A Continuing Purpose: A History of William Penn College: 1970-2000, page 131 |
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A CONTINUING PURPOSE 131
The college should be a model community for living . . .
The administration . . . builds enabling systems to facilitate
learning.
Quoting some ideas from Parker Palmer's book, To Know As We
Are Known: A Spirituality of Education, ". . . the rule and relation-ships
of a school comprise a 'hidden curriculum' which can have
greater formative power over the lives of learners than the curric-ulum
advertised in the catalog . . . the college should encourage a
search for the Connecting Center of all truth . . . Our intellectual
quest together should be a spiritual quest as well, offering the pos-sibility
of discovering humility and faith, reverence without idola-try,
love and openness to grace, and compelling us to examine our
skills and knowledge in relation to the needs of our world . . . "
In a remarkably insightful phrase, Palmer writes: "Knowledge
places the world under my power; the Spirit helps me give up
power and accept servanthood."(16)
It is clear to me, as I reflect on these ideas and sentiments, that
they represented a deeply felt conviction that it was important for
the college to see its nature and purpose as something more than
"business as usual." Perhaps, at this early point in my administra-tion,
I was unable to sense the degree to which this idealism would
be assaulted by pragmatic marketing and financial realities. I would
learn that curricular change and development is sometimes as much
the result of financial and enrollment considerations as asking "What
is it we want our students to learn in order to give them the
intellectual tools for a fulfilling life and a productive career?" Put
another way, I would learn that the process of making changes in
the curriculum and instructional program had to take into ac-count
not only what it is we want our students to know, but what
it is they want to know. The college's desire and purpose to offer a
program of instruction that includes all the curricular options
needed to assure that a person is well educated in the liberal arts
and sciences, is increasingly qualified by the need to match or beat
the competition by offering 'career preparation options' that stu-dents
prefer in order to assure their employability.
Object Description
| Title | A Continuing Purpose: A History of William Penn College: 1970-2000 |
| Creator | John Wagoner |
| Date | 2000 |
| Language | English |
Description
| Title | A Continuing Purpose: A History of William Penn College: 1970-2000, page 131 |
| Creator | John Wagoner |
| Date | 2000 |
| Identifier | A-Continuing-Purpose - 133_page 131 |
| Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.wmpenn.edu/Library/about.html |
| Transcription | A CONTINUING PURPOSE 131 The college should be a model community for living . . . The administration . . . builds enabling systems to facilitate learning. Quoting some ideas from Parker Palmer's book, To Know As We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education, ". . . the rule and relation-ships of a school comprise a 'hidden curriculum' which can have greater formative power over the lives of learners than the curric-ulum advertised in the catalog . . . the college should encourage a search for the Connecting Center of all truth . . . Our intellectual quest together should be a spiritual quest as well, offering the pos-sibility of discovering humility and faith, reverence without idola-try, love and openness to grace, and compelling us to examine our skills and knowledge in relation to the needs of our world . . . " In a remarkably insightful phrase, Palmer writes: "Knowledge places the world under my power; the Spirit helps me give up power and accept servanthood."(16) It is clear to me, as I reflect on these ideas and sentiments, that they represented a deeply felt conviction that it was important for the college to see its nature and purpose as something more than "business as usual." Perhaps, at this early point in my administra-tion, I was unable to sense the degree to which this idealism would be assaulted by pragmatic marketing and financial realities. I would learn that curricular change and development is sometimes as much the result of financial and enrollment considerations as asking "What is it we want our students to learn in order to give them the intellectual tools for a fulfilling life and a productive career?" Put another way, I would learn that the process of making changes in the curriculum and instructional program had to take into ac-count not only what it is we want our students to know, but what it is they want to know. The college's desire and purpose to offer a program of instruction that includes all the curricular options needed to assure that a person is well educated in the liberal arts and sciences, is increasingly qualified by the need to match or beat the competition by offering 'career preparation options' that stu-dents prefer in order to assure their employability. |
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