"Our fundamental task as human beings is to seek out connections - to exercise our imaginations. It follows, then, that the basic task of education is the care and feeding of the imagination."
- Katherine Paterson, The Spying Heart, 1989

"Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of existing elite and transmitting them to new members."
-Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life, 1989

Assignment-
Should a college education focus on cultivating and encouraging the imagination of students or on teaching basic facts and standards so that we all share a certain amount of common knowledge? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on these issues. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.