Excerpt
Chapter 7: Curiosity and Endless Education
On a hot September afternoon, four hundred students crushed into a small auditorium looking for seats on the long rows that curved around like giant horseshoes. Students eased their way down an aisle and to a row where they slide past other people to find a chair. As the room filled with chattering voices, each one grew louder to compete with the clamor around them.
After a few minutes, a tall, thin man wearing white running shoes, brown trousers, and a blue shirt entered and stood at a podium in the front of the room. From their seats, most of the students could look down at the top of his head. He clipped on a lavaliere microphone and cleared his throat.
“I know it’s hot in here,” he said, almost shouting over the chatter. “But we’ve got work to do.” As the students stopped talking, he continued. “This is History 112, and I suppose most of you are here because you think you’re required to take this class. Well, you are not,” he said as he moved from behind the podium and looked toward the back row.
A soft murmur rippled across the room as students turned from side to side and whispered some expression of disbelief. “But wait,” he quickly added, thrusting his hands in the air as if to stop some oncoming locomotive. “This course is by definition a part of getting a liberal education at this institution, but nobody in the world is requiring you to pursue such broad learning. You will not be whipped in the public square if you don’t. No one will imprison or fine you. You are in charge of your own education.”
As students listened, he continued. “I want you to think about whether you really want to get this kind of education. I want you to understand both its beauty and utility, then you can decide if it is for you.” The room grew still now, and a soft breeze floated around the space as the air conditioning finally kicked in.
Within a few minutes, he had unfurled a brief history of liberal education, and told them that “liberal” came from the Latin for “free” (liber), and it was the kind of schooling that free (as opposed to slave) children received in the ancient world. In the modern version, students explored a host of disciplines from the sciences to the humanities, taking a deep approach to important issues that those disciplines could help them address.