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The class turned out to be more less “A Letter (singular) of Paul:” we spent the semester reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, at a rate of about 3 sentences per week.

Why so slow? Because we read multiple translations of each of those sentences, and multiple commentaries on them, spanning many centuries — plus a bit of social and historical context. Slow, diligent, careful. And…
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We asked, over and over: “What do we think Paul was thinking, given that he chose those words? What do we think each commentator thought Paul was thinking? Why do we think they thought he was thinking that? Does it really make sense for Paul to have thought X? For us to think they thought he thought X?“ …etc. A theory of mind hall of mirrors!
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The heart of the course: “What can we learn about what other people are really thinking, about their mental models of the world, by paying very careful attention to the words they use?”

And I thought that course had •absolutely no practical relevance• to my career as a software developer until I started encountering text like this (from a presentation by Lenore Zuck, https://fm.csl.sri.com/UV10/slides/UV-Zuck.pdf, ht @AndrzejWasowski):

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When I’m on a software project, I try to listen hard to what everyone is saying, to the words they choose. “Don’t blame me! They asked for it!” is never good enough. I ask critical questions about what people are really thinking, what we’re all hearing each other say, from the start.

I have saved many companies on many projects a whole lot of money (and tears) by using that skill to nip misunderstandings and hidden assumptions in the bud early.

A skill I honed in a Religious Studies course.
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Here’s the hidden truth of education:

You don’t know what you’re preparing for.

Your teacher doesn’t know. Your school doesn’t know. Your future employer doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Not really.

Much of what you’re preparing for doesn’t even exist yet. We •hope• it doesn’t exist yet: don’t we educate students in the hope that they will make the world better by changing it? By creating realities that don’t even exist yet?
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Doesn’t that mean education is impossible then? Not at all! Because we’ve learned over time that there are kinds of learning that help you prepare for an unknown and unknowable changing world. We can do that learning with joy and confidence in its value if we accept that we will only understand its specific utility in hindsight.
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Is a Religious Studies course “for” a software career? Well, is a Computer Science course “for” a software career?

That Religious Studies course applied to my software career in •exactly• the same way that my Algorithms course applied: I rarely use (and have mostly forgotten) the specific knowledge from it. I use its approach, its patterns of thought, •constantly•.
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There is always a tension in education between teaching the knowably practical and the unknowably valuable.

The former we often call “vocational education:” specific knowledge we believe students will need for specific reasons in a very specific future. That kind of knowledge is often the primary barrier around a specific career, or a specific problem. We learn it in class, or in training, or in an online tutorial, or from tinkering. It tends to be immediately useful, but ephemeral.
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That latter kind of education — learning that is valuable in unknowable ways in an unknowable future — has a name, too. It is liberal arts education.

Contrary to popular belief, “liberal arts” ≠ “humanities & fine arts.” I teach liberal arts computer science courses. It’s possible to get non-liberal-arts education in the arts or humanities; preparing for an orchestral career with a degree from Curtis is a great example of that.

Liberal arts is an educational philosophy, not a discipline.
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Of course the “I didn’t realize learning X would be applicable to Y!” phenomenon exists everywhere in education, inside and outside of school.
(School ⊂ Education)

What “liberal arts” means is •centering• that, making it not just a happy coincidence, but a primary goal. It’s about preparing students with the expectation that they’ll have to adapt to an unknown future they’re helping to shape.

There’s a history behind that, one with an ugly side — and a tough lesson for us now.
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Do you know where the term “liberal arts” comes from? I long assumed it meant “liberal” as in “all-inclusive” or something…but no. The original Latin phrase, _artes liberalis_, means roughly “skills or practiced principles worthy of a free person.” Free as in taking a fully privileged part in civic life. Free as in self-determining. Free as in not a servant or a slave.
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If a person lives a life of servitude, if they are enslaved, don’t they need •only• vocational education? If their human existence has no utility beyond their job, if they cannot shape their world or create new paths through it, then why teach them things they don’t need?

Isn’t it only free, fully privileged, self-determining people who •also• need a liberal arts education?

Think about that. Think how our society views “liberal arts.” Think what that says about how we view human beings.
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Don’t get me wrong: I emphatically do not think absolutely everyone should go to a 4-year liberal arts college like the one where I teach. I don’t think everyone should have to go to college at all. Education can — should! — take many, many forms. Education doesn’t even have to happen in school!

What I •do• believe is that some form of education with that liberal arts philosophy — “Because you are free, you must prepare for the unknown” — should be present in the life of every human being.
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I cringe, cringe deeply, to my core, when people try to create socioeconomic mobility by force-pushing tech and STEM and give-them-lucrative-careers content into schools. I cringe even though access to that kind of learning •is• important, and can unlock choices.

I cringe because at its heart, it is about meeting employer needs, not human needs. It is asking students to conform to the world, not to reshape it. It does not treat children as human beings who are and should be free.
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