Group #8 met for the third (and final) time this semester on 10/10. Here is a belated report of our activity.
This meeting focused on some minor revisions of the goals we had developed at our last meeting (9/26/96). We have re-numbered the goals so that skills, knowledge and values goals are grouped together. We also expanded on the goal of introducing students to major issues of the day. After some discussion, we agreed that simply exposing students to different disciplinary perspectives does not ensure that they have the ability to integrate these perspectives to form a cohesive understanding of important issues. Thus, we now say explicitly that we want our students to be able to address major interdisciplinary problems in well-informed, critical ways. [This was, in effect, an argument for some kind of interdisciplinary senior gened seminar.]
Here is our final list of gened goals:
1. To develop reading, writing and oral communication skills.
2. To develop critical thinking and problem solving skills and to provide training in the methods of scholarly and scientific research. [This goal will include sub-goals that cover familiarity with information retrieval systems]
3. To develop, through a strong core curriculum, basic knowledge in the humanities, arts, mathematics and the sciences.
4. To introduce students to the political, social, economic and scientific issues of their time and enable them to address major contemporary issues in an interdisciplinary way.
5. To help students understand and respect people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, and to encourage development of a global outlook.
6. To encourage intellectual curiosity and lifelong learning.
One final note. At the very end of our meeting, Dinesh Sarvate raised an important concern. Unfortunately, we did not have time to discuss it adequately. I want to put it forward, though, so other groups will have an opportunity to discuss it. Dinesh is concerned that goal #2 (critical thinking) is in tension with goal #5 (respect for other cultures). That is, how can we simultaneously argue that we want our students to think critically about their values, yet assert that they should respect all cultures -- even cultures with widely different values?
On a personal note: I do think that these two goals can be reconciled if we
clarify what we mean by "respect" and "critical thinking" -- but I think
Dinesh's point merits discussion. It may be fruitful to try to think more
carefully about just what sort of "respect" we want to instill in our
students. I worry about students who think that "everyone has a right to
his opinion" means that all opinions are equally well-supported.
Todd Grantham
Department of Philosophy
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC 29424-0001
(803)- 953-8011