Closing the Niche

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One of the best things about distance education is the way it can be used to fill all sorts of gaps left by the traditional education system. Despite all of the problems in my industry– it’s been an ugly, messy birth– we do reach students that were not being reached otherwise. One day, I think, this will be something that the public universities do as well. That’s a necessary part of the puzzle, although the slowness of the public response to these possibilities is, well, bizarre.

This lethargic response is both economic– public systems don’t have cash reserves that allow them to keep up with rapid technological change– and ideological. After three decades or more of anti-government propaganda the ideals of public service, or of public services, has eroded beyond all recognition. There’s a thick vein of corruption ruining through the higher education system, rooted in an administrative culture not unlike the corporate culture at large.

Administrations preserve their perquisites like any other corporate executives. In this environment, innovations arise from the periphery rather than the center. Wall Street works on financial con games, while alternative energy folks slowly build a new industrial system. The public universities focus on making their athletic programs even more marketable, while the military builds a flexible school system (“Virtual High School Opens ‘Doors’ to Learning“).

Posted in: Economics, Professional

Education’s Surveillance Arms Race

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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 and administrators are as uncomfortable with this idea as any student. If my children fail, I fail; if my customer’s are unhappy, my shareholders are unhappy. So, as a recent article on NPR suggests (University Attendance Scanners Make Some Uneasy), the paternal temptation is to find a technological fix that would save our customers, uh, students, from themselves.

What’s great about young adult learners– and exasperating– is that they follow their creativity down whatever lines seem interesting. So if the universities install scanners that will track attendance for large lectures, we can be sure that students will respond with a hack that allows you to check in from the comfort of your dorm room. As usual, these technological fixes are designed to address problems created by an alienated and alienating form of education. Scale down those lectures and I bet attendance would go up.

Posted in: Composition, Professional

Learning Consumerism

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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 renewed– but I think that there’s an element in this dynamic that’s worthy of extra caution. When we were kids we got the usual existential pitch: buy this product and you will be the cool kid. The commodity would solve that persistent pesky alienation. There’s a kind of magical thinking that goes along with shopping, appropriate perhaps only for children.

Now, however, it’s not just the commodity that’s supposed to salve the alienation, its the information and knowledge it provides. If you don’t have full access to information, the logic goes, whenever and wherever you are, you are not really fully alive. The economic threat is very explicit too. Students need to be able to work all of the time or they won’t get the grades that will allow them to succeed, perhaps especially in what might be a permanently contracting job market. It take the pleasure right out of the tech.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Professional

The Myth of the Autodidact

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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 myths. The first myth is that technology will be able to replace teachers; the second, closely related myth is that of the autodidact.

People can and do teach themselves, of course, but for most of us most of the time teachers– and often classmates– are an essential part of the mix that leads to effective learning. Teaching, despite what the right wing often implies, is in fact a skill like any other, and not something that just anyone can do because they “care about young people.” Call that the Schwarzenegger myth.

Posted in: Language, Professional