Fishing and Critical Thinking

This graphic, with its variation on the old “give someone a fish” saying, has been making the rounds on Facebook. It gets at a key aspect of liberal arts education, one that is endangered by those voices that suggest that students need little more than training in job skills. Learning how to pursue a profession in the narrowest sense may not prepare you to confront ethical conundrums, stand up for your rights, or see how systems are unjust, imagine ways they could be transformed, and work to bring about change.