Hi Arash,
Yes, I cannot agree more with what you said. Not only engineering students but also engineering educators as well as university management and leadership. However, my argument is that even introducing humanities to engineering curriculum might not achieve the objective of the enlightenment fully or event the vocational purposes if it were not taught adequately.
Teaching pure humanities for example international relations to engineering student will enable them to understand basics of global politics (which is good and important) but do not guarantee that they will think about engineering through a political lens ( e.g the politics of design or artifacts) or reflect on how their labor is utilized in the broader social and political context I think understanding the political dimension of engineering is as critical as understanding the basics of international politics if not more since it will empower engineers to make a change in their circle of influence not just enrich their circle of interest. You might find many engineers enlightened in broader topics of life through taking pure humanities or personal reading of other reason ( which is good and important) but their understanding of engineering is conventional and narrow which make them more susceptible to be utilized for creating harmful products or engaged in unresponsible activities. So balancing both parts is important, being enlightened in the general since is so important ( taking pure liberal art help in this , I know engineering education is still behind in this area) but being enlightened in your specialization(e.g understanding its broader implication, recognizing critically its embedded ethics and politics.. ) is essential and interdisciplinary courses work better in acquiring this mindest than pure conventional humanities courses. Also, they complement each other.

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Hi Kassel,
Thanks for the fruitful comment. Regarding your question, I think it is a challenging task and it requires top leadership commitment as you mentioned. Introducing interdisciplinary courses that bridge the gap between engineering and social science especially through integrating social and environmental justice lens in core engineering courses could be a very good step to start. But more importantly, adapting engagement and critical pedagogy approaches, fostering constructivist view about knowledge rather than positivist which is dominant in engineering, reforming the culture in the profession ( engineers identity, values,..). Without changing the pedagogy, and reforming the underlying philosophy and culture, the root causes of the problem will not be noticed let alone be resolved.

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Thanks Pallavi for your fruitful thoughts. I found it interesting that you highlighted the role of the students in fostering inclusiveness in classrooms. I could not agree more that we need to emphasize this role, especially that students could things that teacher might not be able to do. I would also add that not only students and instructors but also higher management in schools should take their role seriously in creating an inclusive environment at educational institutions.

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Canon,I enjoyed reading your fruitful thoughts. I agree that as educators we need to move beyond just tying that we treat everybody equally to create a more inclusive environment where every student could relate to what she/he is learning and engaged in shaping the learning experience. I liked the examples that you mentioned. I think there is a lot of work that could be done even in classrooms with a large number of students to make them more inclusive.
Regards

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Hi Besse, Thanks for your fruitful thoughts. I couldn’t agree more!

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Hi Drew.
I enjoyed reading your post and I found also my self agreeing with many of the arguments that Kohn proposed. However, I felt that the article brought many of the problems in the education system and linked them to Grades. I think the problem is larger than grades and abandoning grade by itself will not guarantee that students will be encouraged to learn and will be prepared to the real world. I admit the article gave me some insights about the drawback of grades but I think it would be better if the author analyzed the problem in a broader context not just to put all the harm on grades usage.

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Interesting thoughts. I never thought that money could be a purpose but your post challenged me to think about it. Maybe it is difficult to separate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and human being in real life does not deal with their motivation in such a dichotomy. I could see that money could be used to fulfill many intrinsic motivations and help a person to achieve his/her purpose. But does that make money by itself a purpose? I think in real life things get interlink and it is very hard to separate things like when we give a lecture about human behavior.

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Hi Vibhav,

Thanks for the blog. I found your argument interesting related to how personalized learning might raise the expectation of students to think everything would fund and customized to their interest while in real life and work environment it is usually the opposite we are pushed to adapt with preexisting requirements. I think good personalized learning should encourage the students to adapt to a new environment and learn how to acquire new skills not just prepare them on one personalized syle

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Thanks for the post Adbuht. I agree with you that it a big problem. I would say even in my home country “Saudi Arabia” we have a similar trend. I think it starts with teachers and parents as you said encouraging young kids to find their passion and learn what they like. But also there is a need for governmental efforts, public policy, investors.. to open job and markets in different fields and create a culture of appreciation for al field of knowledge. Also, academic institutions need to create interdisciplinary programs that integrate various field of knowledge to fulfill the passion of the students and integrate it with some vocational education that will prepare them for work if they needed to get a job. Also, there is a need to restructure what determines the value of work and education in society. Why some graduate of important majors get very low wages or might end up with no job while there are huge demand and large salaries given for other less important jobs for society ( you can think about many examples here)
It is hard to tell someone just follow your passion if he/she sees many external indicators that tell him/her that he would not find a job latter while he/she needs a job. I remember one of my friends who studied computer science and he is from the US, he told me that he does not like computer science, he likes psychology. But he did not choose to study psychology because as he told and I am quoting his words” I want to find a job, I do not want to end up a homeless”. WIthoug huge large scale efforts it is hard to solve such problem in community level. It is important to advise the students to follow their passion but we need also to make huge efforts that decision not to make them feel that they are risking their future by following their passion.

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Hi Heather,
I enjoyed so much reading about your experience to move from teacher to peer learner. I highly appreciate your efforts especially that your teaching chemistry. Unfortunately, I think the majority of teachers in STEM majors use conventional way of teaching. I studied engineering and the majority of the engineering and science classes that I studied were taught through pure lecturing. The role of the teacher in those classes was mainly transmitting knowledge to students through a top-down approach and then examine students’ learning through well-structured problems with given parameters that are stated, and the students are asked to find the correct solution. I believe this is the right way to teach future scientists.
We need many teachers like you. Thanks

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