Team Review of Seven Democratic Virtues of Liberal Education

Recommendations

Summary

• For educators of LAS programmes the book recommends a strategy of adapting and adopting best practices such as multidisciplinary curriculum, and international classroom, and to make teaching of civic virtue a central part of education.
• For concerned citizens who care about civic development, the book recommends to take part in democratic conversations who have different views or interests and to use the civic virtues in their everyday life.

"The Seven Virtues of a Liberal Education" is a book which argues that liberal arts and sciences (LAS) programmes are vital to the development of the seven civic virtues. These virtues are deemed essential as part of ones activity in the democratic process. The virtues are: open-mindedness, independence of thought, sense of self, sense of other, compromise, knowledge of social issues, and sense of democracy.

Introduction & explication of this work

• Helps students develop open mindedness
• Teaches independence of thought
• Gives students a sense of self
• Gives students a sense of understanding other people's perspectives, interests, and circumstances
• Teaches students the art of compromise
• Promotes knowledge of social issues
• Teaches a sense of democracy

Our appraisal and value of this work

Quantitative Scale: 1-5

(1=low, 5=high)

Team Review

Kenzie: I would rate the book a 4 out of 5 on our quantitative scale. I thought the book was well structured and easy to follow along with as each chapter outlines one of the seven virtues.

Ella: After our review, I would score this piece as a 4 on our quantitative scale. This piece thouroughly used interviews from 59 students across a wide variety of programs, which greatly strengthens the author's claim. I think that the book could've been more concise on the seven virtues overall.

Adam: After reviewing the book, I give it a 3 out of 5 on the quantitative scale. The book is very relevant and timely when it comes to debating policy and democratic theory. It will apeal to politicians, educators and researchers with interest in those fields. However, The book only takes into account the 7 vitues and lacks many other factors that effect education.

Josh: Through carefully reviewing the book I give it 4 out of 5 on our quantitative scale. The book is well structured and thouroghly researched. Many of Dekker's points are backed up with personal accounts of their experences and even facts from the past. The area I think is lacking is a counterargument. Reasearch-based institutes have their own plus's that liberal arts education's lack, the first thing that comes to mind is the abbility to specialize. Career's with a high skill entry where specilization is neccessary, such as Engineers, Doctors, and many others would not be offered.

Seven Democratic Virtues of Liberal Education by Teun J. Dekker

Relevance to Liberal Arts Education

Unlike the more common state or private university which prepare individuals for the workplace of a single field, Liberal Art's focus is on something much different. Liberal arts education focus's on creating individuals who can oppitimally participate in the democratic process. Due to the increase of research-based education there has been a decrease in democratic participation and civic virtue. The book encourages readers to support and consider going to liberal arts universities. This can be seen as Dekker proclaimed "Reviving the liberal tradition of higher education is our best bet for reinvigorating the teaching of civic virtue in Europe and thereby enabling our democracies to live up to their highest aspirations. "(pg. 2).

Adam Williamson, Ella Gagliardi, Mackenzie Zuehl, Joshua Hurt