What is education worth?

The penury of a non-liberal arts education

My son started at university this week.

Over the weekend, my niece, who is entering her final year at university, studying law and arts, lamented the arts component of her conjoint degree, insinuating that it was a waste of time. “I’ll never use it,” she said.

It pains me that an imminent arts graduate said that.

And thus, the matter of education, specifically arts, is on my mind again. Of universities and schools as training grounds for workers.

Generally, our social framework sees education as a commercial exchange, pursued for - ideally - a (financial) return on investment. We study to get a job. So, the courses that lead to highly paid careers are highly sought after, and highly respected. That they often come with stricter entry criteria also adds to the prestige.

After all, scarcity breeds desire - and power.

At the Learning Without Frontiers Conference in 2012, philosopher, linguist and scientist Noam Chomsky touched on this issue, comparing the enlightenment view of education to how we see it today:

‘After the activism of the 1960s, there was great concern across much of the educated spectrum that young people were just getting too free and independent; that the country was becoming too democratic and so on.

‘There’s an important study on what’s called the “crisis of democracy” - too much democracy - claiming that the … institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young, that they’re not doing their jobs properly - that’s schools, universities, churches - we have to change them so they carry out the job of indoctrination more effectively…

‘And in fact, since that time there have been many measures taken to try to turn the education system towards more control, more indoctrination or vocational training, imposing a debt which traps young people into a life of conformity and so on. And that’s the exact opposite of the tradition that comes out of the enlightenment… there’s a constant struggle in schools, do you train for passing tests, or do you train for creative enquiry?’

During ‘In Defence of a Liberal Education,’ journalist, political commentator and author Fareed Zakaria puts forward his case for the benefits of an education that is broader than test taking, as he reflects on the elite liberal arts universities he attended in the United States:

‘I now realize that what I gained from college and graduate school, far more lasting than any specific set of facts or piece of knowledge, has been the understanding of how to acquire knowledge on my own. I learned how to read an essay closely, search for new sources, find data to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and detect an author’s prejudices. I learned how to read a book fast and still get its essence. I learned to ask questions, present an opposing view, take notes, and, nowadays, watch speeches, lectures, and interviews as they stream across my computer. And most of all, I learned that learning was a pleasure—a great adventure of exploration.

‘Whatever job you take, the specific subjects you studied in college will probably prove somewhat irrelevant to the day-to-day work you will do soon after you graduate. And even if they are relevant, that will change. People who learned to write code for computers just ten years ago now confront a new world of apps and mobile devices. What remains constant are the skills you acquire and the methods you learn to approach problems. Given how quickly industries and professions are evolving these days, you will need to apply these skills to new challenges all the time.’

Insightful also, are Zakaria’s comments on how education works best coming from different directions. His argument brought to my mind a conversation I’d once had with a high ranking medical professional, about how competence in music was neurologically beneficial for students of mathematics.

‘You might also need to experiment with varieties of intelligence, not just one. Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist and expert on education, has posited that there are at least eight kinds of intelligence: linguistic, logical- mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalistic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. To be properly prepared for today’s world, students must experience several methods of learning conducive to these various intelligences.

‘Gardner argues that in the future, students will focus even more on modes of thinking. After all, with facts being just a Google search away, why waste brain cells memorizing them? He notes that the best thinking often happens when ideas, fields, and disciplines collide, in a setting where cultures rub up against one another.’

Of course, a glib answer to all of this may be that you utilise formal education to gain marketable skills, and once some degree of financial security is achieved, pursue more liberal types of education.

It’s not always that easy however, as once in employment, we are often left with little energy or time for other pursuits. I also know from experience that schools of liberal arts frequently face financial challenges, are almost always under funded, and struggle to achieve sufficient student numbers.

I will leave you with a poem from Mary Oliver:

Just as the calendar began to say summer

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught -

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.