Why Do We Have to Learn the Liberal Arts?

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

Students and teachers in Kyoto University face a radical reform in the curriculum of general education which has been criticized that the liberal arts are no more than credit makers since the “yutori” education—devoting longer time for moral education and career development at the expense of fundamental subjects such as language and science, prevailed in high school education schemes and more and more university students started to graduate only with disciplines they majored, or some with nothing. 

Enthusiastic and systematic education or independent and voluntary attitude

The university’s response to such a situation is to reorganize the general education system into a more effective and productive scheme in which students can discover clear academic values and manage their own academic or career goals through learning the liberal arts. In other words, the college authorities try to establish a new curriculum and syllabuses with order and purpose. However, as the reform proposal points out, some subjects would be selected out of the curriculum for abolition due to the limit of supervision and that all lecturers would be controlled under subject requirements, which are concerned  to result in the university education with less diversity and academic neutrality. 

For a nice-looking transcript and meta-academic training

Kyoto university students, on the one hand, spend their undergraduate for taking easy subjects, but on the other hand most of students in typical western universities study hard to take better grades for a perfect transcript. An academic history, e.g., grade point average (GPA), is one of the most important element in job hunting amongst western society, so students try to make a parade of the highest grade on their transcripts. Moreover, the liberal arts are good opportunity to sharpen up one’s critical thinking and discussion skills for his or her following career no matter which is proceeding into further study or starting business. Those subjects consist not only of lectures but also of tutorial or discussion terms that provide students with conventional argument topics regarding  politics, cultural diversity, gender discrimination, bioethics, and so on. 

Learning for liberty

The Bible says, ‘The truth shall make you free (John, Chapter 8, Verses 32).’ In a modern interpretation, those who pursue the truth shall be free from political ideologies, mass media, and his own stereotypes. The liberal arts let students find a diversity of viewpoints of the world through discussions with other students and teachers and give them a recognition that their textbooks have no correct answers for most of issues in the society, nor do politicians, mass media, and even scientists sometimes. These learning processes ensure the intellectual liberty in which one would not forced to believe biased information and keep rational in every important stage of their lives, which I think is one of the fundamentals of higher education. For example, lack of this sense in Japan’s society might run this country into a wrong way, remaining stuck in every stage; politics, diplomacy, economy, and energy. After the Tohoku earthquake and the nuclear disaster, such an aspect of this country has been highlighted in the problems regarding some people brainwashed by health risks of radioactive materials who claims the threats of intaking foods from Tohoku even at the absence of scientific evidences.