Are We Heading For Disaster
Here we are in 1999 in a world that is booming with technological advances. One would have to ask, "How did we come so far in such a short amount of time?" It seems as though it was only yesterday that we were traveling by horse and buggy. Now we travel by bullet trains, airplanes, and rockets. Seeing the arts and humanities in everything we did years ago was much easier, because technology didn't seem to advance at the rapid pace it does today. Is that why so many people fail to realize the importance of it as we soar into the millennium? I believe that if one dives deep enough into anything created today, they would be bound to find traces of the past. Arts and Humanities are more than just a painting, monument, or song. Every bit of art from today and the past symbolizes something. It is symbolic of an era, time period, or group of people. Here in America where the land is so culturally diverse it is especially important. We would suffer most greatly if our education system shifted completely away from the arts and focused only on advancing technology. In order to define our present world, we must reflect upon the past. What is culture? It can be defined as the beliefs, be
In schools today, we have children coming out of high school that can not read. Those that can read haven't read a small fraction of the great authors from this century or any other century. I could probably say the same thing regarding our college graduates too. The thing that makes it so sad is that we had many people fighting for reform so that our country wouldn't get to the point it is at now and currently heading. Robert Maynard Hutchins encouraged liberal education at earlier ages and measured achievement by comprehensive examination, rather than by classroom time served. He introduced the study of the Great Books. At the same time, Hutchins argued about the purposes of higher education, deploring undue emphasis on nonacademic pursuits and criticizing the tendency toward specialization and vocationalism. However after his departure, The University of Chicago where he was chancellor abandoned most of his reforms and returned to the educational practices of other major American universities. havior, language, and entire way of life of a particular time or group of people. Culture includes customs, ceremonies, and works of art, inventions, technology, and traditions. The term also may have a more specific aesthetic definition and can describe the intellectual and artistic achievements of a society. Based upon that definition, culture can be found in just about everything we see and do. If that were the case, then wouldn't we benefit from studying past and present cultures? There have been a great many men who have fought for a more liberal and culturally rich education to be given to the children of this country. Mortimer Adler wrote on liberal studies forty years ago. In his book Reforming Education, he says that education is simply a means to achieve an end. And"...the end of liber
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Approximate Word count = 1224
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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