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Mary Grace Budd
Eric Ekstrand
Writing 111
31 October 2014
Aware and Away
In a world driven by consumerism and individualism, the goals of America’s education
have become clouded with our individual aspirations for money, power, and a perfect, safe, and
just world. Earl Shorris and his colleagues took an unconventional approach to the problem of
poverty in their city. They designed a program called the Clemente Course focused on
cultivating the minds of currently impoverished students and giving them tools to navigate the
rules and ways of their culture. With Shorris’s story told in The Purpose of a Liberal Education
II, the reader might have one of two reactions: the first would be hopeful—that we’ve finally
discovered the reason for the class divide in America. The second is one of concern: why don’t
many of our perceptions of the purpose of higher education mirror the same goals of the
Clemente course? Why don’t all education systems focus on developing our minds instead of
cramming information into a brain just to qualify the student for a job or standardized test? Our
society deems college graduates now ready to participate in the politics of the world, and Shorris
shows us that through the study of the humanities, education helps people get to the point where
they can be political.; meaning that they can participate in the development of society. Although
the course does not resemble most colleges or universities today in structure or student body,
Shorris’s article shows us the purpose of education should be to help students acquire tools that
make them aware of themselves and the world that they live in.
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The poor did not walk into poverty; their circumstances handed it to them. Unfortunately
for them, to be able to work in society, one must be able to work with society. To be able to work
with society requires that one understands its own culture. Niecie Walker, a high school dropout
and a prisoner at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, earned a college degree and became a
counselor to women who also had a history of violence. When Shorris meets with her, he is
shocked by her belief in the humanities: “You’ve got to teach the moral life of downtown to the
children. And the way you do that… is by taking them downtown to plays, museums, concerts,
lectures, where they can learn the moral life of downtown” (188-189). Niecie’s perspective is
unusual in that it comes from a current prisoner, who after receiving exposure to education,
realized the value of experiencing and understanding the humanities. Her newly received
knowledge of philosophy and psychology didn’t just make her more “educated”; it led to her to
transform whom she was and how she would treat the world. Her solution towards poverty is
different than simply blaming the school systems for not teaching well; it is about making people
aware of their culture. When society deprives people of experiencing the things that influence the
way they live their life (history, art, entertainment, good music), how can we expect them to be
able to relate well to the culture in which they are trying to work? According to Niecie and
Shorris, education should use the humanities to emerge students into the political life of the
world. Higher education should not be about absorbing information into our minds; it should be
about creating meaningful connections between people and their world.
In addition to making connections between people and society, a liberal education should
help students make meaningful connections with other humans. In the Clemente course, the
students were not analyzing poetry to help them create a career in English one day. They studied
poetry to learn about human connection through writing. Shorris recounts, “He showed them
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poems of love and seduction, and satiric commentaries on those poems by later poets…He
tantalized them with the opportunity to read poems aloud. A tug-of-war began between him and
the students” (196). Shorris paints a picture of an engaged classroom with a group of people who
are typically left out of the picture with education. These people struggled to live comfortable
lives in the city due to their health, harmful people in their past, extreme poverty, or poor,
previous choices. Shorris’s student, David Howell asked himself, “What would Socrates do?”
instead of responding out of impulse with a frustration at work (198). Here, he demonstrates the
relevance of poetry and literature in students’ lives. The humanities are not just a relevant tool
for success in society, they are life giving. The students of the course coming from broken homes
and poor backgrounds are able to relate to 200-year-old writing. Shorris shows us how the
humanities allow us to connect with people we might not otherwise have any other connection
with. Even for him, a white-educated male, he utilizes their common culture to empathize with
and relate to lower-class minorities. We see this when he tells his student, Abel, that he’s a
Kantian, because he believes that selling drugs is never okay. A good education will allow
people to connect with others apart from any class-divide, philosophical difference, or common
interests by a shared understanding of history, religion, music, philosophy, and the visual arts.
By making students aware of their world, a liberal education will equip students with the
means to live productive, empathetic lives and eventually work for society’s betterment. Shorris
claims a liberal education will teach people “how to negotiate instead of using force…how to use
politics to get along, to get power” (192). Their environment keeps many people from obtaining
the ability to be “political” or to understand how society functions. However, by understanding
what actually went into making their culture, people become empowered to work in it and refine
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it. Only by understanding the rules and values of society, will people ever be able to have a voice
in politics and have any power to change their circumstances.
From our architecture, to our music, to Shakespeare references in movies, to our societal
customs, the humanities are visible in almost every aspect of life. Humanities in education do not
just teach people history or provide entertainment. Like with Niecie, Abel, and David Howell,
they have the power to make someone a “better person”. Studying them is more than just a
hobby for interested adults. They give us valuable insight into our own selves as humans, our
history as it pertains to how we got to where we are, and explanations for our culture. .A liberaleducation will use the humanities to help transform students into self-aware and empathetic
citizens by creating intellectually rich environments. If students utilize these resources, they will
are able to become more aware of who they are in history and be vastly more political in their
society, which allows them to create a place for themselves in it.
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Works Cited
Shorris, Earl. "On the Uses of a Liberal Education." Considering Literacy (2006): 187-99. Print.