On the Uses of a Liberal Education

            The author of this passage, Earl Shorris enlightens an underprivileged group of students on how they fail to comprehend the humanities. Knowledge of the humanities would be essential in helping them make political decisions.  Shorris is implying that these students are a product of their environment and that they have been shaped to by the means of society around them. Since the Rich know the rules of society it enables them to gain power and in this sense, push whatever laws and regulations they want to enact.  He argues that the Rich are exposed to learning the humanities through private schools and expensive universities keeping them up to date on issues and decisions while the poor’s position remains cyclical. By understanding the humanities the Rich are enabled to properly learn, think and react to society. Since the underprivileged lack education of the political system they aren’t able to use the same effective means of influence. This causes the poor to use force in order to gain their wants and needs. This can be through violence or selling drugs. In society violence and narcotics are against the law so when these rules are broken they have to suffer the consequences.

            Earl Shorris argues his point very well by attempting to teach his underprivileged students how to become politically savvy by gaining knowledge of the humanities. Shorris uses numerous teaching methods to educate them on how to be effective within society.  These teaching methods incorporated innovation, student interaction and influence and creativity. The students took a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Temple of Dendur and the Egyptian Galleries. Samantha Smoot, who in a previous class session stated that people in her neighborhood believe that it” wasn’t no use goin’ to school, because the white people wouldn’t let you up no matter what”, began to make connections of culture and art. This shows the audience that Shorris proposed a new way of thinking. It also displays the fostering of Samantha’s understanding of education being essential in society. When Charles Simmons refused to let the class read his poems, he sparked “a tug-of-war between him and the students” displaying a student-to-student interaction. His questionnaire to the class about their experience with poems influenced a student by the name of Hector to express his experience with poems. Hector expressed his poem differently then Charles Simmons. He expressed them through Hip-Hop, which he was extremely skilled at. I agree with Shorris’s argument and I believe that he proposed ways for the underprivileged students to become political through diversity and creativity. The line, “The humanities are a foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, for learning to react on the world instead of just reacting to whatever force is against you”, really stood out to me. I believe that it summarized the author’s argument and explained what he was attempting to propose to the group of underprivileged students. Earl Shorris gave his students an ultimatum to use the humanities they learned in his course to fight the force that is against them in society. By the end of his course, the students became humanitarians.