Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Publick Edukashun Rinnovation



Leah Friesen's "Do American's Value Education?" blog post inspired this particular topic of blog which will become part of a long running, irregular series about a realistic, but very different society.

Leah brought up some great points in her blog about how athlete's are grossly overpaid and how so much money is spent on professional sports as opposed to the obviously more important educational system. Greed tends to be the guilty factor behind this misappropriation of funds.

"Public Education is a Joke"



People who have met me in person have most likely heard that quote come out of my mouth at one point in time or another. I didn't have the worst possible experience a kid could have but I did have to deal with many scenarios I don't think a child ever should have to deal with at such a young age. While some would accuse me of trying too hard to shield children from experiences they need to grow, I would counter that guns, drugs, knives, arson, gangs, and extreme physical violence should NOT be concerns of students. You want your kid to learn to defend himself? Fine, take them out into the sun to the local urban neighborhood park and let them run loose.









Pro'sCon's
  • Greatly reduced tuition.
  • No commute.
  • Less traffic.
  • No parking issues.
  • Greatly reduced pollution.
  • Less paper consumption.
  • No ridiculous book fee's.
  • New business opportunities.
  • New job opportunities.
  • etc.
  • No classroom environment.


Yes, I am proposing we do away with public and college education as we know it. Blasphemous! you say? Why?

The answer is right in front of your nose. Home schooling via internet. A LOT less expensive for students, teachers and government. A lot less money would be wasted on paper, transportation, construction etc.

We can leave the social aspects of learning elsewhere. It is not necessary for EVERY course. The time alone that would be saved is incredible. Commuting, even walking class to class.

This is only a pipe dream for sure because I know there is so much money invested in public schools and colleges that they would NEVER allow this to happen. The technology is here now but as is frequently the case, the global education system is holding back innovation instead of promoting it.

Don't think that is drastic enough a change? How about this.

0 cost. Zero. None. Free.

How would this work exactly? Well for one the instructors, who should be the most important people involved in your education, would be paid for providing the service, not the time nor the resources. They would get paid an amount to prepare the prerecorded or perform the live lessons. The money saved in government funding of colleges would go STRAIGHT to them, NOT the architecture, design, maintenance, materials, upkeep or sports franchises. There would be plenty of money to go around.

Before you argue that no one would be happy in that situation think to yourself whether you truly mean "No one" or just you. Could your children's children live a life like that. More importantly, in how many ways would they benefit?

I went to college and I can honestly say it did NOT sufficiently prepare me for the business environment. Employment experience did. Studying from home would give students more time to work. Studying from home would also begin a new trend that would, eventually make its way into business.

My next blog will cover those new employment trends and I will explain further how that particular professor pay scenario would be feasible.

8 comments:

Iris said...

I like your idea. But I still think there should be something in there to take care of the socialization. What about that?

HektikLyfe said...

>Iris: Parenting. Why should school teach you socialization? Really what do the two have to be related with each other? I really think intellectual education and socialization should be two separate entities. It is because they are seen as one in the same that education suffers. Boys don't study because they want to talk to girls in class. Girls don't finish school because they get pregnant. They ditch to go kiss and they can't stop passing notes to each other.

School should be reserved for intellectual purposes and socialization should be reserved for another time.

At home, at the park, during sports...somewhere else. Not in class.

Bunny said...

What a great topic. To give you my opinion in a few sentences would be impossible, so I think I'll do my weekly opinion post on this. Thanks for a great idea!

Anonymous said...

Hi hektiklyfe, one of my pet peeves, too much time and money spent on sports at the expense of education. Will be posting something similar on Tomus soon, I started yesterday with hooligans.

AV
http://netherregionoftheearthii.blogspot.com/
http://tomusarcanum.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I have to disagree with you a little here, Hektik. I don't think that online courses as the main source of education would be a good idea. Students wouldn't get that one on one in-person attention from the teacher that they need to really learn.

And besides, teachers have a tendency to be evil when they are teaching online courses. They give sh*tloads of home work. Why? Lets say a teacher is teaching in an actual class room. And he assigns a looong home work, something like five chapters long. The students will get angry and argue with the teacher right there, right then. Thats trouble for the teacher. But if a teacher is teaching an online course and he never needs to come face to face with his students, and he assigns the same loooong HW, the students can't do anything about it. They have to get the HW done no matter what. You'll get so much home work online that you wouldn't have enough time to go to work.

HektikLyfe said...

>Docteur: Look forward to your blog!

>Argentum: It would be nice if a certain large percentage of the money these "students" a.k.a., sports animals in training, make in their professional careers went back to the schools that trained them. Not just to the schools but to pay the tuition of students that attend.

>Farhan: You have some valid points. Lets see if I can clarify some of the issues to your satisfaction. The "lessons" would not be the ONLY communication you have with the instructor. Those would just be the lessons. The instructors would and should be available for questioning and support after the courses. These lessons would be the study guide and then the questioning period after the class would be much like the study groups of today, only the instructor would be present for assistance. They would have so much extra time in comparison to today's traditions that this would be a requirement.

Once the prevalence of online courses become the norm, their evil tendencies will change. Keep in mind that right now we are in the testing phase and they really don't know how to handle themselves in this new environment. Online monitoring and grading of the instructors will become a normal thing and expected. Everything online gets rated and those "evil" instructors will inevitably lose funding. Besides, just because students complain shouldn't force the instructor to change his teaching habits. With a teacher grading/rating system there is a LOT students could do about it. They could penalize the instructor with bad reviews like him to them.

The first few generations will be difficult, as with any major change in society but in the long run, I have faith that it will improve for the better.

Or "would" I should say.

Dawn Marie said...

I gotta read your post but I just had to comment on your comment!

Of course there were ducks in the manger....I'm going to find you a picture just to show ya...I dont know if they were as cute as mine though!

Anonymous said...

the only thing of any 'social' importance I ever learned in school is that there's a social hierarchy of which you are at the bottom

you take orders from these people who are basically no smarter or more benevolent but just older

they teach you to take orders from your 'superiors' 'just because'
without the kind of communal learning experience everyone could benefit from. Kids have no input on how they are taught, and everyone learns a different way, so genuinely smart kids can do very badly, while average or even stupid kids who can do little more than take direct orders excel until they reach the real world where work experience and critical thinking directly apply to one's success

the social aspects of school are purely disciplinary - sit down, shut the fuck up, and write the same answer as everyone else

-a canadian