Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Tyler Cowen in his new book, “Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disorderd World” makes a very insightful assessment of the future of higher education.
Working as a proffessor of Economics at George Mason Univeristy, he poses the question: “Why do my students need me?”
As great an economist Mr. Cowen might be, would the students not benefit from listening instead to a Nobel Prize winner in ecnomics to deliver a lection on options pricing and market elasticity? Or how about someone who is faculty at Harvard, MIT, or Princton?
It wouldn’t take much resources; a video camera, lighthing, a DVD player, and an internet connection. Easily acquriable, to say the least.
There is a lot of buzz around digitized education, and every serious post-secondary institution around the world wants to be leading the innovation in delivering education. Be it distance courses, on-line corresspondance, univeristy created applications for the Blackberry of iPhone, you name it, and someone is trying to add it to their repotoire.
Being an undergrad student potentially thinking of going down the long road of academia, the thought my classrooms might be empty while I deliver the lecture for recording, while students are sitting alone in their dorm rooms viewing my video. With the capacity to rewind, pause, and altogether stop me from speaking about a topic I spent years trying to gain expertise in, scares me a little.
Tyler Cowen notes that the demand for top colleges, and the price of college tuition, has taken off at exactly the same time as the internet revolution. He’s not suggesting that the spread of the internet caused the boom in quality higher education, but he says it does indicate the internet will not displace such education.
Students could technically watch YouTube vidoes on topics related to their study and gain their knowledge that way. But which employer when glancing through a CV would select someone who spent 4 years watching YouTube videos?
The necessity of human interaction in the role of education makes the point that “education” as it is recognized by the larger economy cannot be attained in isolation, but rather it is acquired just as much through face to face communication as through a text book.
So the next time you’re wondering why is that I have to go to class when I can just download the lecture on my computer, keep in mind that the illusion of control a video presents to you will only harm you in the long run when you come to discover that life can’t be fast forwarded, rewound, or paused at the whim of your finger tips.
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
As Conor Clarke notes “this piece gets written every year.” Educational professionals have long fretted about how First World countries with fewer days of school (U.S., Canada, New Zealand) compete against those with more (Japan, South Korea, etc.) Kids have long been shown to forget what they learned the previous year in the summer months. Going back to school requires some reorientation. As Clarke notes, he length of the summer break amplifies a class divide.
Those children of wealthier parents benefit from all sorts of edifying experiences — lower class kids don’t. In the U.S., the Obama administration has already expressed its displeasure at the status quo. Time will tell if the U.S. is able to muster the political will to change.
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
One advantage of tracking studies is that they help us contextualize modern “crisis” points in a historical context. Harris Interactive’s has been running the Met Life Survey of the American Teacher since 1994. Some surprising findings:
- Teachers are now more satisfied with their profession than ever before (40% were very satisfied in 1984, now 62% are)
- The number of teachers who rate the academic standards of their school as excellent has doubled (from 24% in 1984 to 53%).
- More teachers report that that at least 3/4 of their students are preapred to learn at their grade level (54% now as opposed to 44% in 1984).
More here.
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
The great thing about an economic hardship is that it forces us re-evaluate our lines in the sand. Over the last little while I’ve read many articles and blogs on the impact of high unemployment and grim earning prospects for recent graduates (and eminent graduates). I should say it seems that we have ceased to see the education for the degrees.
First, what is the purpose of higher education? Second, let us try to extract the value of an education. A valuable exercise in this economic climate where the average undergraduate student leaves school with a debt load of $20,000.00 in Canada.
The reality remains that colleges and universities are rapidly losing their iconic status as places of burgeoning intellect where the brightest young minds are guided to ever greater levels of plasticity through the strenuous acquisition of complex heuristics. Rather they have for all intents been transformed into Ford Model-T style factories producing homogeneous workers with ever increasing efficiency. Our own research tells us that the most prevalent reason young people cite to pursue undergraduate degrees is “to get a good job”. Less that one in five even ranked broader education as a consideration. This does not seem really logical considering the facts. Auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians or any skilled trade person on average earn more in entry level positions than an entry level white collar worker graduating with a general arts and science degree. Should we then just advise young people to look for work in the trades and forgo the high priced letters (and seemingly about $20,000.00 in consumer credit)? Is this simply a case of buyer beware. Should students simply ensure that they are better informed about the long term implications of funding their education before considering debt financing?
Now to the a paraphrase of the second question does society still value an educated citizenry? Under the antiquated model of a broader education presumably this would be a magnificent opportunity for students to really differentiate themselves by diversifying their tool-kits and branching out to complementary and challenging fields of study. The sad reality is that in a society where linear measurement is valued to the point of absurdity this is simple not feasible academically (nor usually financially). In other words our young scholars cannot afford to risk losing a grade point gaining pursuing a more challenging path. Instead they are rewarded socially, academically, and financially for looking for the least challenging path through their education. Does it portend a general erosion of the underlying foundation of the system of education as it is currently constructed.
Many people foresaw this economic downturn and were summarily dismissed as naysayers until the unthinkable happened. Wall street collapsed and for all intents and purposes so did every major market in the world. Will education suffer the same fate as the market place is flooded with more and more educated unemployed young people fighting for entry level positions which they intend to leave the instant they find a more promising opportunity or one that is better aligned with their skill set? Markets are by definition efficient and the more protracted this downturn becomes the less tolerant employers will be of a volatile overqualified workforce. Maybe they will start hiring only qualified candidates and leave the overqualified ones to fend for themselves. Is an educational downturn eminent for our institutions of higher learning?
