Tonight's guest on The Daily Show is Fareed Zakaria and the panelists on The Nightly Show are Alex Wagner, Keith Robinson, and Dan Soder.
Fareed Zakaria is a journalist and author. He is on tonight to discuss his latest book
In Defense of a Liberal Education
The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline.
"I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted.
Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education.
Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.
There is a rather good rebuttal to his assertions at Huffington Post
An Open Letter To Fareed Zakaria In Defense of STEM Education
You are an influential journalist and I am worried that you have done a disservice to the scientific community of America. You stated:
America's last bipartisan cause is this: A liberal education is irrelevant, and technical training is the new path forward. It is the only way, we are told, to ensure that Americans survive in an age defined by technology and shaped by global competition.
There is not a single shred of evidence in your assertion. By making these sweeping claims, you undermined one of the critical challenges America faces. Below are some of the issues that you raised in your column that concern STEM professionals and educators:
You have created a divide that never existed between STEM and liberal arts education.
You made a broad sweeping statement that Americans are trying to mimic the Asian educational system. This is an insult to all educators in the country.
You completely missed the point that America is not producing enough qualified people work in the technical fields.
You have assumed STEM as a narrow education.
It is worth reading the whole piece. They are both right. We need scientists and engineers but we also need them to be able to think critically about information and to be able to present information accurately. Even if your artistic skill level is bad stick figure, an art class will still teach you how to give and receive criticism. In our push to increase the number of people with STEM educations, we cannot allow the liberal arts to be pushed aside.
Alex Wagner
is an American television host and liberal political commentator. She is the anchor of the daytime program Now with Alex Wagner on MSNBC.
Keith Robinson
is an American stand-up comedian and comic actor
Dan Soder
is an American stand up comedian.
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