Higher Ed on TV and Online

As promised, my rant about the Kaplan University television commercials. If you haven't seen this ad (the one with the apologizing professor), visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e50YBu14j3U&feature=related to watch it. Here's the transcript:

"I stand before you today to apologize. The system has failed you. I have failed you. I have failed to help you share your talent with the world when the world needs talent more than ever. Yet it's being wasted everyday by an educational system steeped in tradition and old ideas. It's time for a new tradition. It's time to realize talent isn't just in schools like this one. It's everywhere. It's time to use technology to rewrite the rules of education, to learn how you learn so we can teach you better. It's time a university adapted to you rather than you adapting to it. It's time for a different kind of university. It's your time."

Now, before I go into any detail about my issues with this message, let me say that I have nothing against Kaplan University. I have never attended there, don't know anyone who has. The only exposure to Kaplan that I have is this ad and the occasional job posting on Craigslist. In addition, they are marketing to students at the undergrad level, so this doesn't exactly apply, but I think they touch on a number of issues worthy of discussion. Also, I realize that this is a commercial, meant to market their product to a particular demographic of students in a way that makes them seem unique. So, you have to take into account that what is said in the ad may just be marketing fluff, but it also brings up a number of important points regarding the state of higher ed in this country, which is what I'd like to discuss.

1. The role of vocational education: I believe that voc ed is really important. I need people to build my house, fix my car, do my plumbing, etc. These careers are an incredibly vital part of our society and without them, critical functions of local communities and governments would go undone. However, higher education, or rather an education in the liberal arts (let's be specific, shall we?) is something greater than that. The liberal arts are so-called because they liberate man from his position or status. They teach him about the nature of man and of the world around him. They elevate man. My fear is that, especially in a time of economic crisis and high unemployment, people will see voc ed, job-specific training, and the only sure way to "liberate" them from their current financial or job woes. But what happens when those jobs go out of fashion again, just like manufacturing jobs have been drastically reduced (just look at the auto industry for an example) in the past 30 years? Training people is one thing. Educating them in another.

2. According to this ad, Kaplan seeks to educate students through new means, particularly through the use of new technologies. Now, I have always been a little averse to the overuse of technology in the classroom. It takes away from the human experience of discussion, the use of the Socratic method of question and answer to arrive at a conclusion. For lecturing, PowerPoint can be a great tool for showing visual aids, for using charts or outlining your thoughts. But it can also dominate the classroom, with students paying more attention to scribbling as much down as they can and absolutely no attention to the lecturer. It becomes a crutch for some students and hinders their ability to look for broader themes. I've also known of professors who record their entire lecture and post it online as a podcast, so students never have to actually attend class to get the info they need to pass. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the teacher - how well do they incorporate technology into their classroom and how is it used? What is the proper role of technology in the classroom? At what point does the use of technology mask the fact that students are learning very little, if anything?

* the irony of this particular rant is not lost on me . . . we at "A Proper Introduction" are attempting to use "technology" as a way to supplement graduate studies. We hope that we will do it better than a lot of the professors I've met.

3. The part that really aggravated me the first time I saw it was the bit about "an educational system steeped in tradition and old ideas". What's wrong with tradition? This is typical progressive rhetoric - that anything "old" is useless and that if we are to be relevant we must be "new" and "adaptable". Maybe I'm wrong (but I don't think I am), but I thought that the whole point of a liberal arts education was learning about "old ideas". Can you tell that I'm a historian? Were schools to abandon entirely "old ideas" they'd be forced to reinvent the wheel for every discovery. There would be no opportunity to build on the great ideas of the past. Remember that "old ideas" include things like: "all men are created equal", pi=3.14..., the theory of relativity, Dante's Divine Comedy, parallel fifths sound bad in tonal two-part harmony compositions. Go ahead and throw those things out. See where you're at. I'll tell you. Historians and political scientists have "determined" that the Declaration of Indepedence was a racist, mysoginist document that didn't guarantee anything; and, by the way, so is the Constitution. No need for law or natural right. Dante's Divine Comedy - also mysoginist [but I will leave that to Ella - she is the expert on Dante]. No need for moral authority or religious heirarchy. Composers have been writing parallel fifths for a hundred years and have created some beautiful a-tonal works of music; doesn't mean Mozart isn't rolling in his grave or screaming "Dummkopf" from the great beyond.

All I'm saying is, these "old ideas" Kaplan is so eager to do away with in favor of "adapting to the way [we] learn" have served us well, sometimes for centuries or millenia. Only an arrogant student of any discipline would see fit to start anew without regard to that which came before them. And it would only make their graduate studies more difficult if they expect themselves to amass a vast amount of knowledge [become an expert in their chosen subject] without help from their predecessors. Good luck. Personally, I think grad school is hard enough.