Welcome to the AT LAST Blog ...
Our first posting for your consideration is a review of the recent book by Kevin Carey titled "The End of College". Here is a link to the review for your consideration. I strongly encourage you to consider checking out the book and reading it for yourself.
Most of the key observations Carey makes about college can be applied to secondary schools as well ... especially in this day when high schools are looking more and more like colleges [or perhaps it is the other way around] with fancy facilities, social scenes and big-time sports ... with what Carey claims is "limited or no learning".
Although Carey is looking very broadly at the attributes of colleges that will be places for real learning in the future, it is apparent that he sees real value in a liberal arts education at a college that functions on a "human scale" providing an "authentic community" that is consciously focused on a single goal ... learning.
As parents facing questions about our children's education, we tend to look forward just "far enough" to get us to the next corner ... but that is not "far enough". Carey challenges us to look to the "end" of formal learning to understand more of what lies ahead. If we will follow his advice, then we can "work backwards" to the very beginning [elementary school] ... so we can prepare each step of the way towards accomplishing our educational goals.
Remember the purpose of AT LAST is to bring together schools at all the various stages along the educational journey ... the learning chain ... so that each can better understand and perform its own specific role ... the specific links it must forge ... with the schools that precede it and with those that will follow it ... so that the student can experience the steady, sequential learning steps that make the destination of a low cost, high quality liberal arts education possible for everyone !!
So think it thru ... then share your thoughts ... and help us forge the links for liberal arts learning ... at last.
tandem [Latin for ... finally ... or ... it's about time],
Chaerephon
