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<p>We spent some time in another thread discussing the British/Oxbridge admissions system and the role of their notorious interview questions. I assume the interviews are more or less representative of the kind of exchange that is meant to occur in an Oxford or Cambridge tutorial. If so, then despite the early specialization there, it seems to me that the pedagogical aims of their model are not necessarily far different from the aims of US-style liberal learning. In respects other than breadth, of course. </p>
<p>Breadth, that is, is not the sole objective of a liberal arts education. It may not even be the core objective. The indispensable element, I think, has more to do with fostering a certain kind of inquiry in discovering and disseminating knowledge. That’s why we many of us can agree that a GB, Core, Distribution, and Open Curriculum model all can succeed. Though we may differ as to which model makes it easier to foster the objectives, given one or another set of assumptions.</p>