Roth Op-Ed: Liberal Education is Freedom

In a Sept. 5 op-ed for The New York Times, Wesleyan President Michael Roth discusses the recent calls to further specialize education and narrow what we teach students from K-12 and on to college at the exclusion of the liberal arts, especially the humanities. Roth says this drive to turn students into “human capital” is not a new. In fact, the esteemed 19th century educational philosopher John Dewey argued against the very same calls, saying, in part, “that learning in the process of living is the deepest form of freedom.”