Also a work-oriented education contradicts fundamentally with the aim of improving “faculties”. Vocational education differs from academic education in that it lays more emphasis on the teaching of methods, techniques and specific knowledge, while the latter values more the nurturing of a profound, well-rounded intelligence and character. In a word, vocational education simply stuffs students with all kinds of practical “content”, which has little to do with improving “faculties”. By this education, maybe we will “produce” a larger number of qualified engineers or specialists, but really great thinkers like Newton, Einstein or Karl Marx would never come up. Obviously, such a vocational education aims at temporary mean benefits, far more than the long-term and actually valuable ones of human beings.
Furthermore, even when practical goals are involved, the work-oriented courses also are not necessary good choices for student. The rapid growth of modern science and technology makes professions ceaselessly changeable, new ones continuously emerging and old ones continuously disappearing. On this occasion, it is high likely that the “hot” courses for jobs today will become completely obsolete, unwelcome by market. Taking merely vocation-oriented courses, thus, means a higher risk for students. However, this kind of risk can be greatly avoided by non-work-oriented education, that is, academic education through which we can learn some “life skills”―skills including logic thinking, reasoning, synthesizing, and creative problem-solving. Undoubtedly, these personal faculties will never be out of date and can ensure a brilliant future for students who are excellent in these aspects.
In conclusion, there is always something that is perpetual in the nature of education, and it never changes with the change of people’s focus, interest or preference. The pursuit of education for moralities and faculties is certainly just such an epitome.Perhaps that is what we can learn from Thomas Jefferson and the above discussion.
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