Education today is often criticized for conforming all students to the same ideas and not letting them truly expand their minds and be creative. Students are held back by curriculum that intends to broaden their intellectual ability while it really narrows it and shuts out a lot of different outlets that are just waiting to be taken advantage of by these students. In Sanford J. Ungar’s The New Liberal Arts he addresses the many misperceptions made by Americans about Liberal Arts degrees and why they are no longer useful in the modern world. Many Americans believe that because of the current economic situation that an added expense of a liberal arts degree is wasteful, they also assume that employers no longer are looking for liberal arts degrees
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This idea comes about when he brings up the 4th misperception this misperception focuses on how modern education is driven more towards STEM fields while liberal arts degrees are left in the dust because they fail to do so. While he states that liberal arts degrees “encompass the broadest possible range of disciplines” (Ungar 229). Ungar does not state that he believes students should be able to learn about more personal subject matter like Graff does, but with this quote he shows that liberal arts degrees cover a much wider array of topics then a career education ever could. Although Ungar does not make the exact same claims as Graff does both of their claims have the same main underlying principal. That the modern education system needs to change and they both propose two different ways to do …show more content…
In Ungar’s article he discusses the involvement of these factors in misperceptions one, three and seven. These misperceptions by Americans are as things such as liberal arts degrees being something that are luxuries and no longer worth the investment and the overall cost of these educations are so high because these liberal arts colleges are struggling to find ways to do things that will help bring in money so the cost of the degree can be lowered. Then class comes into play when he states a common misperception that “It is condescending to imply that those who have less cannot understand and appreciate the finer elements of knowledge-another way of saying that the rich folks will do the important thinking and the lower classes will simply carry out their ideas” (Ungar 228-229). He then dismisses this thought as it is simply outlandish and cannot be supported in any academic way. But even though Ungar states these concepts as misperceptions that does not change the fact that they are still perception of many American’s despites how false it maybe. Essentially proving that the wealth and class of Americans have effects on
This idea comes about when he brings up the 4th misperception this misperception focuses on how modern education is driven more towards STEM fields while liberal arts degrees are left in the dust because they fail to do so. While he states that liberal arts degrees “encompass the broadest possible range of disciplines” (Ungar 229). Ungar does not state that he believes students should be able to learn about more personal subject matter like Graff does, but with this quote he shows that liberal arts degrees cover a much wider array of topics then a career education ever could. Although Ungar does not make the exact same claims as Graff does both of their claims have the same main underlying principal. That the modern education system needs to change and they both propose two different ways to do …show more content…
In Ungar’s article he discusses the involvement of these factors in misperceptions one, three and seven. These misperceptions by Americans are as things such as liberal arts degrees being something that are luxuries and no longer worth the investment and the overall cost of these educations are so high because these liberal arts colleges are struggling to find ways to do things that will help bring in money so the cost of the degree can be lowered. Then class comes into play when he states a common misperception that “It is condescending to imply that those who have less cannot understand and appreciate the finer elements of knowledge-another way of saying that the rich folks will do the important thinking and the lower classes will simply carry out their ideas” (Ungar 228-229). He then dismisses this thought as it is simply outlandish and cannot be supported in any academic way. But even though Ungar states these concepts as misperceptions that does not change the fact that they are still perception of many American’s despites how false it maybe. Essentially proving that the wealth and class of Americans have effects on