So, what's the challenge?
Today’s students are the first generation raised on the internet and social media. Connected from early childhood to vast streams of information and entertainment, they flit freely among them and expect their technologies, mobile and omnipresent, to answer every question. They access a vast and exponentially increasing sea of "information," a term that seems to encompass anything and everything that can be expressed in words or images, true or false, momentous or momentary. Everything in their world seems to encourage speed, multitasking and perpetual connectivity. The vast proliferation of data only a click away invites surfing rather than digging deep, cutting and pasting rather than reflecting and evaluating.
It is not easy today to imagine a role for the Humanities that does not involve it becoming something else — something faster, sexier, and more clearly connected to the perceived demands of the day. Indeed, much of the humanities curriculum has been moving in those directions. We stand to lose our claim to a central place in the curriculum if our only response is an attempt to catch up to our students’ speed or vie with them in coolness. Instead, we need to reassert more passionately and more effectively the principles and practices that distinguish humanistic teaching and learning.
It is not easy today to imagine a role for the Humanities that does not involve it becoming something else — something faster, sexier, and more clearly connected to the perceived demands of the day. Indeed, much of the humanities curriculum has been moving in those directions. We stand to lose our claim to a central place in the curriculum if our only response is an attempt to catch up to our students’ speed or vie with them in coolness. Instead, we need to reassert more passionately and more effectively the principles and practices that distinguish humanistic teaching and learning.
We will not prosper in the long run by saying we offer better job training, though indeed many of the skills one can learn in the humanities classroom (clear writing, careful analysis, cogent argumentation) are crucial to success in the world outside. Nor can we claim to offer solutions to the world’s problems,though we can say they will hardly be solved without the help of the sort of critical, open-minded and open-hearted thought that the humanities uniquely promotes.
"What we must do is insist — loudly and repeatedly — that a humanities education aspires to make people not merely successful but also fulfilled, not merely autonomous thinkers but also contributing citizens, engaged and creative participants in the community."
We must show how grounding in the humanities can put political and social issues into perspective and provide new perspectives on our values and beliefs.
Adapted from: Burian, Peter. "Defending the Humanities." Insidehighered.com. Inside Higher Ed, 25 June 2012. Web. 24 June 2013. Peter Burian is a professor of classical studies and dean of the humanities at Duke University
Adapted from: Burian, Peter. "Defending the Humanities." Insidehighered.com. Inside Higher Ed, 25 June 2012. Web. 24 June 2013. Peter Burian is a professor of classical studies and dean of the humanities at Duke University