it has been 55 days since the first year students' graduation ceremony and 30 days until the beginning of the second academic year at CILAS. A result of this extended break is this blog which is meant to serve as a platform during the second academic year and beyond. A platform that unlike Facebook and its haphazard nature will be maintained monthly and encourages reflection on building alternative models of higher education in Egypt.
CILAS alumni, current students and anyone who wishes to think about the aims of higher education is here invited to share their insights and reservations. In these monthly blog posts I will refer to readings that have contributed to my appreciation for liberal arts education as well as reinforced and challenged my conviction that training in the liberal arts is what creates competent democratic citizens.
philosopher Martha Nussbaum describes in her book 'Not for Profit' how education's primary goal is to teach students to be economically productive. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills, she explains, has eroded our ability to criticise authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalised and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems.
the loss of these basic capacities jeopardises the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In an earlier book entitled 'Cultivating Humanity' Nussbaum argued that the purpose of a training in the liberal arts is to cultivate humanity, which in turn encompasses three capacities. These capacities tied together qualify you for active citizenship.
the first of the three capacities is the capacity for critical self-examination and critical thinking about one's own culture and traditions. The second is the capacity to see oneself as a human being who is bound to all human beings with ties of concern. The third is the capacity for narrative imagination - the ability to empathise with others and to put oneself in another's place.
at CILAS, these capacities are captured by its vision to 'create learning environments that are conducive to critical inquiry, self-reflection and civic engagement.' Building an alternative model of higher education will require thinking about the development of these capacities. I am opening the floor for discussion on ways, i.e. essential reading, films, games, practices, to cultivate humanity and qualify for citizenship.
thank you for your contributions.
CILAS alumni, current students and anyone who wishes to think about the aims of higher education is here invited to share their insights and reservations. In these monthly blog posts I will refer to readings that have contributed to my appreciation for liberal arts education as well as reinforced and challenged my conviction that training in the liberal arts is what creates competent democratic citizens.
philosopher Martha Nussbaum describes in her book 'Not for Profit' how education's primary goal is to teach students to be economically productive. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills, she explains, has eroded our ability to criticise authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalised and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems.
the loss of these basic capacities jeopardises the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In an earlier book entitled 'Cultivating Humanity' Nussbaum argued that the purpose of a training in the liberal arts is to cultivate humanity, which in turn encompasses three capacities. These capacities tied together qualify you for active citizenship.
the first of the three capacities is the capacity for critical self-examination and critical thinking about one's own culture and traditions. The second is the capacity to see oneself as a human being who is bound to all human beings with ties of concern. The third is the capacity for narrative imagination - the ability to empathise with others and to put oneself in another's place.
at CILAS, these capacities are captured by its vision to 'create learning environments that are conducive to critical inquiry, self-reflection and civic engagement.' Building an alternative model of higher education will require thinking about the development of these capacities. I am opening the floor for discussion on ways, i.e. essential reading, films, games, practices, to cultivate humanity and qualify for citizenship.
thank you for your contributions.
