General Education Sucks: So Teach the Great Identities
Saved in:
| Title: | General Education Sucks: So Teach the Great Identities |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Glanzer, Perry L. |
| Source: | Journal of General Education. 2020 69(3-4):179-195. |
| Availability: | Pennsylvania State University Press. 820 North University Drive, USB 1 Suite C, University Park, PA 16802. Tel: 800-326-9180; Tel: 814-865-1327; Fax: 814-863-1408; e-mail: info@psupress.org; Web site: http://www.psupress.org/journals/jnls_jge.html |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 17 |
| Publication Date: | 2020 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Higher Education Postsecondary Education |
| Descriptors: | General Education, Educational Quality, Ethics, Failure, Higher Education, Role of Education, Educational Change, Student Centered Learning, Capacity Building, Ethical Instruction, Citizenship Education, Moral Development |
| ISSN: | 0021-3667 1527-2060 |
| Abstract: | Although there are many reasons why one could consider current manifestations of general education a disaster area, this article focuses on its ethical failures. First, I will demonstrate the central importance of moral purposes to justifications for general education. Second, I will describe how the failure to connect the moral aims that originally animated general education to a complex understanding of our fundamental identity, alongside a general marginalization of moral discourse in the academy, has produced an inability to match the content of general education to the moral ends used to justify it. Rather than the incoherent approach to general education used today, I argue that general education should focus on the individual that the university is ultimately meant to serve--the student. Such a shift requires, as John Dewey noted, nothing short of a revolution. Higher education certainly provides students with tools but it provides students no direction as to what is worth building, I propose a general education that instructs students about, and cultivates capacities toward excellence in, the great human identities (e.g., neighbor, friend, citizen, family, steward of nature and culture, race, gender, etc.). |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2023 |
| Access URL: | https://muse.jhu.edu/article/852241 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1359921 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | Although there are many reasons why one could consider current manifestations of general education a disaster area, this article focuses on its ethical failures. First, I will demonstrate the central importance of moral purposes to justifications for general education. Second, I will describe how the failure to connect the moral aims that originally animated general education to a complex understanding of our fundamental identity, alongside a general marginalization of moral discourse in the academy, has produced an inability to match the content of general education to the moral ends used to justify it. Rather than the incoherent approach to general education used today, I argue that general education should focus on the individual that the university is ultimately meant to serve--the student. Such a shift requires, as John Dewey noted, nothing short of a revolution. Higher education certainly provides students with tools but it provides students no direction as to what is worth building, I propose a general education that instructs students about, and cultivates capacities toward excellence in, the great human identities (e.g., neighbor, friend, citizen, family, steward of nature and culture, race, gender, etc.). |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0021-3667 1527-2060 |
