Is the Unexamined Life Worth Hiring?

The maxim “The unexamined life is not worth living,” usually is attributed to Socrates – the ancient Greek philosopher sentenced to death by Athenian leaders for corrupting the city-state’s youth with his teachings.  Socrates towers so high among the founders of Western thought that an entire method of inquiry has been named for him.  The Socratic Method probably can best be described as teaching by asking rather than by telling.  Questioning is at the heart of the maxim “The unexamined life is not worth living,” which compels each of us to question the quality of our individual existence while assessing the human condition and the state of the wider world.  Unfortunately, the essence of living a life worth living through inquiry and examination has eroded in current discussions about the role of education in our society.

You will note that Socrates advanced the idea that the unexamined life is not worth living; not that the unexamined life is denied admission to college or that the unexamined life is unemployable.  Yet, current “reforms” of education are characterized more and more by encroaching corporate influences shaping curricula, student assessments, and teacher evaluations and less and less by developing in students the skills needed to lead a life worth living.  Rather, the current agenda is what has come to be called “college and career readiness.”  (Pearson is the main corporate conglomerate pushing “college and career readiness” and stands to make a fortune by selling pre-packaged curricula and resource materials aligned to Common Core standards to complicit school districts and administrators eager to show what their students and teachers can do on standardized tests, but I digress.)  “College and career readiness” is narrow and wrong-headed because it sends the message that the only purpose for elementary and secondary education is future financial gain or future educational credentialing, which also is linked to future financial earning potential.

 

Socrates. Detail from Raphael's The School of Athens

It is for these reasons that I was pleasantly surprised when President Obama began discussing reforms for high school education during his State of the Union Address earlier this week.  I quickly was disappointed, however, when he reinforced the myopic view that the only purpose for secondary education is to put “our kids on a path to a good job.”  What does an education like this omit?  Love of reading?  Probably. Music appreciation?  Perhaps.  Physical education?  Judging by the nation’s adolescent obesity crisis; quite likely.

Developing the skills to lead a life worth living is a diminishing idea in higher education too.  During his State of the Union Address, President Obama announced the creation of the “College Scorecard that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria - where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.”  Those simple criteria, however, have little to do with authentic learning or intellectual development.  Emphasizing the financial factors or economic outcomes of higher education will continue trends researcher and president emeritus of Columbia University-Teacher's College Arthur Levine identified last fall.  In an interview discussing his book, Generation on a Tightrope: A Portrait Of Today's College Student (co-written with Diane Dean), Levine noted,

We found that 23 percent of students were majoring in business, and only 7 percent wanted to.  We found that 16 percent were in medicine or health, and only 6 percent wanted to be.  We found that six percent of students were in the arts, but 11 percent wanted to be.  Students are choosing the areas in which there are jobs, whether they want to be in those areas or not.

Such a situation likely will negatively influence students’ views of their education and the lives it enables them to lead.  Yet, even if we capitulate that the aim of education is employability, existing educational structures probably will not develop the employees with the skills businesses need.  A 2010 examination into skills the future workforce would need to remain employable emphasized creative problem solving as the most desired skill for future employment.  Yet, creative problem solving is not promoted in the kinds of multiple-choice-test, only-one-correct-answer environments that American public schools have and are becoming.

Ultimately, emphasizing the employment options education creates or the financial implications of seeking education without first considering some fundamental questions – What’s worth knowing?  What are schools for?  What are the aims of education?  What is a life worth leading? – is misguided and not in keeping with the foundations of education.