Preparing students for an uncertain feature. (Featured Topic).

WRITING ABOUT THE FUTURE of liberal education is daunting. We who work at liberal arts colleges think, write, and talk a great deal about it, and it's hard to imagine what hasn't already been said. Whenever the topic comes up, we worry out loud that the kind of education to which we are committed is under siege and may be losing its appeal to seventeen-year-olds and their parents. We are often called to defend the time, money, and resources we pour into our campuses amid the proliferation of Internet distance learning. We are asked to justify learning for learning's sake in this market-driven, consumer-centered, brand-loyal society. And we have learned to make the case that a good liberal education, just like a good theory, is indeed practical.

In these rapidly changing times, we can and must make an ever stronger case for the liberal arts, an education in which students learn how to learn, an education that emphasizes the forming rather than filling of minds, an education that renders our graduates adaptive to any marketplace, curious about whatever world is around them, and resourceful enough to change with the times.

If we agree that the aim of education is to prepare students well for life--for living and for making a living--then we can say, too, that the aim of education is to strengthen our democratic institutions by developing informed citizens who make up their own minds, know how to evaluate information, are not susceptible to propaganda, and ultimately are willing to contribute to the common good. Lofty goals, to be sure. But in an age of great uncertainty, how can we possibly know what life will require of our children, or of any of us? How can we possibly prepare anyone for an uncertain future, or for a thousand possible futures?

The Next Generation

When confronted with these large questions I think immediately about my own children, both graduates of liberal arts colleges. What did I want their education to prepare them for? The goals a society holds for the education of its next generation are, after all, essentially the goals of a parent, writ large. Here is my list of what I would want for my children that I hope that we as educators teach our students to do:

Be Productive Members of Society. Our children should learn to be productive members of society, to be able to earn a living in a world that is increasingly global and, at the same time, growing ever more fragmented. New modes of commerce are opening up as quickly as we can imagine them, frontiers are shifting, and the direction of the world economy seems impossible to predict. Research shows that today's twenty-somethings will have five or six different careers over the course of their lives.

To educate up-and-coming generations for the rapidly changing world they live in, colleges and universities must not fall into the trap of filling the mind with information, ever increasing amounts of information, seeking instead to form habits of thought, a mind at once flexible, creative, and rigorous. Translating the old "teach a man to fish" adage into pedagogical terms, give a student information, he or she will learn for a day; teach a student how to learn, he or she will learn for a lifetime.

Know Where You Come From. Our children should have an understanding of where they come from, a sense of who their family is, what cultures they inhabit, and the histories and traditions of these cultures. Especially in times when so many of us move frequently, and live in different parts of the country, feeling connected to one another and to our culture and our world gives each of us a sense of something bigger than ourselves to which we belong. It is from belonging that we derive a sense of identity, the wellspring of self-confidence and of the courage to take risks.

Take Pleasure in the Arts. I hope our children will come to know that the arts--the deepest form of human expression-are essential for understanding what feeds our minds, our hearts, and our souls. Education should free their imagination and hone their critical abilities.

Appreciate Diversity. We want our children to appreciate diversity, to know the worth of other individuals, to value their opinions and respect their voices because the guiding principle of a democracy is the belief that everyone has a right to be heard and has a voice that matters.

Make Wise Choices. With the privilege of freedom and choice comes the obligation to choose wisely, and we hope that our children's education will have prepared them to go out into the world with a finely honed judgment, a discriminating eye and ear. They must be able to decide for themselves, after evaluating the evidence and its sources, if something is beautiful, truthful, germane, important, in art or politics, in personal relationships, and in forming their own values.

Evaluate Information Well. With the vast proliferation of data on the Internet and other media, our children must learn how to discern and how to vet the barrage of information they receive every minute of every day. When it comes to the world of politics, as rhetoric heats up, aided and abetted by the media, we hope our children will know how to find truth and wisdom amid the bits of data and bytes of sound. We want them to be swayed by logic, good sense, and humane values, rather than self-serving demagoguery.

Be Good Problem Solvers. Our children need to be good problem solvers. As we all know, life is full of problems of the most interdisciplinary nature, to be sure. To solve problems throughout their lives, our children, our students, must learn to make connections, be creative, imaginative, and resourceful. They must be able to think outside the box, because except in Pandora's case, problems rarely come neatly packaged.

Be Courageous. They need to have the courage of their convictions. It is not intelligent people we have in short supply. It is courageous intelligent people, people who are ready and willing to act on what they believe, to embrace the world knowing that they can make a difference. As liberal arts educators we must teach them to take risks.

Have a Sense of Justice. We want children to refine their sense of justice through their education. While the American dream has been stated in purely economic terms--that each generation can do better than the one preceding it--we should urge our children, and our students, to recast that dream: that each generation will live in a society that is more just than the generation that came before. They must know that working for a more just society implies not only compassion but also a moral sense that moves them to act justly in their own lives.

Realizing ideals

How should we act as parents and educators to see these hopes realized? As we know all too well, those in our charge learn best not by our words but by our actions. We teach them by creating environments in which they learn to distinguish truth from falsehood, the original from the banal, rigor from sloppy shortcuts. We teach them by introducing them to communities that put a premium on thinking and exploring and solving problems in creative ways; communities that treat individuals with respect and justice; communities that value free and unfettered inquiry and expression; communities that expect their members to pursue truth and to be fair and compassionate as well as smart.

Liberal arts colleges have fostered just such communities over the years, and I have great hopes they will continue to in the future. I firmly believe that values and ideas will always be the core of an education and that it is our job as educators to help students develop their minds and their characters.

If we believe that ideas are important, we must create environments that respect ideas. If we want to convey the power of language, we must use language carefully, passionately and particularly, and encourage students to do the same. If we value justice, we must act justly.

As a parent and an educator, I want my children--all children--to learn about themselves and about their world, and to commit themselves to live actively, responsibly, compassionately in that world, and to feel responsible for themselves and for others. Learning biology, history, psychology, the arts, indeed any subject matter, is profoundly important, but so are reflection, thought, and expression. And so are the values that drive how we use both what we know and how we come to know it.

As I see my own children navigate the changing world that has become theirs, I know that a liberal arts education was the best preparation they could have had. As a parent, I feel fortunate. As an educator and a citizen, I feel hopeful that our society will always put a premium on an education in which young adults can come to know who they are, come to know others matter, become knowledgeable in their chosen fields, and live in an environment that gives form and expression to values and ideals that may make us good, just, and democratic human beings.

MICHELE TOLELA MYERS is president of Sarah Lawrence College