THE NEW DISCIPLINES OF LIBERAL EDUCATION

Much of recent literature on general education, common learning, or li beral education tends to stress the uniqueness of our circumstances an d the discontinuities with tradition, and many of the suggested plans eschew any reflexive consideration of the ways that a particular progr am embodies or derives from a theory of the disciplines. I want to enc ourage reexamination of tradition as well as self-examination of theor y and practice in order to make better sense of the successes and fail ures of suggested programs. A program of common study must derive from some analysis of the context of education, and it must suggest a crit erion of success or failure if we are going to be able to judge it ade quately. The context is broader than the new circumstances of the pres ent: we can only discriminate the new by referring to traditions, and we benefit from understanding the ways in which past shifts and innova tions in education have occurred. Standards for evaluation should be s ought in the abilities we create to adjust to present problems and to transform the present state of learning into the kind of knowledge app ropriate for the future. The work of Richard McKeon is an invaluable t ool for uncovering the complex relations of theory and practice, and h is writing on the disciplines of the liberal arts can help us state an d evaluate innovations in common learning. On the one hand, McKeon's s chema of the liberal arts helps identify programs that are too restric ted in theory or practice; on the other hand, McKeon can show us how t he variety of successes and even failures participates in the traditio n of the liberal arts. The patterns of a liberal education are always concerned with content, skills, the creation of a whole person, and th at person's action in the community. Using McKeon's schema for the dis ciplines, I examine the opportunities for common learning within and a mong the disciplines. The disciplines are fields or subject matters as well as methods or arts of inquiry. The new disciplines of a liberal arts education must prepare students to take their place in technologi cal society and free them to enjoy and to direct their lives. Interdis ciplinary learning, while frequently misunderstood as the mere conjoin ing or overlapping of subjects, provides opportunities for teachers an d students to cooperate in the discovery and ordering of knowledge tha t will produce a sense of wholeness and participation in the greater c ommunity. The relationship between character and discipline that McKeo n suggests provides criteria for judging interdisciplinary suggestions based on skills as well as subject matters.