Five Theses on Liberal Education.
In her essay “Eight Theses on Liberal Education,” Eva Brann outlines 8 fundamental elements to a liberal education; this is to say that Brann wants to lay out the focal points which serve as a compass directing where liberal, as in “free” or “open,” education should go. In some ways, the theses overlap one another (particularly, as we will see theses 4 and 5, and 1 and 8), however the 8 theses Brann presents us with are a vital starting point for investigating liberal education. Brann actively encourages us to think about these theses and how “important will it be that you get your chance to give your counter-opinions as you question my theses… to nail my eight theses concerning liberal education on the imaginary gates of this college and then to weather whatever small storm results” (Brann, 1). This essay will develop and critique the theses in Brann’s conception of liberal education, and will put forth four theses. A thesis can be thought of as not just the central point of an essay, but the guiding principle (like a compass) that keeps an essay on track, pointing the writing of that essay in the right direction; perhaps most importantly, for Brann, these compasses are always at the center of liberal education, and cannot be eclipsed in the pursuit. Thinking of our theses then as indivisible to education throughout the essay, we will begin by looking at the first thesis:
Education is non-preparatory cultivation.
Brann makes it clear in her 3rd thesis that education “should not give an inch to demands
for utility or currency” (Brann, 2); this is to say that education with the directive of even preparing children for a certain job or even the workforce generally is cruel. This seems like a harsh word to use, but, as Brann explains “parents and the world owe the young some (let it be four) clear years for becoming not a this or a that, but for learning to be a human being” (Ibid.). We can also see this idea in Kant, where in On Education he describes “culture” (Bildung, “moral training”) as holding together the disciplinary, nutritive and scholastic elements of education; he writes that “For by education we must understand nurture (the tending and feeding of the child), discipline (Zucht), and teaching, together with culture” (Kant, 11). Education should cultivate how to be, and not what to be. Brann explains that parents ought to hear that “education is impractical” — this is not to be conflated with “education is useless,” as it is our being-here which education cultivates, and thus we are always “using” in a sense. But this “using” is not a practicality, because one is either educated or not, as “being-educated” can only be demonstrated and not “practiced.” One can’t force themselves to be educated other than by becoming educated. Similarly, this is the problem with “STEM” insofar as it's seen as a checklist for what to be learned in school so that students are fit for the “real world.” Students are always already in the “real world” anyway, from the moment they are born, thus this pursuit at best is superfluous, and at worst, eclipses the authentic cultivation of the learner.
Choice is fine within education.
Perhaps the most controversial claim of this essay will be to argue that learners should be allowed to have some say or choice in their education. Brann makes a big point to say that this should absolutely not be the case: further, this sentiment, I think, comes from a valid interpretation of Meno’s paradox in Plato’s dialogue. But in this thesis, I will argue how choice is not only the right of the student, but that choosing what one studies allows for a smoother (or “finer”) journey of education, responding to Brann’s theses 4 and 5. Brann’s fourth thesis, that “students should not specialize,” and the fifth, “[the largest part] of college education should be prescribed” (Brann, 2-3) both assert that children are too uneducated to make decisions about their own course of education. Brann is not wrong for saying that children do not know things, and that this not-knowing does impact their ability to know what they ought to learn, but Brann places far too much importance on what is necessitated in education—that is, there are certainly things learners must learn even if they don’t realize why yet, but that doesn’t overturn the fact that a learner still ought to have a right in how they wish to enter the teacher-student dichotomy. Perhaps the right move is instead to push for a “guided-choosing,” where students either elect their own subjects (is a student “wrong” for wanting to focus more on art than math? Math can still be necessary, but holding this necessity higher than the student’s own inclinations actively stamps out the bildung, or the self cultivation and discipline.
