How do your views of the purposes of higher education/a liberal arts education fit with (or oppose) Freire’s ideas?
I believe that higher education plays a vital role in furthering today’s society. Paulo Freire believed that schools themselves focused more on their own inner rankings that come around by test scores and empirical score cards, rather than the students actually preparing them for public issues after school. I agree that some schools can get wrapped up in the scoring of testing and grades, however they also take a lot of focus on furthering students’ understanding of subjects. Freire highly believed in the idea of critical teaching in order to give students the tools to think critically and to take charge of situations. This can in turn help students learn common sense and analyse the world and people around them in life in order to help promote social change.
Higher education is a tool to help students specialize and further understand a subject of their own choosing, giving the freedom of choice. Students will either pick a subject that inspires them to think critically, or a subject that society has deemed to be of importance. Going to college is a way to increase job earnings, gain a network of classmates and alumni, as well as further understanding in certain subjects of learning. It is a way to ‘get ahead’ of the people looking for jobs with only their GED, due to hiring jobs looking for people with furthered knowledge in their field. While it is not impossible to find a high paying job without higher education, it is difficult to be chosen above someone with a bachelors or masters degree.
While Freire focuses on the importance of critical thinking and higher education, Dr. Johnetta Cole, the former president of Spelman College and Bennett College, states that students come to college in order to better understand the world and how it works. I believe that there is a good mix of both critical thinking and furthering understanding of the world that can be found in higher education. No matter what path a student takes in college, critical thinking is a must in order to better understand the subject being studied. As for furthering understanding of the world, it is different per how each person looks at it. Studying math may not seem like it is furthering understanding of the world, however it can help a person understand programming or physics laws that apply to everyday life. It is different from studying anthropology, where a student literally studies humans and how they interact with the world, however, both in their unique ways, help the learner to further their own understanding of what goes on around them.
I agree with Freire, that students need to learn critical thinking and social change, however I also believe that understanding the world better naturally comes along with higher education. People who do not go to any sort of college can miss out on little details learned for understanding the world. While they may learn some aspects through society, they will not gain the deeper understanding that people with higher education achieve.
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