However, I wanted to push back a little on something you said, that now is”a good time for radical experiments in education”. To me this reflects a part of the problem with how higher education and its problems are framed. The problem isn’t really quality of education. Its not really what kids are studying or how they are studying it. Sometimes the best thing to do is just take a class period with no digital media and just discuss Dickens, Rousseau, Weber, the the origins of the American Civil War, etc. I don’t really see problem here. The ‘problems’ in higher education for me deal with a) rising costs for students and b) dwindling pay for teachers. There are answers to these that are quite simple, though you have done a good job complicating them. Any problem with instruction, I would argue is derived from these two problems – both in terms of teachers with no support and students who expect a job due to cost. To say that now is a good time for radical changes in pedagogy to me shows an acceptance of the disrupter/corporate narrative that we just aren’t teaching kids as they should be taught. That is bullshit. Am I misinterpreting you here?

Now as a good academic, here is where I cover my tracks. I have no problem using digital media. Using a class to discuss twitter and activism, Game of Thrones, or Freddy Gray is no less useful than using it to discuss some great thinker from a disciplinary cannon. I also use blogs frequently and am open to the use of other media. And yes, we should try to connect with students in their own world at times if we hope to ‘reach’ them. But is it radical? This can all be in in the context of a more traditional format and sitting around and discussing thorny issues without clear answers is not only how it has been done for decades or longer but is still the best way to deliver education in the social sciences or humanities.

Thanks!

I wrote a search program in 1964 that was functionally the same as the Internet searches we use today, but there were no disk drives then that were large enough and fast enough to do the same job we do now. I suppose that there are some things that were not anticipated fifty years ago, but I don’t know what they are. For example local weather forecasting was an obvious possibility back then and now I can check my local weather each day to see what would be the best time to play at my local golf course. Temperature, rain showers, wind vectors, humidity, etc. are all predicted with a high degree of accuracy for each and every hour of the day. I can testify to the accuracy through years of actual experience. GPS range finders are all the rage now in golf, but it is more important to know the direction and speed of the wind, especially in Texas—that information comes from my local weather forecast.

But I never thought that computers could teach classes, and in fact I was and remain skeptical that they could even help very much. That is if they are used in the general role of teachers’ assistants or to provide programmed learning, or whatever the term of art is now—and your points about the article you read are good ones. BTW, thanks for reading it so I don’t have to.

But I do believe that there are many important things that computers can do in the field of teaching—things that cannot be done without computers. Well, let me modify my statement. Computers can help teach our children in ways that could be done in a small population of human beings, but not in a large one. For example, education took place in ancient Athens in ways that we cannot use in our large populations—that is unless we use computers.

To do these things would require considerable changes to the way we now teach, but I think the effort would be worth it. We can teach language skills, especially written, math skills, analytical skills and the like by using computers to enable us to emulate ancient Athens. In short, computers can enable us to govern ourselves as if we are a small city like Athens, and in so doing we will be able to teach our children the things they need to know to assimilate into adult society. We can socialize our children in ways that, I think, would solve many of the racial, sectional, economic problems that plague us today.

Computers would make it possible for students, entire classes of them, to communicate instantly and constantly with each other as they worked on a real, meaningful problem in a very public way. Adults could be drawn into the work and the results could then be reviewed by other groups of classes and other adults, and finally the problem solution could be put into action. This kind of group work also leads to socialization of the kind that does not usually happen until the student leaves home and goes to college, or the military, etc.

The technical structure is there. The young people already have the technical skills. What is lacking is the restructuring of the teaching process—and adults hold the key. For now.

Not long ago, a friend and I went to the picture show. Afterwards I waited for her outside the restrooms along with a dozen or so young males. They all had their phones out, their heads were down, they were oblivious to their surroundings—they were in another world. They read and answered all types of communications, but unfortunately the content of those communications was probably vacuous. But those skills, those imaginations, can be directed toward the real world. Properly organized and nudged by teachers, it could transform our world for the better.

Our children are able to teach themselves, if only we will help them do it. Computers give us the opportunity to revolutionize our society and it must start in our schools.