General Education

I support the concept of general education requirements in college. I have had students tell me that while fulfilling their general education requirements they developed an interest in history, science, art, or other subjects outside their declared majors. However, I have had far more students complain to me that they have experienced general education courses as a waste of their time and money. They did not perceive the courses as having any relevance to their personal or professional lives.

General education courses play an important role in promoting integrative learning, which includes making meaningful connections between disciplines. Yet students do not seem to be grasping those connections. I continually hear students question the usefulness of a general education. Their questions have prompted me to seek answers.

There are two arenas in which I have been conducting experiments to find those answers, the academic courses I teach and the leader development process I coordinate. What I have found is that students enter a course or workshop expecting to be told specific answers to their life and career questions. They are not accustomed to devising their own answers. They also are generally unskilled at learning from their own experiences. They lack reflection skills. I have found they do enjoy learning about themselves. These observations inform my suggestions for approaching general education.

The primary complaint I hear from students about general education courses is the lack of relevance to their lives. How do these courses help them with their future careers? One of the explanations I give students is that a general education exposes them to various ways of thinking. To compete in the job market, one must differentiate oneself from all the others vying for the same positions. Being innovative is a key factor in differentiating oneself from the competition. One skill in being innovative is the ability to apply the perspectives and knowledge from one field to another. The majority of practitioners in any profession tend to read the same books and journals, attend the same conferences and seminars, belong to the same associations and clubs. They all draw from the same pool of ideas. To stand out from the pack requires the ability to draw from different sources of ideas and to synthesize new solutions.

Simply telling students of the value of learning from other disciplines is insufficient. They need to experience the connections between disciplines. Students need to practice how knowledge of history can help in making better decisions; how the arts foster personal creativity; how the scientific method can be used in problem solving; how philosophy may be applied to resolving life’s dilemmas. And students need to be helped connecting various disciplines to their own areas of interest.

Those interests are not limited to career. General education courses can play a critical role in personal development. In addition to general courses in religion, there could be a course in spirituality. In such a course students would journey inward. They would discover their inner source of strength and direction. They would discern their personal calling and sense of mission. There would be the opportunity to experiment with a variety of spiritual practices.

My point is that general education courses should go beyond teaching students about subject matter in a discipline. General education courses can also expose students to the paradigms and practices within each field. These courses also need to help students make specific connections between the academic disciplines and their own personal interests. Helping students cultivate the capacity to integrate interdisciplinary knowledge with life practice leads to wisdom and individuals prepared to learn, serve, and lead.