Liberal Arts

Intellectual equipment for free people

The Liberal Arts education system, widespread in the United States and well known in Europe, is represented by only two faculties in Russia - at the RANEPA and St. Petersburg State University. Recently, however, an attempt was made to organize such classes for teachers, but whether a new way of education at the MPSU will take root yet.

Modern Liberal Arts originates from antiquity - a cycle of disciplines (Septem Artes Liberales), which formed not only the Greco -Roman education system, but also a medieval. These disciplines were studied (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) in secondary schools, and deeper in universities. It was assumed that the circle of this knowledge will help a person cope with any life difficulties.

In the modern system of Russian education, the practice of Liberal Arts is moving slowly-fifteen years ago, with the support of a bard college, the Smolny Institute was earned, which has now entered the St. Petersburg State University as a faculty of free arts and sciences, and three years ago a similar faculty was opened in the RANEPA.

Meanwhile, Liberal Arts programs for Russia are no less relevant than in everything else of a rapidly changing world. Since the education system here continues the traditions of the Soviet past, and graduates of schools have to choose a specialty early, they are often deceived in their expectations. In senior courses, as recently showed a study by the Superjob recruiting portal, every fifth Russian student is already disappointed in the specialty that he chose. It is likely that the Liberal Arts system could significantly improve the situation, but the very principle of this education seems to be conflicting with the current practice of learning in Russian higher school.

How liberal education arranges in the post -Soviet space and what difficulties its ideologists have to overcome, Radio Liberty told the president of the American University in Central Asia Andrew Vakhtel , Associate Professor of the Theory and Methods of Teaching of Arts and Humanities of St. Petersburg State University Marina Kalashnikova and the director of the Liberal ARTS RAM Evgeny Mironov program.

Evgeny Mironov , Director of the Liberal Arts RANEPA program:

- A separate faculty has been created in the RANEPA, it is called Liberal Arts College, but we use the word "college" not in the Russian sense, but in American. This is arranged as follows. During the first year, all our students study together in mixed groups, regardless of who who is going to be. And only at the end of the first year does the student choose the main profile, what is called "Meiger" in American colleges. Many students make a choice from scratch, many people choose not where they planned to go while entering the academy.

In addition to the main profile, students can take a mini-package of 10-11 courses, complementing their education by what is interesting to them that it seems important to their future professional path. This is the possibility of a slightly delayed choice, on the one hand, and on the other, a wide and diverse education, that is, what the Liberal Arts is just different from other approaches.

Additional courses appear precisely at the moment when the students have already tried a lot of things, in the third year normal fatigue arises - and there is still some kind of turn, a new choice. We have two “meegers” blocks, we call some jokes heavy, they are larger in the number of hours, humanitarian, scientifically oriented: history, oriental studies, psychology. The second line is more applied: PR, journalism, urbanism. And usually we children who choose completely humanitarian “meagers”, we recommend the applied “miners” to balance, and vice versa, say, the PR man should just go and listen to serious fundamental courses in political sciences, for example, sociology or psychology.

A free person is interested in many, he is interdisciplinary in essence

Liberal Arts is not only the structure of the program, this is what it is filled with and how teachers work in the audience. We have a minimum number of lectures, because at the lecture the student is passive. Interactive classes are mainly practiced, where a student is an accomplice in the process. If we take, for example, the “Great Books” course to see what the role of the teacher is - along with students, he moves through the text, often articulating his own misunderstanding of what is in the text, and offering students to reflect together. Therefore, Liberal Arts is another approach, atmosphere and some, if you like, the initial respect for the student as the subject of the educational process.

And if the student passed four years later, studying the "Meigers" and "Miners" on absolutely different topics, where they spoke different languages, he actually immersed himself in two pictures of the world, often contradicting each other or completely unlawed. And from our point of view, if he successfully passed through this, already any third region, the picture of the world, he will easily master the profession without us.

There are studies of the Liberal Arts program, made primarily on American material, although now this program is becoming extremely popular both in Europe and in the post -Soviet space, they try it in China. Therefore, it is known that the careers of graduates of the Liberal Arts program around the world are extremely successful. It is this slightly delayed start, compared with students of narrow professional programs, that gives in the long run a greater run and planning horizon.

In my opinion, this is completely normal, since a person is just successful where he is interested, but our students still choose, as a rule, a teacher with whom they want to “live” the main course. We try to organize all our "Meigers" in such a way that it is a master class of a particular specialist, a professional in this field. And in this sense, it is a professional training of a high class, strategically more oriented than traditional narrow, monoprophic training.

The fact is that the Liberal Arts approach focuses on some universal skills required by an educated, free person. A person needs communication skills in different social situations, needs skills to work with complex texts, even if he is not a professional humanitarium, the skills of creating his own texts, critical thinking, that is, some universal intellectual equipment.

In general, a well -educated person, he is always Liberal Arts, and in this sense, the Liberal Arts is a tradition of education that comes from antiquity, where it arose as education for free people. In this sense, the word "Liberal" is not related to political liberalism, but simply to the formation of free people. In contrast to purely craft preparation, which remained for the population not free. A free person is free to choose, change or combine, he is often interested in a lot. In this sense, tell him: choose, you are a mathematician or musician - this means already to produce some violence against him. A free person is interested in many, he is interdisciplinary in essence.

