|
|
|
||||||||
Learning vs Indoctrination
Electronic University (EU)
Certainly one of the things wrong with college education today is that it has been priced out of the range of many middle class children, including my own children. My own Alma Mater (which shall be nameless) charges at least thirty times as much for tuition today, as it did in the late fifties. Middle class incomes have risen by less than a factor of ten. Fortunately, with the invention of the Web, and VHS and DVD and all the other media miracles of our times, it is possible to create an Electronic University, with mini-campuses in major cities, but without the huge overhead of the traditional school. And the quality of the instruction would be vastly improved, for a variety of reasons. Real production values could go into the creation of each series of lectures. Think of Lord Clark's "Civilisation" TV series, or Carl Sagan's "Cosmos." Interaction between student and course (a computer program) would be one-on-one, and would go at the student's own pace. At the beginning of each course, the student would be told how many points it took to make an A, how many for a B and so forth. One would make points (or lose them) by taking "exams," which could be thought of as similar in some ways to a computer game. Do a good job and get points. Do a lousy job and lose points.But what about campus life? What about the intellectual stimulus of conversation over coffee? How would you meet girls? The answer to all these questions is university districts. Here would be the labs for science classes, with Teaching Assistants. Here would be old apartment buildings bought up by EU and rented out solely to EU students. Here would be the bottomless cup of coffee or tea, for EU students in coffee houses also owned by EU. Continental breakfast (a basket of hard rolls with butter and jam) and inexpensive bagel sandwiches and soup, for EU students. Possibly such pockets of EU-dom could be established in places that are already student districts, such as the left bank in Paris, or University hill in Seattle.
EU would have advantages for faculty as well. Since a faculty member of EU would be paid a royalty for each copy of his class sold, creators of popular classes could become rich. And having the class on tape or DVD means not having to teach the same subject over and over for years until one is dead tired of it. Just update it occasionally. It might not even be necessary to change the filmed lectures, just the texts and exam-programs that go with it.
Now that I have your attention, there are a number of deeper issues that affect all levels of education, not just colleges and universities. Just what do we want our schools to do? Unfortunately, most people would say "indoctrination" and then argue about which courses should be required. But I am a libertarian, who always found it easy to learn on my own, and difficult to absorb "required courses."
Indoctrination
Just as "faith" is another name for "dogma," so "education" is another name for "indoctrination." One reason it fails is the old adage "you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." Similarly, with students and learning opportunities.Away with compulsory education after the age of seven. Away with any kind of "education," if that only means indoctrination. Let us live up to our libertarian ideals and inaugurate a new age of learning. Students start school full of curiosity and creativity, soon killed by indoctrination and repetitious homework. The few learned people I have met somehow avoided repetitious drudgery. If we wanted to instantly double the quality of our classes, we only need to repeal the compulsory education rule, at least for those eight or older. We must provide many alternatives, to be paid for with the vouchers.
Traditional schools follow a lockstep, cookie-cutter approach, which forces children to sit quietly at their desks all day. But not all children are alike. Some children need to be physically active, running back and forth between chair and blackboard as they give their answers. Some children need to develop their physical coordination, or their musical and linguistic skills, before they are able to absorb traditional school subjects. Some children do better if everything is made a game, preferably a game involving music and dancing. Apprenticeship to a trade at age eight should also be an allowable alternative.
Part of this revolution, and one suggested before (by John Holt, for instance) is the use of vouchers.
Vouchers
We need to bring free enterprise to learning. That's what vouchers do. I say give vouchers to everyone, and let them be fully transferable, salable or savable for any number of years, but redeemable only by a teacher given a license by the local magistrate, and not redeemable by a school. This is a way of implementing the Ideal of Freedom of Information for students over 8. Another thing vouchers do is provide equal opportunity. It means that everyone at least has a chance to go as far as their talents and ambition will take them, without being discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, sex, tribe, age or family.If a student qualifies for a high priced teacher or high priced school, the whole family can chip in vouchers to make it possible. Let vouchers be used for child care, if the child care facility correctly expands the mental and physical horizons of the children. This can actually be measured, in terms of the number of words spoken directly to a child per hour. Indeed, it begins to appear that the first three years of life are the most important in the development of linguistic, social, musical and mathematical skills (Newsweek, Feb. 19, 1996, p. 54).
Let vouchers be used for apprenticeship in the skilled trades. Let them be used for religious schools, even those of new or alternative religions or spiritual paths. Let them be used for therapy. Let them be used for enrichment programs for the elderly, and classes on Near Death Experience and other transpersonal knowledge in hospices. It is never too late to learn, and it never ceases to give pleasure. But learning is a pleasure only when it is voluntary.
Liberal Arts
I went to a "liberal arts" college myself. I didn't quite know what that meant, but it sounded good to me. It turned out that the faculty and administration had no idea what it meant, either. I have thought about the meaning of "liberal arts" over the years, and I can now define it as "knowing everything important about everything important." This is a challenging goal, but not impossible, since the growth of knowledge in all fields occasionally produces a new theory or organizing principle, such as the theory of plate tectonics in geology. It is far easier to learn plate tectonics than to memorize the piles of unrelated facts that used to constitute geology.This is true in all fields. If there is no theory or organizing principle, it would not be included in our list of "everything important."
In order to teach the Liberal Arts Introduction to physics, it is first necessary to learn higher math. This can be done, if math is taught as the language of number, rather than a proof system. Engineers or scientists teach this course, rather than mathematicians, since they are the ones who use the language. Mathematicians don't consider math a language and don't care whether it has any use. For them, it is a mind game. But for the rest of us, the only mathematics of significance is that part which is used as a language of precise logical relationships and careful measurement.
I shall give a brief description of this language. Higher math has a single sentence form, the equation, and it has five parts of speech, three kinds of number, and two kinds of operator. The five parts of speech are numbers, constants, variables, operators and functions. The three kinds of numbers are real, complex and array. The two kinds of operator come from algebra or calculus.
Algebraic operators are like addition and multiplication, which work on anything, including other operators. Calculus operators work on functions, transforming them into other functions. There are equations, operators and functions for each of the three kinds of numbers, using both kinds of operator. Learn all the permutations, and you have mastered higher math.
As a language, the emphasis is on learning to read it and write it. This is never taught in conventional math classes. For more see higher math.
One good reason for learning a language is to learn the great literature in that language, which, in this case, consists in the great equations of physics, engineering and economics. So, the second semester of the math class is the literature. After that, the introductory courses in the sciences are easy, even though they include the equations, which are usually left out of beginning classes. No graduates from traditional universities could match the skills and vast knowledge of a Master of Liberal Arts from EU.
Copyright © Dr.H 2003
Home