Socrates asks in Meno if it is “possible for a human being to search for either what he knows or what he doesn’t know?” (Plato, 1). Afterall, one cannot hope to investigate what they don’t know, as they wouldn’t even know where to begin that investigation. Further, if one does know what is to be investigated, how can investigation of the thing take place when the thing which is investigated is already present at hand in our asking the question? This is an incredibly complicated problem of philosophy which itself influences the thought of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, to name a few, and seemingly won’t stop now. For a student to have a choice in their education, it is not to say that they know what it is that they must learn, but that they at least have a say, and not be brushed to the side when their schedule is being formed. When a student is allowed to study what they enjoy, it encourages an active participation in their own education, and this improves the habituation of learning itself within the student, making the student more open to the learning that ought to be “prescribed.”
Education concerns the GOATs of culture.
One incredibly valuable point that Brann makes is her emphasis of “great books” as necessary reading for liberal education: she explains how Tolstoy “casts a golden light on the mundane incidents of family life” (Brann, 5) in his book War and Peace—this “light-casting” is valuable to education as it lets us ponder how the world could be viewed. She writes further that “long liberal [open] reflection on the way things ought to be is a better prelude to real life than a premature immersion in the worst facts of life” (Brann, 6). The more “great books” our education is concerned with, the wider variety of “views” are offered to learners for “liberal reflection.” But these “great readings” should not be limited to prose, as in academic papers or narrative stories; the ability to decipher the symbolism in poetry, for instance, extends to metaphors in film, books, and artworks. The ability to decipher meaning from art generally is our ability to find significance in our culture. The cultivation of culture, as Ortega y Gassett prioritizes in his book The Mission of the University, should not be limited to the culture of texts (and as for a textualist like Derrida, text itself is not limited to books). Instead, we should more widely focus on the education of the “GOATs” (as in, “greatest of all time”) of culture, be it art, music, poetry, or narrative.
By widening our range of greatness from solely books, we can cultivate the ability to recognize the depth of investigative possibility in all instances of culture—further, children are already inclined to enjoy music and movies alongside literature, so why not utilize this passion and teach them articulate the inexhaustible meaning lying within their favorite arts? Brann writes that “liberal education tends to be a source of happiness… because seeing the world as full of significance is the antithesis of and the antidote for despair” (Brann, 5). Students must be taught how to see the world and the art in their world as overflowing with meaning. Rap songs for instance all utilize poetic meter, rhythm, and rhyme, just as Disney movies often demonstrate the hero’s journey, or deeper, they exemplify the complexity of emotions like love or grief; cultivating the ability to engage and understand cultural art is essential to our participation in culture—of course, not all cultural art is great (just as Brann argues the difference between “good” and “great” books), but limiting what is great to books alone is shortsighted.
Education is free, not obligated discourse.
I imagine this final thesis to be a culmination of the prior 3 in the sense that non-preparatory, participatory and meaningful education are tied together through the essential discourse that takes place in learning. Brann writes “people shouldn't talk at but to each other” (Brann, 1), and this bases her first and eighth theses (that liberal education should not be lecture nor academic) in the importance of discourse: the relationship between the student and the teacher should not be reduced to mere means (in a Kantian ethics sense), where teachers lecture at students, and students ask questions at teachers and so on. This is partially why Brann argues that students should be taught by “non-specialists,” as there should be a space for expanding the question, following where the question guides the class forward, hence Brann argues “in a dialectical education the student is not the passive recipient of knowledge but an active
participant in a common search” (Brann, 1). The student could not possibly imagine helping a specialist in the search, as the gap between the student and specialist is far too wide, and would only generate tension (because the student would be seen as “dumb” and the teacher would be “pretentious”). The discourse should not have a necessary nor specific goal for it to reach—if the class does not reach the conclusion according to the lesson plan, that is not a class failure, but a failure of the lesson to account for the multifaceted being of investigation itself (assuming that everyone is and remains “on track”). The discourse among a class should be centered around the great arts which students investigate with teachers; let the inexhaustibility of the art itself draw out the class’s dialogue which cultivates (through habituation) the cultural education of the class. Thus, Bran explains that “Reading plus conversation is the dual essence of liberal education” (Brann, 4).
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