Liberal Arts and the Future of Teacher Preparation

Abstract

MANY OF US HARBOR FEARS about the future of both liberal arts education and teacher preparation. We are all aware that enrollments in elementary and secondary schools as well as college and university enrollnents are decreasing; that budgets for education are being reduced; and that many small liberal arts colleges even some where we ourselves received what we can still regard as superior educations-are no longer in existence. The decrease in the U.S. birth rate to the lowest level in the nation's recorded history-is interpreted by some who teach to mean that our services may not be needed in the future. There are those of us who, in the spirit of Alvin Toffler (1970), foresee school curricula exploding out of the schools with students taking their education into their own hands in order to solve the massive problems that society now faces. I believe there is a basis for these fears: birth rates will continue to decline; many more small liberal arts colleges will die; and more of what we presently think of as curriculum will take place outside of schools and away from our campuses. Even so, I believe that as these changes are taking place the world's respect for the well-educated person and the well-trained teacher will not diminish but will, in fact, become greater.