Short of a Meeting and the Liberal Arts Education

Due to scheduling conflicts and my vacation Thursday through today, I have not met with my supervisor in person. We have talked via email with Pastor Jay from St. John’s Lutheran Church and Kelli has also contacted him per phone conversation. The church has a lot of history and they kept a pretty good record of it. A few years ago some individuals made a record book.
From my neighborhood walk, I noticed that our church was almost on the outskirts of the neighborhood and according to Pastor Jay the church involvement is low and mainly elderly people. This might be why the neighborhood involvement might be low. That is something we can definitely work on through media advertisement (webpage) or a neighborhood newsletter. Pastor Jay has expressed interest in both of these ideas. We also talked about helping with the open closet project. That seems like it will fit into my schedule nicely so I am looking forward to helping out with that project. St. John’s also got a grant to build a soup kitchen and they have an eagle scout that is working on that project. Pastor Jay thinks he would be thrilled to receive help on that project so I think we will help out with that as well.
I foresee a lot of service opportunities through this church and I am excited about all of them. Interacting with those who are less fortunate and helping them out in any way makes me feel good. I am by no means well off, but my basic needs are met and then some, and I couldn’t ask for anything more. I have opportunities that some of them will never see and I see that as being very blessed.
Based on reading the first chapter of Nussbaum chapter 1, the term “liberal arts” means a well rounded education to me. It emphasizes tradition. This is a free education. It gives students the freedom to take charge of their own thoughts and critically analyze for themselves. From this I also got that in order for an education to be truly liberal, it must be open to all people and not just those who are considered elite. It needs to be exposed to everyone. In the United States we are very fortunate. In places such as Europe, they are “one-tracked.” They might be “geniuses” at whatever their specialty might be, but I do not think there world knowledge and reasoning for themselves will be anything compared to what we receive.
The liberal arts are relevant to the world outside college. They are relevant because it allows you to gain exposure to a variety of different topics and experiences. This increases your ability to reason through different situations based on your expanded knowledge base that you have acquired. Martha Nussbaum thinks that this will be used outside of the college experience because we live in a democratic society and we will continue to use these skills outside of college. If you have mastered the technique of Socratic reasoning, then you should be able to inquire about topics more because they will develop moral and political beliefs. This allows them to not just learn the subject, but reason through it. In order to produce independent thinking students, we need to rely on philosophy.
According to Martha Nussbaum, her position differs from others because some people believe that it weakens personal values. They think it questions tradition, or stuff they have learned while growing up, and in some cases would lead some students to not follow what they were taught before they came to college.
The liberal arts can help ready people for service by the exposure instilled in the education. They will better understand other people in their positions and their situations and beliefs. They will also be able to support their belief, not just follow the crowd. If they have a belief that they feel is supported by something, they will defend this belief more.