Andrew Vakhtel , President of the American University in Central Asia:

- The Liberal Arts approach was at the university from the very beginning, it just was not called that. The Ministry of Education is a conservative thing, and to convince them to open such a program cost a lot of energy and blood. Kyrgyzstan has quite good requirements for the general education part, and we were able to take these requirements, somehow redraw and create a Liberal Arts skeleton of the program. Then we added, when they began to officially give Liberal Arts, new courses, a little unusual for Liberal Arts, because they are more in science, history, literature and art.

how to convince people, the most important thing is not to find an answer to a particular question, but to open a number of questions

The main problem of the Soviet system, which is still preserved in universities, is not at the level of the humanitarian unit, as it seems to me, but is more related to the requirements for the main program. These requirements are much more than necessary, and this narrows the space for other things. The question is what the general educational unit is filled: if you spend a lot of time on nonsense, nothing good will work. But when there is a mandatory course, say, by philosophy, the only question is how you will teach this course - boring or interesting. That is, the course already exists, and what you will do there is an open question.

Of course, problems with the mentality of students arose, but there are also a mentality of teachers - how to convince people, what is most important - not to find an answer to a particular question, but to open a number of questions. People are used to thinking, even if they read literature that there is a topic and there is a correct answer. And to convince students and teachers that there is no correct answer to the question, but there are a number of possible answers, some are better, some worse, and explain the answer that you want to find is the most difficult, unconditionally.

Marina Kalashnikova , Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and Methods of Teaching Arts and Humanities of St. Petersburg State University:

- Our program, of course, has its own specifics, but everything is arranged about the same as in the USA. Students choose "Meigers" after the second year through the procedure for the so -called moderation, when they write special work. Each training profile, each program, has its own requirements for moderation, and each student, focusing on his future, must listen to a certain set of courses and convince colleagues, teachers with a particular program that he is able to professionally engage in this subject. In general, the student still gets wide interdisciplinary training, the so -called block of the general curriculum is responsible for this.

There are requirements of the curriculum of profile training and the requirements of the general curriculum, where the student, regardless of its future profile, is obliged to take one course on music, one course on philology, one in visual arts, in social sciences, and so on, plus a mandatory course in mathematics. There are 8 such disciplinary regions, and regardless of who you really want to become, where you are going to be modified, these courses must be taken, for the entire period of study at least one.

A very important point in Liberal Arts that this system allows the student to engage in any one disciplinary field and at the same time not to lose sight of others. You love music, you want to know a little more about it than ordinary graduates of the school, but you are not going to engage in it professionally. The Liberal Arts system will allow you to support your competencies in the field of musical, music theory or practical music, and at the same time professionalize in the field of, say, a study of literature.

knowledge cannot but be individual, this is not a collective thing

We can trace the fate of our graduates, although here we must understand that in those years, that we exist, and this is a rather long period, 15 years, the conjuncture of the labor market, the attitude of the employer, and the attitude of students themselves to what is called “be successful” have changed. Say, our internal studies of 2008 showed that students are afraid to go to the labor market, they do not know who they will be, and what the labor market expects from them in specific specialties. Modern graduates are much simpler to this, they are more likely to defend their important competencies, such as mobility, the ability to navigate, study independently, make a choice, and so on, that is, not directly related, narrowly with some kind of professional field.

Applicants come very different, today 60 regions of the Russian Federation are represented. This year, the percentage of graduates of St. Petersburg schools was the lowest, probably in the history of the Smolny Institute. Probably because we take only according to the results of the exam, and nonresident students have the opportunity to submit documents by mail.

Traditionally popular with us are directions associated with art, cinema and video. International relations and political sciences, human rights also attract many. In fact, from year to year the indicators are different, but the profile in literature, say, is always quite popular.

In addition to strictly humanitarian directions, our faculty has such profiles as “complex systems”, “artificial intelligence”, “computer sciences”, “cognitive research”. In fact, the science in the Liberal ARTS system has been developing extremely actively in recent years, and our partner is a bard college, which has recently been given a lot of attention to the development of science in the Liberal Arts system. It is simply due to Russian specifics, conservativeness, the development of such profiles inside the Liberal Arts is more difficult, slower, it is more difficult to negotiate with colleagues with such training.

In our experience, not every teacher, even if he is a great professional, can find himself in this system. We present quite harsh requirements for teachers: they are required to spend more time with students, all classes are conducted in interactive form. This means that the teacher should prepare for each of his seminar lesson, think through the system, give students a “reader” in advance, which he will ask them, is obliged not only to check the written work of students who should be many, but also write detailed reviews for each of these works. As a result, we are dealing with colleagues who understand that the teaching methodology in higher education is not a secondary thing, but a very important tool for achieving the best result.

And the second important thing is the individualization of training. Work in a small group, when you know each student, allows you to make knowledge individual. Because knowledge cannot but be individual, this is not a collective thing.

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