nascent interest in typography. I remain grateful to my parents, both of whom felt bad about not having extended their own formal schooling past the end of high school, for imparting to their children something of their intellectual yearnings and, yes, their cultural pretensions: I don't think they really appreciated classical music, but they thought it was the sort of thing that was appreciated in the circles to which they aspired, and so we absorbed a great deal of it growing up—and it stuck to our ribs. cordially,

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