Taking Education Seriously

A commentary in today’s New York Times reminds us that our current fixation with all things quantitative risks diminishing our capacity to understand the world we live in.  While it is unclear if Einstein is the source of this quote often attributed to him, the idea remains worth reflecting on: 

‘Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.’

My chosen field is the study of politics.  Most of my colleagues call it political science, and many of them do very worthwhile work, producing material that I value very much.   My own work, however, straddles disciplines and, while in conversation with and relying on quantitative work in many fields, is most decidedly in the qualitative camp. 

A colleague in engineering often dismisses this camp with the phrase ‘fuzzy thinking,’ because her approach to analysis has yet to find a way to quantify what we do.  This is not to say there is not a fair amount of fuzzy thinking here, it seems equally unlikely that there are not as many fuzzy thinkers, doing non-innovative, within the paradigm, worker-bee work, with numbers. 

Klinkenborg argues that pressures related to the competiveness of the job market are driving students and their parents to focus more narrowly on a vocational approach to education, which they hope will justify the rising cost of college.  This approach, however, carries great risk for individual students and for societies that choose to overlook the importance of education more broadly construed. 

Learning to write and think and communicate clearly, with text as well as with numbers, remain foundational skills that must be taught and practiced.  Because, as Klinkenborg concludes about writing well, even though  “[n]o one has found a way to put a dollar sign on this kind of literacy…everyone who possesses it — no matter how or when it was acquired — knows that it is a rare and precious inheritance.”

What kind of job can I get with a degree in Political Science?  My colleagues hear the same question about a degree in English or History or German or Philosophy.  This is the wrong question for two reasons.  First, as Klinkenborg rightly notes, “[f]ormer English majors turn up almost anywhere, in almost any career, and they nearly always bring with them a rich sense of the possibilities of language, literary and otherwise.”  So, the fact that there is no one predetermined career for your 18 year old does not mean she will be unable to find a job.  She will bring to her career skills that are widely recognized…by public and private employers and by the free market.

It is the wrong question for a second reason, noted by Klinkenborg:  the ability to think and write and communicate clearly and persuasively is a foundational gift rooted in a liberal arts education.   In the language of vocational education, this is a skill.  Klinkenborg refers to this skill as writing, with writing understood as inescapably associated with thinking. 

“Writing well used to be a fundamental principle of the humanities, as essential as the knowledge of mathematics and statistics in the sciences. But writing well isn’t merely a utilitarian skill. It is about developing a rational grace and energy in your conversation with the world around you.”

Klinkenborg concludes that “[t]here is a certain literal-mindedness in the recent shift away from the humanities. It suggests a number of things. One, the rush to make education pay off presupposes that only the most immediately applicable skills are worth acquiring (though that doesn’t explain the current popularity of political science). Two, the humanities often do a bad job of explaining why the humanities matter. And three, the humanities often do a bad job of teaching the humanities. You don’t have to choose only one of these explanations. All three apply.”

Worth thinking about.

Is our fixation with immediate payoff driving us to invest lots of time and energy unwisely, just as the short-term profitability of derivatives, or of CEO decision making in general, destabilizes financial markets, suffocating innovation by distorting incentive structures?

Is our fixation with immediate payoff a sign of desperation, as we frantically scramble to cope with the new uncertainty associated with the eclipse of our unchallenged superpower status?

Why is political science growing in popularity anyway?

Why do we (in the humanities and social sciences) do such a lousy job of explaining to our students, and to larger communities, about the value of a liberal arts education?  Should we integrate thoughtful responses to the ‘so what?’ question into every module we teach? 

Has the expectation from our students of immediate job-related value contributed to our own declining capacity or willingness to help our students understand and appreciate and master the skills of democratic citizenship central to the mission of a liberal arts curriculum?