Paths to Knowledge

Each Paths to Knowledge (Paths) course is unique, asking students to consider different interdisciplinary topics from many angles.

This course is required for Honors students using the Honors Track to fulfill the Drake Curriculum general education requirement. The

Paths to Knowledge is an interdisciplinary course that focuses on different modes of reasoning and inquiry. As the one required course for Honors students, Paths to Knowledge is a critical thinking and reasoning course that, through various topics, addresses complex and enduring questions such as...:

• Why do we seek knowledge, what is it, and how is it created?
• What is real, true, or meaningful in human experience?
• How do human societies govern themselves, why do they do so in the ways they do, and does morality have a role to play?
• How does, and how should, society make decisions about how to use [knowledge; technology; laws; cultural norms; etc.], and what is the "best" way to do so?

Each Paths to Knowledge course is unique, asking students to consider different topics from interdisciplinary perspectives. The foci of sections of Paths to Knowledge differ depending upon the Honors faculty teaching. 

Education & Schooling: Why Bother?

Dr. Matthew Hayden
Professor of Philosophy and Education
Honors Director

What is “education”? What is “schooling”? And what’s the difference? Why do we do either? To what extent do education and schooling help us understand the world? When is education or schooling helpful or unhelpful? Why is there so much controversy around them? Why do some individuals thrive in schooling and others struggle or fail? Both education and schooling are assumed to be necessary, but are they? This course will attempt to answer these, and other, questions about education and schooling, which constitutes the dominant method of knowledge transmission and creation in the contemporary world.

Through the disciplinary lenses of Education, Philosophy, and Sociology, Economics, and Psychology, students will explore the origins, key characteristics, and applications of education and schooling, and the symptoms and causes of obstacles to the successful realization of their aims. Students will discover more about their own philosophies and ideologies of education and learn to deconstruct complex issues surrounding this (vital?) domain of contemporary life through interdisciplinary thinking. Through a grounding in academic journals, multidisciplinary research, individual research presentations, and the examination of various pop-culture representations of education and schooling through film, students will acquire a more informed and nuanced understanding of the concept and institution that have been omnipresent, and unavoidably influential, in their life so far.