humanities courses

humanities courses

The Value and Importance of Humanities Courses in Higher Education

1. Introduction to Humanities Courses

Most universities include humanities courses as part of the core requirements for an undergraduate degree. Departments offering these compulsory courses frequently find students unenthusiastic, at least at the time of taking the course and sometime after, about the prospect of including humanities as part of their degree studies. In this, they are no different from students of vocational degree programs who are not required to take humanities courses as part of their degree structure, or to specialize in liberal educational courses. Indeed, in a time of increasing higher education competition, when increasing pressure is placed upon universities to demonstrate the efficacy of their educational programs and the employability of their graduates, the emphasis of educational marketing strategies in those universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the South Pacific region that have been exposed to educational market mechanisms has been upon the provision of courses of study that are seen to be relevant to industry and commerce. Career-aligned programs, therefore, promote the relevance of degree studies to individual and employer needs.

This chapter examines some commonly held assumptions about why universities offer humanities courses at present and proposes that the reasons for offering these courses need to be critically analyzed in order to enable students to understand the value of any higher education curriculum. This chapter argues that instead of regarding this curriculum requirement as a ‘handicap’, universities should openly promote these courses as valuable. This is needed to stimulate an understanding of the purpose of a higher education curriculum and a ‘fit’ between individual and institutional objectives, and to better enable students to attribute value to what they have learned at university. Students capable of attributing value to their learning will be capable of creating value in practice, whether at university or later. This chapter highlights the relevance of some humanities courses and proposes testing current university and course assumptions about the value of such courses, retaining those assumptions that are consonant with educational principles, and modifying those that are less so.

2. The Benefits of Studying Humanities

Students should engage in a lifelong quest for knowledge. They should search for the connections rather than for differences and purposefully interpret the human experience. Indeed, studying the humanities makes students smarter and better citizens. We might even dare to say that it challenges them to be better people. The disciplines promote a strong sense of empathy, yet they also strengthen your understanding of facts and allow you to see, communicate, and advocate the truth in a variety of ways. Additionally, as previously mentioned, humanities courses give people oxygen, enabling them to think and question life in ways that make it worth living. Items learned are not only valuable—they are essential.

First, many think that humanities classes help to prepare graduates for their lives and careers in ways that extend beyond the lessons of the classroom. Though students may not enter careers directly related to their humanities studies, the classes can still be immensely valuable. Students who develop strong analytical and communication skills can enter nearly any field. Furthermore, graduates must be able to evaluate and articulate information that is ever-expanding and quickly changing. A good college education helps students to put that information into context and find meaning in what they learn. By fusing practical skills and a solid education, students who study the humanities also develop their humanity. People who are thoughtful, reflective, and ethical will lead happier lives and will have a positive impact on the world.

Students often struggle to see the practical value of many of the humanities courses that are required in higher education. There’s concern that the curriculum is too rooted in dead white men or overly focused on politically correct, but empty multiculturalism. The benefits of studying humanities, however, are constantly being explored and can make a real difference in the value of anyone’s college experience.

3. Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills

The importance of teaching critical thinking has been well-documented in the psychology literature. It constitutes what Daniel Willingham describes as the goal of education: “When students have learned to think critically, when they develop cognitive flexibility, when they are able to perceive patterns of information, or think abstractly, not only have we given them the tools to be innovative and to grow, but at the same time students can identify and solve a broader range of problems, and they are therefore more adaptable to solving new, unfamiliar problems.” Of course, instructors in all disciplines work to inculcate such habits of mind, but the explicit purpose of humanities courses is to examine texts, works, or expressions that are beyond the initial, apparent meaning.

By studying and discussing the complex and diverse texts, students in the humanities learn to analyze, interpret, and evaluate difficult, ambiguous situations that they will often confront in the workplace and in society. This appears most often in courses with the explicit goals of developing critical thinking skills. In the education literature, researchers have long focused on critical thinking as an essential outcome of a college education, but their understanding of what constitutes critical thinking often remains implicit rather than explicit. The rubric “cognitive flexibility” is therefore particularly useful for describing the practical application of critical thinking across various disciplines.

4. Cultural Appreciation and Global Understanding

Having chosen to read a variety of authors from Aristophanes to Walter Mosley or Shakespeare to Ismat Chugtai for an important required class, you may remember that in acts of kindness and quests for opportunities, contemporary or ancient, characters in stories, essays, and plays make the same heartbreaking, funny, or boring mistakes that people do, and they have the same capabilities and hopes as the people of other cultures and other times. When our students and citizens see a classic play, film, painting, or what have you that explores timelessly important, universal human questions, they appreciate that lots of people and societies care about the same things that concern us. People tend to prefer what they already understand, so learning to understand and appreciate diverse cultures and perspectives really matters in very concrete ways.

How can the willingness to read, dialogue, and consider diverse viewpoints directly impact our current and future quality of life, success, and fulfillment? If you take an English class with Austen, you learn that judging people based on gossip, surface appearance, or before you know their full story is shortsighted and unkind. From Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, perhaps you will happily realize that there is nothing new under the sun. Arthur Miller and Shakespeare assure us of the timeless relevance of humanity and its worries.

5. Conclusion: The Future of Humanities Education

All that is ideology. The university in practice has become specialized, with different parts aimed at specific jobs. However, ideology has power and this institution could change the ideology about a college education and the purposes of a good life. All it would take is economic development, one of the engines of capitalist societies since their beginnings. The most important problem humanity faces is its contested future. People need to be able to understand and communicate about conflicting notions and the consequences of thinking. Only a democracy leans toward solving disputes with words and concepts supported by evidence. This is precisely what the humanities teaches. By studying history and its enduring lessons, we can help provide a shared backbone of values. By studying literature, we can come to understand the motives, aspirations, and attitudes of others. By considering the meanings of the arts, we can have our minds expanded, so we can see the world afresh.

Humanities education is at a crossroads. Humanities enrollments, as I have said, have been dropping for decades. Wage and education differentials give students an incentive to major in those subjects thought to lead to stable jobs post-graduation. Fewer new humanists are being brought into the market, and fewer people are aware of or try to understand the important ideas and issues that have animated the world for the last three millennia. We humanists face a very large problem and we need to be very innovative and practical. Perhaps the practicality of humanistic education can be dealt with in the institution where the practical meets the intellectual: the university itself. The university has always been a place to pass along the world’s knowledge and the ability to think independently, a place where specialized researchers understand, promote and protect the welfare of all. It is a place whose work is society.