In both of my classes (one on Social Movements, one on Religious Communication- Church/State Conflict), we discussed Facebook. The majority of students in both classes use Facebook (I have never used it and I never liked the lack of Privacy with it) but they were upset with the new Privacy changes that allowed users to track the movements of other users.
While discussing Facebook in my Social Movements, we discussed Communication phenomenon that would cover the use of facebook. I, being rhetorically minded, thought of two: (1) symbolic convergence theory and (2) technological determinism. While I am not a big fan of the first, I, sometimes, concede the power of the second.
After discussing technological determinism, I have spent most of the afternoon thinking about education. Oxymoron provided a post last week about "Democracy" and "Education," through an online Tech Writing class. I still remain unconcvinced that Democracy and Education are two values that should be combined together, but I digress.
This leads me to the point of my post: What will be the state of education in 15 years?
There seems to be a few trends that I have noticed over the last few years since I have been pursuing my Ph.D.
(1) Students read very little to not at all. This decreases the amount of traditional literacy.
(2) Students spend more time on facebook or watching t.v. or working or hanging out.
(3) Students do not spend as much time developing critical thinking skills. With the rise of a business education, there is less focus on writing or critical thinking than there is on consuming.
(4) Students need to be entertained..
How will these developments alter education?
Will professors need to spend more time entertaining students than teaching them and getting them to think?
Will professors need to develop different "literacy" skills to speak to their audience?
Is egalitarianism or democracy good or necessary for education?
How do we persuade our students to be "students"? Now? In 5 years? 10? 15?
How does political affiliation alter education? Do students look to see the politics of the prof and is this necessary for education? Will this alter education? Will it doom education?
2 comments:
The value of an egalitarian pedagogy depends on your educational philosophy; specifically, what you consider to be the goal of education. If it’s preparation for a career, then democracy has no place in the classroom. Employers want employees who readily submit to their authority, to know their place in the company hierarchy. They don’t want critical thinkers. They don’t want employees who will question the goals, strategies, or ethics of a company. On the other hand, if the goal of education is to prepare students for participation in full citizenship, then an egalitarian pedagogy has value. At the very least, it teaches students that their voices have power. It habituates them to democracy, something that cannot be done though traditional teacher-centered pedagogies.
I'm intrigued by your post and Oxymoron's comment. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume since we each teach humanities classes that we're in favor of egalitarian pedagogy. That said, is it necessarily the best way to prepare students for a career? I would venture to guess if we polled our students most of them are more interested in getting a good job and making money than they are in becoming "good citizens." As teachers and academics, we tend to assume that our way of thinking is the best. I don't know if that is necessarily true. We're all still in grad school, while many of our former students are making more money than we could ever hope to. Clearly there is a difference in values b/w us as teachers and many of our students. But is it our job to impart our values to our students?
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