Bored thoughts about General Education

BrooklynDodger attended an alumni event for a certain institution the other night, which even was a lecture by the chair of one of the general education courses, a tenured professor in one of the humanities. The lecture was about the importance of general education. Accepted applicants were invited; whether this was an attractive taste of first year life was questionable.

It's said that age sets in when your doctor and lawyer seem younger than you are, but this professor seemed younger too. The Dodger would not have attempted a 4o minute presentation without visual aids, nor would the Dodger have read a prepared text [if the Dodger could have written one of that length] at that length. Neither could the Dodger remember in much detail the literary works read in that course in the Dodger's youth.

As time went by, the Dodger began to question strongly held beliefs on the benefits of general education. The Professor quoted the Dartmouth Review as approving the institution's approach, surely a questionable sucking up to a DWM great books curriculum. As the mind wandered, it came to the notion of posting some deep thoughts on general education.

First, general education acknowledges separate domains of literature, art, social science and natural science, then waffles on whether it's trying to get across "manner of thought" in these domains or substance in these domains.

Second, the humanities part of gen ed presents to the student the actual works [translated if need be], which are accessible to non majors directly. Nebulous is the value to critical thinking of the Illiad, etc, other than being able to appear cultured by knowing who Priam and Hector were [everyone knows Achilles, Oddyseus, that's victor's history]. [Did the Dodger get that right?]

By contrast, the natural sciences role in gen ed is confused. Is there any value to teaching elementary courses in chemistry, physics, or first year calculus to humanities or social science majors? Kuhn is very clear and persuasive that textbooks in the sciences actually obscure the nature of scientific thought development, and that scientists themselves frequently fail to understand the intellectual processes in development of their own field. Is the "manner of thought" to be learned in elementary courses in the disclipline, or in the diluted versions of Rocks for Jocks or Physics for Poets? Actual scientific publications in this era are unintelligable to anyone outside the field. Frankly, the science people should take a history or philosophy of science course to understand what they are doing.

The social sciences fall in between. History, and history of thought, is a real thing that students should know if only to see whether anything they are hearing now is new under the sun. Narrative and popular versions of social science are available just as some natural science trade paperbacks are to be found. But economics papers and textbooks are equally recondite to those in the natural sciences, hidden in the veil of mathematics.