The document discusses the importance and history of liberal arts education. It describes how liberal arts aims to impart general knowledge and develop critical thinking skills, covering topics like literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics and science. The origins of liberal arts can be traced back to Ancient Greece and Rome, where the term referred to education worthy of a free person. More recently, liberal arts is characterized by exposing students to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one field. While definitions may vary, liberal arts education cultivates skills like open-mindedness, reflection, and awareness of one's role in society and the world.

1. Critical Thinking: Liberal Artsde Beaufort<br /> <br />The seven liberal arts – Picture from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad von Landsberg (12th century)<br />The term liberal arts refers to a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, and technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science.<br />In classical antiquity, the quot;
liberal artsquot;
denoted the education worthy of a free person (Latin: liber, quot;
freequot;
). The quot;
liberal artsquot;
or quot;
liberal pursuitsquot;
(Latin liberalia studia) were already so called in formal education during the Roman Empire; for example, Seneca the Younger discusses liberal arts in education from a critical Stoic point of view in Moral Epistle 88.<br />Liberal Arts education has been described as quot;
a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ... characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of studyquot;
by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education curriculum which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area.<br />The American Association for the Advancement of Science describes a liberal education in this way: quot;
Ideally, a liberal education produces persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds.quot;
Liberally educated people are skeptical of their own traditions; they are trained to think for themselves rather than defer to authority.<br />Definitions of a liberal education may be broad, generalized, and sometimes even contradictory. quot;
It is at once the most enduring and changeable of academic traditions.” Axelrod, Anisef, and Lin suggest that conceptions of liberal education are rooted in the teaching methods of Ancient Greece a slave-owning community divided between slaves and freemen. The freemen, mostly concerned about their rights and obligations as citizens, received a non-specialized, non-vocational, liberal arts education that produced well-rounded citizens aware of their place in society. At the same time, Socrates emphasized the importance of individualism, impressing upon his students the duty of man to form his own opinions through reason rather than indoctrination. Athenian education also provided a balance between developing the mind and the body. <br />The early notions of liberal education found in Greece and Rome came under attack, when a HYPERLINK quot;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianquot;
quot;
Christianquot;
Christian movement began to focus exclusively on religious dogma, and banned exercise and anything else that had to do with the body or nature. While liberal education was stifled during the Middle Ages, it was fully restored in free cities that rose to power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a revolt against the spirit, and educators instead focused on the human. This humanist approach favored reason and nature; it was the teacher's job to discover and develop each student's individual talents. In designing the curriculum, the humanists attacked theology and dialectic, especially Aristotelian.<br />Relationship with professional education<br />As University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum points out, standardized testing has placed more emphasis on honing technical knowledge, and its quantitative, multiple-choice nature prompts rote learning in the classroom. At the same time, humanistic concepts such as imagination and critical thinking, which cannot be tested by such methods, are disappearing from college curricula.<br />Cultivating the Imagination<br />Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. Her most recent book is quot;
Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities.quot;
<br />Cuts in the humanities are bad for business and bad for democracy. Even if a nation’s only goal were economic prosperity, the humanities supply essential ingredients for a healthy business culture.<br />Why is the U.S. moving away from the humanities just at the time that our rivals are discovering their worth?<br />Nations such as China and Singapore, which previously ignored the humanities, are now aggressively promoting them, because they have concluded that the cultivation of the imagination through the study of literature, film, and the other arts is essential to fostering creativity and innovation. They also have found that teaching critical thinking and argumentation (a skill associated with courses in philosophy) is essential in order to foster healthy debate inside a business world that might too easily become complacent or corrupt.<br />We in the U.S. are moving away from the humanities just at the time that our rivals are discovering their worth. But a healthy business culture is not all that life in America is about.<br />We also pride ourselves on our open democracy, and on the freedoms of speech and the press that make our political life one in which the people rule. To keep democracy vital, we urgently need the abilities that the humanities foster. First, we need critical thinking: the ability to debate respectfully with others, to tell a good argument from a bad one, to examine tradition and prejudice in a Socratic spirit.<br />Second, we need history: a knowledge of the world and its many cultures and religions. Knowledge is not a guarantee of good political behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior. In a world full of simple stereotypes, we will only preserve democratic values of debate and mutual respect if we try hard to understand the past and the present.<br />Finally, we need the imaginative ability to put ourselves in the positions of people different from ourselves, whether by class or race or religion or gender. Democratic politics involves making decisions that affect other people and groups. We can only do this well if we try to imagine what their lives are like and how changes of various sorts affect them. The imagination is an innate gift, but it needs refinement and cultivation; this is what the humanities provide.<br />“But my child needs a job,” a parent might say. Yes, but preparing for a job and learning the lessons of the humanities are not mutually exclusive. The American system of higher education, unlike almost all other higher education systems in the world — where students enter university to study just a single subject — encourages students to major in one subject, often one related to future work, while taking general education courses in a variety of disciplines.<br />The future engineer or computer programmer can still learn skills of argument from Plato’s dialogues and gain a deeper grasp of the lives of others through literature and the arts.<br />If we cut the humanities, our nation will be the loser, both economically and politically. <br />