LIBERAL EDUCATION: A RUBRIC

The proper aim of a liberal education is to liberate you from ideas, customs, and practices detrimental to the flourishing of life and mind on Earth and beyond.

The accumulation of knowledge and the grasping of principles, systems and theories are a large part of education’s project, yet all that enterprise must aim to serve our highest goal of wising up to discern what is of greatest value to life, and then bringing it to light.

Your liberal education, then, must be informed by the motive of value and the ultimate question of “What really matters?”  Why does language matter or literature or all the other arts?  What’s the good of the various sciences and social sciences, how can they be applied to life’s needs, and how can they be improved?

A liberal education should not be designed to inform you in the sense of filling you with information; rather, it should help form your mind, your thinking processes, so that you can fare well—creatively and productively—on your life’s journey in the cosmos.

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