The poor white trash of education versus the real thing.
From an opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
…[O]nline courses are just a substitute for traditional education because a classroom full of bodies is quite literally full of real, living matter. In other words, it’s the real thing.
At the most basic level, to be a student has always meant actually dragging one’s exhausted body into class with readings in hand, being (more or less) awake, alert, listening, and ready to open one’s mouth. And to be a teacher, for me, means seeing the faces of the students and how their bodies reflect their thoughts and emotions, hearing the timbre of their voices or the lilts in their dialects, experiencing them before me in the rich mix of ideas.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:02AM
Sometimes, though, the best is the enemy of the good. For most subjects, I’d rather take a course in person from a really good professor than take the same course on-line. But I’d rather take an on-line English course from you or Erin O’Connor than take the same course in person from some mediocre time-server.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:40AM
David: isn’t the point that there is no "same course on-line"? The only way to get the goodness of Soltan or O’Connor is to engage face-to-face. No matter how good, the lack of interaction undermines authentic work. I will remember, for a long, long time, a frank discussion we had about The Good Soldier. I remember the responses from UD, I remember my irritation about the comments flying around the room, I remember talking with her walking down the stairs. There is no way the internet could enable such moments.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:00AM
This way of thinking is medieval (that’s a compliment): the idea of personal involvement in educating (as opposed to training) an intellectual elite in the service of society. It is being swamped by the development of mass education and of technology, too often with the complicity of people who do not like teaching very much (and students even less) and who abuse useful technology to distance themselves and satisfy personal ambitions, encouraged by administrators who care not about education, but about finance.
We are paying the price, and it is dear.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:16AM
As Yogi said about deja vu:
"There is no way the internet could enable such moments."
True, but as David points out there are not enough Soltans and O’Connors to go around, let alone administrators at large state universities who care to make such opportunities available to mere undergraduates. Not everyone can go to Harvard or Carleton.
And there is a big difference between teaching Shakespeare and teaching organic chemistry. By the way, I see that Harvard med and some other places are suggesting that perhaps, instead of using organic chemistry as the brain buster, we should use other disciplines for this purpose – disciplines that might help prepare better docs.
I suggest a mandatory Shakespeare course. For some reason people who teach Shakespeare seem to do a helluva good job at it. It seems that almost every institution has such a course that is very good. Perhaps you English types can comment on this?
Summertime and the livin’ is easy. We are grinding to the end in the lab for the summer and then, finally, a mini-vacation.
Best,
Bonzo
July 25th, 2008 at 10:11AM
"The only way to get the goodness of Soltan or O’Connor is to engage face-to-face"…well, about a month ago, O’Connor had a piece on George Eliot which inspired me to pick up "Adam Bede"…I have now finished the novel and "Mill on the Floss" and "Scenes of Clerical Life," and yesterday I started "Daniel Deronda." So at least some of the goodness is electronically transmissible.
On the other hand, I didn’t think the "Adam Bede" discussion thread at The Valve was tremendously inspiring..a classroom discussion would almost certainly have been better.
One thing to bear in mind is that the typical on-line course probably does not reflect very deep thinking about how teaching on-line should be done…just like one lecture can be far better than another, one on-line course design can probably be far better than another, given the same material.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:44PM
I’m with Larry Cebula, albeit from the student perspective. As a non-traditional student (read: middle-aged), I appreciate the focus online classes provide. I have found that interactions are more thoughtful, and often more thought-provoking, than any "bricks and mortar" classroom I’ve ever been in. I’m no longer the only willing to speak up or ask questions, in my online classes we all speak up, whether required or no doesn’t make a difference. By mid-term, the chaff has begun to separate itself out. Those who can’t or won’t keep up are more obvious, no one is just "getting by."
And as Mr. Cebula points out, we all get to practice our writing along the way. I have seen classmates who could barely string a coherent sentence together at the beginning of a semester at least be able to apply a small amount of coherency and critical thinking by the end of the semester.
I too think this argument of online vs. tradition is nonsense. My education has been excellent from a small university with a reputation for excellence. Once I complete my BA in history, I hope to go on to an online MA in creative writing at a different small university with an equal reputation for excellence. No one has ever accused me of being uneducated because of my choice of an online education.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:00PM
Good evening, all,
I found this discussion via Andrew Sullivan’s blog on The Atlantic, but have some comments w/r/t the label ‘poor white trash’ being associated with online education.
There is a bit of self-selection bias here – how many people are interested enough to find and respond to this issue? It is, unfortunately, likely that most students – whether in-person or online – likely would not care one whit to discuss this issue.
I found the full text of the referenced opinion piece here, and took the time to read it. It is not clear to me whether everyone commenting here has read the article, which seems a celebration of social, in-person interaction and relationship-building rather than direct, well-reasoned criticism of online education in general. In fact, the author seems to seek fellowship more than substantive intellectual discourse in her classrooms.
There is no doubt that interacting directly with a room full of classmates and a teacher may provide many benefits during the learning process. Discussions may be stimulating, heated, animated. To those unfamiliar with many modern online learning environments, it may be difficult to believe that such energy can be transmitted between students online.
As the opinion piece, and several comments here, point out, body language may be important for teachers and students alike. Body language can also intimidate, hornswaggle, and confuse.
Assuming an instructor engaged in his or craft, and interested in working with learners, what makes a course – in whatever environment – meaningful is the attitude each student brings to the subject matter.
For many students – graduate or undergraduate, online or in-person – there is no love of learning and critical thought. There is no joy in analysis, discussion, or careful writing. A talented instructor can often coach or encourage even poorly oriented students to pay attention, but these students may never find the joy in careful thought or discussion. A talented instructor can coach or encourage in person or online, with the only distinction being written as opposed to spoken thoughts.
As with any educational endeavor, learners that feed their learning with energy and thought are rewarded, and those who choose the lower-cost route are not. These two groups of learners exist in all learning environments, and to castigate online learning as ‘poor white trash’ is to denigrate efforts to reach those energetic learners with financial, schedule, calendar, or geographic difficulties.
It also denigrates the efforts of those energetic, interested learners, which does not seem appropriate in any context.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:54AM
I made a post here yeasterday pointing out that "poor white trash" is an actual category on this blog. Discuss.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:15PM
The irony of "discussing" the worthiness of online education on a blog is apparently lost on our host.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:48PM
[...] in “You have seen their faces,” she calls online courses “the poor white trash of [...]