The Death of Learning: How American Education Has Failed Our Students and What to Do about It - Hardcover
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The liberal arts are dying. They are dying because most Americans don't see the point of them. Americans don't understand why anyone would study literature or history or the classics--or, more contemporarily, feminist criticism, whiteness studies, or the literature of postcolonial states--when they can get an engineering or business degree.
Even more concerning is when they read how "Western civilization" has become a term
of reproach at so many supposedly thoughtful institutions; or how fanatical political correctness works hard to silence alternative viewpoints; or, more generally, how liberal studies have become scattered, narrow, and small. In this atmosphere, it's hard to convince parents or their progeny that a liberal education is all that wonderful or that it's even worthy of respect.
Over sixty years ago, we were introduced to the idea of "the two cultures" in higher education-- that is, the growing rift in the academy between the humanities and the sciences, a rift wherein neither side understood the other, spoke to the other, or cared for the other. But this divide in the academy, real as it may be, is nothing compared to another great divide--the rift today between our common American culture and the culture of the academy itself.
So, how can we rebuild the notion that a liberal education is truly of value, both to our students and to the nation? Our highest hopes may be not to "restore" the liberal arts to what they looked like fifty or a hundred years ago but to ask ourselves what a true contemporary American liberal education at its best might look like.
Remedying this situation will involve knowing clearly where we wish to go and then understanding how we might get there. For those objectives, this book is meant to be the beginning.
JOHN AGRESTO's academic career has spanned teaching at the University of Toronto, Kenyon College, Duke University, Wabash College, and the New School University. In the late 1970s he was both a scholar and administrator at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. In the 1980s he served in both senior administrative and policy positions--including Acting Chairman for 15 months--at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington DC. In 1989, he became President of St. John's College in Santa Fe, a position in which he served for 11 years. In 2003, Agresto went to Iraq, where he was the Senior Advisor for Higher Education and Scientific Research for the Coalition Provisional Authority. He returned regularly to Iraq over the years, becoming, in 2007, Acting Chancellor, Provost, and Academic Dean at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani, positions he held until 2010. He was also, at various times, the Lilly Senior Research Fellow at Wabash College, Scholar-in-Residence at Hampden-Sidney College, and Fellow at the Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Agresto is the author of five books and editor of three others, including Rediscovering America: Liberty, Equality, and the Crisis of Democracy (Asahina and Wallace); Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions (Encounter Books); The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy (Cornell); The Humanist as Citizen: Essays on the Uses of the Humanities (NHC and the UNC Press); as well as Tomatoes, Basil, and Olive Oil -- An Italian American Cookbook (Wolfsbrunnen Press); and a political/religious thriller, published through Amazon under a pen name. Widely published in the areas of politics, law, and education, his articles and essays have appeared in such disparate places as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Commentary Magazine, the South Atlantic Quarterly, the Georgia Law Review, the Washington Times, the Review of Politics, and Academic Questions. Though retired, Agresto remains President of John Agresto & Associates, an educational consulting company, and is also a member and former chair of the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He recently retired as the Probate Judge of Santa Fe County.Contributor(s)
Author
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The liberal arts are dying. They are dying because most Americans don't see the point of them. Americans don't understand why anyone would study literature or history or the classics--or, more contemporarily, feminist criticism, whiteness studies, or the literature of postcolonial states--when they can get an engineering or business degree.
Even more concerning is when they read how "Western civilization" has become a term
of reproach at so many supposedly thoughtful institutions; or how fanatical political correctness works hard to silence alternative viewpoints; or, more generally, how liberal studies have become scattered, narrow, and small. In this atmosphere, it's hard to convince parents or their progeny that a liberal education is all that wonderful or that it's even worthy of respect.
Over sixty years ago, we were introduced to the idea of "the two cultures" in higher education-- that is, the growing rift in the academy between the humanities and the sciences, a rift wherein neither side understood the other, spoke to the other, or cared for the other. But this divide in the academy, real as it may be, is nothing compared to another great divide--the rift today between our common American culture and the culture of the academy itself.
So, how can we rebuild the notion that a liberal education is truly of value, both to our students and to the nation? Our highest hopes may be not to "restore" the liberal arts to what they looked like fifty or a hundred years ago but to ask ourselves what a true contemporary American liberal education at its best might look like.
Remedying this situation will involve knowing clearly where we wish to go and then understanding how we might get there. For those objectives, this book is meant to be the beginning.
JOHN AGRESTO's academic career has spanned teaching at the University of Toronto, Kenyon College, Duke University, Wabash College, and the New School University. In the late 1970s he was both a scholar and administrator at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. In the 1980s he served in both senior administrative and policy positions--including Acting Chairman for 15 months--at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington DC. In 1989, he became President of St. John's College in Santa Fe, a position in which he served for 11 years. In 2003, Agresto went to Iraq, where he was the Senior Advisor for Higher Education and Scientific Research for the Coalition Provisional Authority. He returned regularly to Iraq over the years, becoming, in 2007, Acting Chancellor, Provost, and Academic Dean at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani, positions he held until 2010. He was also, at various times, the Lilly Senior Research Fellow at Wabash College, Scholar-in-Residence at Hampden-Sidney College, and Fellow at the Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Agresto is the author of five books and editor of three others, including Rediscovering America: Liberty, Equality, and the Crisis of Democracy (Asahina and Wallace); Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions (Encounter Books); The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy (Cornell); The Humanist as Citizen: Essays on the Uses of the Humanities (NHC and the UNC Press); as well as Tomatoes, Basil, and Olive Oil -- An Italian American Cookbook (Wolfsbrunnen Press); and a political/religious thriller, published through Amazon under a pen name. Widely published in the areas of politics, law, and education, his articles and essays have appeared in such disparate places as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Commentary Magazine, the South Atlantic Quarterly, the Georgia Law Review, the Washington Times, the Review of Politics, and Academic Questions. Though retired, Agresto remains President of John Agresto & Associates, an educational consulting company, and is also a member and former chair of the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He recently retired as the Probate Judge of Santa Fe County.Contributor(s)
Author