Video Archives - What Does It Mean To Educate Citizens? (2013)

Friday, October 4, 2013: “What Does It Mean To Educate Citizens?” – Panel Two of the Seventh Annual Hannah Arendt Center Conference, “Failing Fast: The Educated Citizen in Crisis”

Participants: Leon Botstein, President of Bard College

In 2013, Leon Botstein gave a lecture at the Hannah Arendt Center’s Seventh Annual Fall Conference, which was held on the topic of education. As President of Bard College, Botstein speaks as a practitioner of pedagogy.

Botstein seeks to articulate and implement an education that is both democratic and meaningful for civic life. Detailing the history of Bard, Botstein introduces the dilemma inherent in this project by telling a story about the wave of European professors who first came to Bard in the 1940s and 50s, a group that included Hannah Arendt and her husband Heinrich Blücher. These intellectuals were enamored with American public education’s progressive tinge, which placed the child’s right of expression at the heart of its program. Yet they were also dismayed by what they felt was the unpreparedness of American students for the intellectual rigors of college.

There is, Botstein makes clear, something unique about American education that is both invaluable and problematic. As a means for creating a democratic citizenry, American progressive education has at its center an imperative to prepare a functional public, one that is capable of speaking a common language and conducting productive discussions. Yet such a goal differs from the European standard, which is professionally oriented. “One of the uncomfortable truths is that our quality of citizenship doesn’t run parallel to our ability to do a number of things: jump high, run fast, sing, and learn. A person who cannot learn as well as another person should not be disadvantaged as a citizen…” says Botstein. This is the paradox of American education: all citizens should learn to be good citizens, but a thriving public life also requires citizens who are skilled and dedicated to their work in specialized endeavors. Ultimately, an educational system geared towards one will likely not succeed at the other.

Throughout his speech, Botstein repeatedly emphasizes his disdain for the privatization of American education. This he sees as a trend beyond education, one that is also prevalent in both politics and the wider civic life of the republic. Here he observes scandal and social media chatter becoming the stuff of public conversation, thereby supplanting genuinely public concerns. As a result of these trends, we are losing both the democratic character of public life—and the properly Arendtian “public” quality of collective life itself—as well as the kind of talent and expertise which the European system ironically had the concern to instill in its pupils, at least in principle. In today’s world, superficiality, Botstein observes, seems to suffice where actual knowledge was once required, so that now one can read an article on genetic engineering and feel adequately prepared to stake a position on stem cell research.

This is an important glimpse into the pedagogical views of Bard’s presiding leader. A short conversation with HAC Senior Fellow Wyatt Mason and a brief Q&A follow his talk.

Analysis by Dan Perlman

(Featured Image Source: Better Ed)

You can view President Botstein's talk in its entirety below:

Failing Fast: Day Two, Panel One - Leon Botstein from Hannah Arendt Center on Vimeo.