Towards Higher Learning :: Education Educating Essays

Towards Higher Learning Higher education plays a central role in preparing students to live and work in a society where one out of three Americans will be a member of a racial/ethnic minority and most of the growth in new jobs will require a college degree. What skills do students need to become engaged citizens in the future? According to John Newman’s "The Idea of a University", "It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in using them"(49). If the University is the means by which we as individuals raise the intellectual tone of society and cultivate public minds then the question is what should the relationship between society and the universities be in order to reach our student’s highest potential? The special "fruit of education" furnished at a University says Newman, should be the one that makes good members of society (48). The responsibility of universities and colleges becomes an obligation because as social institutions they need to deliver good education, respect of ones ethnicity, equality for women, constructive criticism and intellectual independence in the search for truth. Respect for ones culture or background is important, giving a voice to those gro ups who have not been embraced by our culture. Bell Hooks, "Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education," Recall, her time at college where she felt alienated from her upper-class peers at Stanford. She had difficulty with the university system's exclusivity. So from the start Hooks did not feel that she was included in the university setting. The culture that Hooks embodied were values she received from her working-class background. Societies have always sought to educate their people to be productive and creative, and to satisfy their curiosity and aesthetic impulses. This has only happened when people acquired reliable knowledge and think systematically. Education has appeared in many forms, both formalized and informal. What does it mean? higher learning How do we get it? Is it something that universities can provide or is it Spayde’s definition of education "at a time when change is so swift that the shelf life of technical knowledge is six months(at best)" (58). Jon Spayde believes that "lasting education has always taken place outside of or on the periphery of school(58)" . The phenomenon of technology which affects various areas the economy, the media, etc.