According to Henry Giroux, university education should be about Athe politics and ethics of dreaming, dreaming of a better future, and dreaming a better world.@ This paper will discuss Giroux=s ideas of an education in the liberal arts as interpreted by different authors and compare and contrast their views.
Universities are rapidly becoming trade schools, churning out graduates trained for a particular profession but with very little in the way of a general education, particularly in the liberal arts. From the time of the ancient Greeks, education was divided between skills for the mind and skills for the body, the latter being subservient to the former. Today=s universities appear to have lost this dichotomy. Several reasons for this have been put forth, the main one being the needs of a highly technological world. Many rue this loss of a more esoteric education and ponder its effects on mankind.
Giroux admits that liberal arts programs are neither ideologically neutral nor non-political. However, he realizes that as such, they are subject to change over time and that the values of liberal arts programs reflect those of the society and culture in which they exist. These will, of necessity, change over time. With changes in the ethnic makeup of America, the advent of the women=s movement, and the civil rights movement, the makeup of universities has changed, both in terms of the academic staff and the students. This has produced a need for changes in the curriculum which reflects the makeup of the student body and their needs.
Different authors who have written on the subject vary in their assessment of the liberal arts programs in existence and the way in which they believe they need to change to accommodate the changing society. Some, like Bloom, advocate a return to the old teachings; others, like Code, advocate major changes to accommodate minorities. There is a definite need for changes: the question is what c...