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Via normblog comes this thoughtful article on what education — and specifically a university education — should achieve.

The argument of the article's author, Anthony Kronman, is that the concentration of academics on developing a specialism in order to focus on their research output, as well as the "careerist anxieties" of students, have both contributed to a decline in universities enabling students to consider what living is for.

Put more simply:

[University] is a time not merely to learn a specialty and prepare for a career, but also to acquire the moral and intellectual equipment one needs to grapple with the question of what living is for.

I've argued before about the utilitarian nature of education in this country and its damaging effects; though Kronman is talking about slightly grander considerations — almost the meaning of life — the wider point remains: that education shouldn't just be geared to what job it can help you secure, but primarily in the way in which it can help individuals interact with and understand the world around them.

The rest of the article is here.

Tags — Society