Liberal Arts

The chapters for this week were similar to what I am learning in my cultural foundations class. Perhaps most important to me was a line by Peter McLaren in Chapter 27, on page 413: "Knowledge acquired in classrooms should help students participate in vital issues that affect their experience on a daily level rather than simply enshrine the values of business pragmatism." As someone that is passionate about ALL of the liberal arts, I find them much more valuable than some of the technically, standards driven curriculum in today's middle and high schools.

Before I go on, I will say that I understand that I realize that not everyone understands the importance of liberal arts and I certainly recognize that not everyone cares about subjects like 19th century English Literature or Pre-colonial America. But as a social studies teacher, I will be charged with developing strongly informed citizens and rigidly gray subjects are part of that growth. Sadly not all of my students will turn out to be intellectually driven writers that spend their lives raging against the machine. But I would like to say that the students I taught that turn out to be welders or sales clerks or hair stylists at least got some sort of empowerment and critical thinking skills from my class. Now on to why I think the liberal arts are valuable.

Studying history, geography, behavioral sciences, and most importantly literature empowers students by helping them develop critical thinking skills. When I was in high school I just don't remember being forced to think critically about certain social problems (like race). I am not sure if this was the result of poor teachers, or my own unwillingness to really focus on what we were studying. Probably the latter. I grew up in a mostly-white, middle class town. The schools I went to were 99% white and middle class. As a result, I really did not witness racism or blatant discrimination. So perhaps I just didn't catch it when I had to study issues where it played a central role. This was true until I took my first liberal arts class in college. It was a modern literature course. We had to read 9 books analyzing different social issues. For example, we read Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, a social critique of early 20th century corporate America. We also had to read There Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston and Light in August by William Falkner. These two books crystallized racism for me. They not only taught me more about the issue than any book or lecture, but also taught me how to think critically and really reflect on what racism is and how I would like to work to reverse it.

I hope to teach high school American History. Learning about the actual events is important, but I would almost like to turn it into an American studies class by incorporating literature that brings important social issues to life. Therefore my students will be able to do what Paulo Freire recommended and Eric Gutstein implemented in Chapter 29: read not only the word, but the world.