Category Archives: Professional

Education’s Surveillance Arms Race

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 30, 2010
Paternalism is a hardy perennial in higher education. Perhaps for obvious reasons, once we begin thinking about our students as our children, or, better, as our customers, we stop thinking of them as adult learners. As children, we need a lot of guidance; as adults, we have to learn to set our own agendas and then follow it over an extended period of time. It's a difficult process and it's probably always to some extent a matter of trial and error. At key moments, then, we, as teachers, have to just stand back and watch. That's why, as the cliche goes, failure is so important. Adult learners need to be independent learners, and independent learning is, well, learned. Some teachers...
Also posted in Composition | Leave a comment

Learning Consumerism

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 25, 2010
When I was a kid, the weeks before the start of the school year were a joy. I loved rulers, and paper, and protractors, and compasses and binders. I still love the technology of my childhood. I also know that this impulse needs to be held in check less my house become an office supply store. That's consumerism. We can't really blame school for it, but schooling can't escape it, and too often encourages it. As technology develops, consumerism develops right along with it, creating as many new problems as opportunities. Now we hear that smart phones are a "must-have" for students (Tech gadgets are must-have school supplies). There's nothing surprising in that-- the commodification of life is ever...
Also posted in Autobiographical, Economics | Leave a comment

The Myth of the Autodidact

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 23, 2010
Now, don't get me wrong, I think that if information is available more and more people will tend to use it. I love that universities are starting to try to put at least some of their information and course materials out there for the public to use. (Of course, in most cases we, that is, the public, paid for these materials already). Let a hundred flowers blossom, as Mao apparently said. This piece on free online courses ("11 Ways to Find Free Classes Online") shows that there is a lot of this material available now, and more is surely on the way. My only gripe is that too often these sorts of things intersect with two unfortunate...
Also posted in Language | Leave a comment

The Tortoise Picks Up Speed

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 18, 2010
Here's a short piece (Former Govs. Prod States on Digital Education )that seems to suggest that the tortise in the digital education race-- the public educatin system-- may be slowly catching up to the hare-- the for profit sector. It seems to have a focus on K-12 but there's no reason it can't exapnd its reach. Slowly but surely the public sector is going to wake up... What's impressisve about the Digital Learning Council is that it iincludes people from both Apple and Microsoft, as well as administative types. Power and money, any way you look at it. Now if they would only realize that they can use this technology to make a college degree cheaply available to working...
Also posted in Economics | Leave a comment

Surprise!

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 16, 2010
Here's a short passage that I bet just about everyone would find surprising:
President Obama has set a noble goal of having the United States lead the world in college graduation rates by 2020. It is an aim that will empower individuals and strengthen the country as a whole, but it certainly won't be easy. Our current graduation rates are far behind our international competitors and we will be hard pressed to meet our own college-educated workforce capacity by the end of the decade.
It's from a student advocacy group called Education is a Right: "We Need Vigilance in the Higher Education Community". What? The U.S., the most powerful nation in the world, isn't the leader in...
Also posted in Economics | Leave a comment

Educated Denial

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 11, 2010
All professors-- especially if you've been teaching for a while-- love to pontificate on learning and on higher education. I certainly can't throw stones in that glass house. I am continually amazed, though, that so many avoid the white elephant: the almost total destruction of a secure employment system in U.S. Higher Education. It makes all of the professors' ideas seem disingenuous. Sometimes, as with Joel Shatzky's piece in the Huffington Post, it's only a question of not acknowledging reality ( "Educating for Democracy: What Makes Students Want to Learn?" ). Shatzky is also incorrect when he uses Bourdieu's terminology (it's embodied not social capital) and I think he makes the common mistake of reducing adult motivation to economics....
Also posted in Autobiographical, Union | Comments closed