In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education.
Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have rightly been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry both in the United States and abroad. Anxiously focused on national economic growth, we increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable and empathetic citizens. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world.
In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world.
Drawing on the stories of troubling - and hopeful - educational developments from around the world, Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.
...Particulate matter (PM) is one of the primary pollutants produced from surface mining operations. Exposure of mine workers to PM in opencast mines is of major concern because of associated adverse health impacts. Dispersion studies of PM generated during opencast mining until now have mostly been confined to estimation of emissions from individual mining operations as well as total emission from an opencast mine. PM dispersion inside the mine since its generation until it escapes the mine is important particularly for deep opencast mines where mine workings are confined to bottom benches and emission from it passes across all benches before it reaches surface, thus affecting the exposure level of workers at higher benches. The book presents a review of health impacts due to inhalation of particulate matter with special reference to emissions from mining, PM emission estimate methods and highlights the need of in-pit PM dispersion estimate. With the case studies in three non-coal mines in India, a few approaches for in-pit PM dispersion has been suggested. The exposure level of workers who are working away from the source can thus be estimated by this approach.
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