We started talking about what general education is during our first meeting in December; here’s a list of what we briefly said GenEd is:
- foundations
- prerequisites
- broadens
- what will set students apart
- controversy about great books
- how you particulate hands across the curriculum
- writing/WAC
- always local and foundation for lifelong learning
- all that stuff
- old wine in new bottles
- common academic intellectual experience
- aware of drawing on liberal education every day
- what generates the ground specific engagement
- a bit foreign, an opportunity to learn along w/students
- breadth and depth
- requirements that make students informed participants outside of the college, practical applications outside the classroom
- prerequisites and awareness of health care in this part of Brooklyn
- critical thinking and esp. moving from memorization to synthesis
- well-rounded individual w/skills + experiences that have application in the real world
- universal knowledge in humanities, social, natural sciences
- lifelong learning + leading to an informed citizenry
- use your local knowledge to solve global problems
- less important what it is than what it should be: openly, critically, flexibly and creatively about the world
- connectivity and the actions that come out of those connections, gen ed provides foundation
- short: read write think feel; long: motto used to be “to live a life to earn a living”
In our second meeting, we started our literature review, but without a firm definition of general education, in part because the research will guide us to a definition or set of definitions.
For our third session, we would like to ask what questions you have about GenEd in general, at CUNY, at City Tech, at a college of technology, in your class, or what questions you have about our seminar and our project. You can post your questions here in a comment, or you can bring them with you on Friday for further discussion.
