Educational Psychology, Department of
Title
Intellectual Freedom
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
Summer 2003
Abstract
Intellectual development, the development
of the intellect, is the emergence of increasingly
sophisticated forms or levels of cognition, the
progress of understanding, reasoning, and rationality.
We can describe the outcomes of intellectual
development by specifying steps,
stages, or levels of development for cognition
as a whole and/or for various cognitive domains.
Fundamentally, however, intellectual development
is an ongoing process of reflection, coordination,
and social interaction that begins in
early childhood and continues, at least in some
cases, long into adulthood.
Liberal education, however defined, includes
the promotion of intellectual development
as a primary goal. There may be specific facts, skills, and values we want students to learn in specific courses and contexts, but above all
we want to foster intellectual progress. To encourage
intellectual progress, we must promote
reflection, coordination, and social interaction,
the basic processes of development. There are
many ways to do this, but the fundamental
context for all of them, I argue, is one that encourages
students to consider, propose, and
discuss a variety of ideas-that is, an environment
of intellectual freedom. I conclude with
a set of principles of academic freedom that, I
suggest, are foundational to the promotion of
intellectual development.
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Published in LIBERAL EDUCATION, vol. 89, no. 3 (Summer 2003), pp. 30-37. Copyright 2003 Association of American Colleges and Universities. Used by permission.