American High Schools and the Liberal Arts Tradition

The term liberal arts usually conjures up one central idea; that is, effective liberal arts education as strong academic achievement. A second, less dominant, and frequently neglected notion regards effective liberal arts education as producing intellectual interests and habits that endure throughout adult life. The two ideas are complementary and not in opposition. But they are different. The dominant idea associates the liberal arts with a collection of academic subjects or disciplines, most often divided into three broad and overlapping groups. For example, they are labeled by the National Center for Education Statistics as humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and natural sciences. The humanities embrace the imaginative and spiritual life of humankind. The social sciences address human institutions and relations as they have developed over time. The natural sciences cover the world of nature. The number of liberal arts has grown remarkably, in the form of area studies, gender and ethnic studies, other multiand interdisciplinary fields, and entirely new subjects. The three subject areas are regarded as liberal because the knowledge they contain liberates and deepens understanding of life and because the methods they employ and the cognitive and other skills they teach make greater understanding more likely.1 Good performance in the liberal arts seems almost synonymous with good achievement in the study of academic subjects. The crucial indicators of performance are usually examinations—tests created by teachers, tests created and sometimes mandated by government, tests created by private organizations such as the International Baccalaureate or the College Board. Academic performance is usually assessed soon after instruction has occurred—at the end of a unit, project, term, or course. Performance is what