Liberal Arts and the Campus David W. Orr · Essay written by David W. Orr a professor of Environment Studies. · A Radical response to Allan Bloom's notion of Ideal Academy. “ where students of a higher sort would spend a great deal of time reading the Great Books”. · Education should address the pressing issues like Environment deterioration, Nuclear Violence, and denial of social justice. · The basis of education should be sustainability,( sustainability of food, energy, water, landscaping, architecture) and focus must be human survival. The aim of Liberal art education is not merely develop a learned appreciation for classic or to transmit “marketable skills”. · It should develop balanced whole persons. · Branching is a main problem in contemporary education. It creates mediocre, half-formed or deformed students who are the products of mere book learning. · No practical knowledge is imparted to the students, the only skill they achieve is the ability to write examinations. The second aim is to overcome “the fatal disconnection of subjects”. · Contemporary curriculum is a cacophony( mixture of different sounds )of subjects which isn’t a part of a suitable pattern. · The academy itself is a cacophony of different jargons, it produces specialists who can’t talk in common tongue. · Data collection is given importance rather than the connection between them. · Importance should be given to connectedness. Third task of liberal art education is to give a sober(sensible) view of the world, but without inducing despair. · The students became shocked when they realize that there is wide gap between their expectations and reality. · They must become aware that the happy era they knew through advertising industry and politicians is just a fabricated one. · The students must know that this is an era of danger, anomie, suffering on the streets, changing climate, war, hunger, homelessness, toxicity, pollution, desertification and there is the threat of Armageddon as well. · They should discuss the solution too. · Today's campus teach apathy and indifference. · The First thing a student should learn is “how to live well in a place”. Formal Education now prepares the graduates to reside not to dwell. · Difference between a resident and inhabitant Resident is a temporary and rootless occupant. They are only concerned about themselves. An inhabitant is rooted to his/her habitat. Inhabitants and a particular habitat can’t be separated without doing violence to both. A resident show indifference towards his surroundings and other living things. He is not environmentally cautious. An inhabitant and habitat mutually shape each other. Residents are mere consumers, they are not worried about the availability and sufficiency. Inhabitants do think about sufficiency, organic harmony, and other ecological processes.
