Buggy Whips

Lots of thinking about how things will be in the new world consists of taking trends that had already started in the before, and projecting them into the future. Sometimes it was something that was clearly necessary in the time of the COVID (WFH, for instance), and other times the COVID was used as an excuse to slip in a change that needed to not get a lot of press attention (backing off on a whole variety of environmental regulations at EPA).

Online learning became necessary when all the schools were closed, and as far as I can make out, it was not a rousing success. Or, more accurately, it was designed and applied very unevenly, and saw a wide variety of outcomes, usually less than successful. Sort of like the US's approach to the pandemic in general.

This time, I just want to point you to a post put up today by Kevin Drum, a blogger of politics, economics and cats, who I've followed since the run-up to the war in Iraq. He has a pretty extensive, and interesting, list of characteristics of all-online higher education in the new world that you should just go and read.

Just a couple of notes: First, his leading bullet point is: Every existing university will go out of business. To which I say: buggy whips. And furthermore, I can't think of anything in my on-campus undergraduate experience that I would miss if it all disappeared. Except theater, which I spent every free minute doing.

Which brings us to our second point: how do you do hands-on learning online? Theater and music are his first two examples, and his solution is: I don't know.

I do. Students would audition and participate in community or regional theater or musical groups (choir, orchestra, garage band) for as long as it takes to learn the important skills. This would strengthen these groups, especially if they could be accredited by some sort of national accrediting organization, and therefore provide credit for work done.  These organizations and the community performance groups would share in tuition fees.

As for lab work - again, local, decentralized (but digitally networked) independent research labs could fulfill this need.  

Why should bright kids from towns and small cities leave their communities for good in order to learn and get experience?  Local kids participating in, and developing their talent in, local production companies could change our relationship with the arts altogether.  Local kids doing research in smaller towns might even change the character of our relationship with science.  Imagine that.  Win-win.

No one cares about this, but at the beginning of my freshman year of college as an education major, the class was tasked with taking apart public education and putting it together better. I suggested that we focus our attention on making sure everyone can read, write and do basic math, and then let kids learn whatever they're interested in, at their age level . Eventually they'd find what they really loved and get really good at it(I have to say I wrote this before I read Summerhill, which was on the reading list).

Anyway, if we have the astounding good luck to have to rebuild our creaky, elitist, 120 year old public school system for some reason, then after the huge celebration, I would like to take that basic approach and make it work.