The Noble Savage is dead, or dying! Humongous
changes have occurred in the last two decades the world over, yet the course
curricula on humanities in most universities haven’t changed sufficiently
enough; when carried out, they don’t seem to have been thought-out.
The rapacity for
profiteering and longing for a good balance sheet, and senseless competition
among corporate firms have cast long shadows on educationists. The emphasis has
shifted from the finer aspects of life to profit-making — skewing systems of
education and discarding skills that are inviolate and inviolable to keep human
beings humane.
The humanities and
the arts — I consciously use humanity and art here as embracing everything that
do not directly contribute to profit-making in business and commerce – have
been given short shrift, in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
Decision-makers see these as “useless frills” because they aren’t monetisable –
they seem abstract and distant, at a time when cutting out these so-called
“non-profiteering elements” that do not value-add to business to stay
competitive and cost-effective in the marketplace is considered kosher.
Losing relevance
Consequently, they seem to be rapidly losing
their relevance in course curricula and in the minds and hearts of parents and
children. Indeed, the humanistic aspects of humanities, art and social sciences
— the imaginative, creative dimensions not bound by crazy objectives of
consumerism and possessive individualism – are getting buried and left asunder
in our pursuit of short-term profit-making.
The result is that
the impact of humanities and liberal arts on human action and day-to-day
activities seems to be distinctly on the wane. Traditional and conventional
approaches of teaching coupled with stasis that makes them traverse the same
beaten path of course curricula isn’t helping society see the relevance of
humanities and social science in a technology-driven, changing world. The
approach inevitably will be nuanced and there will be a need to tweak the
course content and fine-tune it to come up with newer products to stay relevant
and act as a facilitator to business and industry.
Much as critical
thinking can’t be wished away, so too imagination that brings in soft human
skills and elements to focus on products to re-humanise humans amid the surfeit
of technological practices and innovations inexorably hegemonising his mind and
life today: compassion and empathy that’s fast becoming an endangered quality;
the skewed work-life balance not conducive for children and family; the eternal
human values such as decency and courtesy that seem to be under threat of
extinction.
Course content,
say in subjects of Empathy and Professional Ethics or Decency and Civility in
Public Life or An ideal Work-Life Balance or Learning from the Past and
Present, with their universal application at all times in all climes and in all
professions amid the increasing complexity of the world we live and work in
could be developed drawing lessons, say from history, politics, psychology,
philosophy, literature(s), sociology and social work et al.
An example
The Harvard Professor-philosopher Michael
Sandel’s course, Justice, which for a decade and a half has been a success with
more than a thousand students joining the course and with his lectures placed online
as open source, and turned into an eponymous bestselling book, comes to mind.
Be it in the
medical profession or on the factory shop floor or in the litigating legal
world, compassion and empathy indeed have — and will always have — a place for
humankind. That needs to be kept alive because the package of life is much more
than mere moolah and
profit-making; these softer attributes that humanities offer are crucial to
retaining the humaneness of human beings that far outstrip the craze for
material goods, mindless consumerism and upward social mobility.
The same would
hold good for the few illustrative cases suggested above. A case study method
adopted with the study content drawn from life’s variegated experiences will
help involve and sensitise students to simulate, internalise and imbibe lessons
drawn from myriad disciplines and build architecture in their heads that will
trigger their thinking in their primary areas of work. It will mainstream the
humanities disciplines and make teachers and students feel relevant and
connected, and prompt them to trigger thinking to conflate their ideas with the
changing dynamics of the world today, and view their own specialties in a new
light.
A need triggered
by the globalising times concerns development of communication skills, verbal
and written. This will not be the preserve and concern of language teaching
departments alone, who though will need to get into the disciplines they are
working on to understand, familiarise and internalise the latter’s contents and
needs, and thereafter offer inter-disciplinary electives in collaboration with
various disciplines. English having become a universal language of transaction
and commerce, the English language teaching department will have an important
role to play. These soft skills development should become an important part of
the curricula of a good finishing school university. (Reproduced from The Hindu)
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