Education Defined

July 27, 2009 I wrote an essay that included some thoughts on education. I am revisiting some of that, and expanding ------
Sally and I have a morning and evening ritual. We “prebrief” with coffee in the AM and “debrief” with a glass of wine in the PM. I recommend this method to everyone. Keeps communications open and fills us both in on the day.
So anyway, this morning I was telling her about a new adjunct at my old Uni. This guy is somewhere in the Midwest, and teaches a bio course online. I think online science courses are OK if your goal is factual content, but nearly worthless if you are trying to build lab skills. And there is the issue of “community” to consider. You sit in class with someone you find interesting and after class go for a coffee of coke or something and get to know them. Maybe even a couple of people. An on line community is at best a shadow of that model. And if the class isn’t synchronous students may never relate to each other in real time at all. I think this is a problem, and requires a redefinition of “college education”.
To me, a college education should include lots of chances to meet people who are the same as you and who are different from you. A chance for free ranging conversations that help to sharpen your own thought process (much as writing does for me) and a chance to meet new people and be exposed to new ideas. If a college education is sitting at a computer somewhere doing papers and looking up stuff on the internet and listening to Elluminate and or Softchalk lessons, or just doing seat work we should admit up front that the kind of “college education” represented by that kind of experience is different. Maybe not undesirable for everyone, but certainly different.
Ask any of my former students who have been on one or more of the numerous field trips I lead if they would rather have a virtual tour of a steep head, and for most of them the answer will not be just "no" but HELL NO".
Humans spent a million years or more learning the skills that would carry them through life in small groups, or one-on-one and face to face. That method was used essentially until the 1980s when computer labs for all began to be built. Enter the internet, and BANG! - distance e-education. I don’t think that kind of education is all crap. I just think it is crap for some things and crap for some people.
Put another way one might hear: “Hell boy, you ain’t educated. You can’t skin a deer, track a fox or make your own ‘shine. What the hell good can you do anyway? You can’t find your way around the mountains, survive the winter on your own, find water, shoot or any other damn thing that is important. Book learning ain’t gonna cut it here.” I made up that conversation, but do you see the point? Different kinds of education for different situations. The rush to on-line college is leaving behind some very valuable lessons. Fight back. Demand face-to-face classes.