I have always truly enjoyed learning, and taken every opportunity I could to learn something new. No fact is too obscure or too seemingly unimportant. Take, for instance, what I found myself doing the other day in the Milne library after my brain was feeling a bit fried from my schoolwork: researching, and compiling a list of, strange units of measurement. Voluntarily. For my own amusement. Human beings are naturally curious, and learning satisfies this curiosity. Learning is a kind of growing which enables us to move forward as individuals and communities. It is a powerful tool, and helps people transcend both literal and figurative boundaries. And a lot of the time, it can actually be fun.
I often ask myself what the purpose of education is. Is it to satisfy that human curiosity, expand the mind, enrich students’ lives and prepare them for the responsibilities of citizens of modern democracy, promote higher thinking, and inspire lifelong learning? Or is it to tirelessly drill facts into their heads and get them ready for specific jobs, in the process deterring them from seeking knowledge outside of what is absolutely necessary? In other words, what is the value of earning a degree, for example, that ends up having no hand in the earner getting a job post-graduation?
I believe there should be a lot more to getting an education than just memorizing pieces of information necessary for your future career. A “liberal” education should satisfy both meanings of the term: it should be concerned with a general broadening of knowledge and opening of the mind, while also being an education applied generously, and in copious amounts. Aristotle, who was the first to organize knowledge into disciplines, believed that “there is a kind of education in which parents should have their sons trained not because it is necessary, or because it is useful, but simply because it is liberal and something good in itself” (Aristotle 1961: 337, as cited by Moran 4). In Aristotle’s time, education was about breeding scholars and thinkers. But as Moran points out, “the [classical divisions of knowledge] were eventually transformed by market forces and institutional changes” (Moran 4). As the world grew more complex and advanced, there came about “a perceived need to relate education to specific economic, political and ecclesiastical ends” (Klein 1990: 20, as cited by Moran 4). With this, it seems, the “liberal” in “liberal arts” has been lost, and the learning has been removed from education. I am curious to see if Moran will address the modern day issues of the educational system and link interdisciplinary study to these problems as a possible solution.