Destroying the humanities: UC’s online adventure

This post was originally published on the blog "eats shoots 'n leaves"  by Richard Brenneman on April 16, 2011.

The University of Phoenix California has embarked into the realm of online education, which, we presume, is the Next Big Thing in the world of learning.

And they’re doing in direct violation of the terms they laid out in winning approval of the university’s Academic Senate, the institution that embodies they very concept of academic freedom.

The university’s explicit promise: The university wouldn’t borrow any funds to bankroll the program.

Well, guess what? The university is taking on an additional $2 million in debt to launch the online venture, and projects up to $5 million in further borrowing.

Even worse, the faculty wasn’t told about the breach of the agreement: They had to learn about it through an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education written by Josh Keller and published 8 April:  http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/reversing-course-u-of-california-to-borrow-millions-for-online-classes/30853

Bob Samuels, who blogs at Changing Universities, has some choice words about the implications of the university cyberventure:  http://changinguniversities.blogspot.com/2011/04/online-education-and-end-of-uc.html

Inhumane education for an inhumane world

We think Samuels has it precisely correct, though there are other ramifications he doesn’t mention.

First, let’s look at the source of the one grant the university has managed to land.

The money is coming from the pockets of Bill Gates, who stands to add to his already considerable billions if on-line education becomes the norm.

Then look at the telecoms. We suggest the university approach them for more money, especially now that they’ve decided to install meters on individual Internet usage. After all, online course involve streaming video, which will keep those meters spinning, since video gobbles up a lot of bandwidth.

And, hell, why not scrap the whole nonprofit thing altogether? The school’s already peddling the brand to corporate research sponsors, and UC would make a hell of brand, especially compared to outfits like Phoenix and Kaplan. And, heck, one of the regents already has lots of experience in privatized academic. Dickie “Sticky Fingers” Blum is, after all, the money man behind Kaplan, and he could use his spousal connection — Senator Diane Feinstein — to help grease the skids in the event of any federal problems.

The switch to for-profit online would also give management the ultimate cudgel to beat down an already weakened faculty. The more courses you put on the Web, the fewer teachers you need. Hell, you can scrub whole departments, their faculty, their secretaries, the janitors who clean up the offices you’ll no longer need.

Heck, you could run a whole university with the staff it takes to run a junior college!

So what if you eliminate all human contact? Hell, that’s a selling point in a world when the interpersonal is becoming increasingly irrelevant!

Never mind that something like teaching languages is multidimensional and intimately relational.

Years ago we met a very smart, very multilingual fellow who served as an educational consultant to the United Nations.

When I asked him how he had mastered so many languages, he told me a fascinating tale: When I get to a new country where I need to learn a language, I find a boarding house where the owners have kids. They’re

Why, I asked?

Young children are very conscious about learning languages, since that’s what they’ve been doing. And because of that, they love to teach an adult. After all,  how many times do kids have a chance to feel more competent than an adult? And they’re very attentive, picking up on all your mistakes and helping you to get things right.

Kids are very good at teaching things like inflection, context, and nuance.

But it only works on an intimate, face-to-face basis.

So why this digression?

Different people have different learning styles, and there are some people who will adapt well to the online environment.

But other people won’t, people like, say, esnl, who’s quite capable of gathering up facts on his own. When it comes to teachers, we’re motivated by the ones we engage with, who take the time of personal dialogue.

So the online world shuts out folks like us. But then we’re not well-adapted to the brave new world of disaster capitalism.

We’ve paid off banksters, cut the taxes of the richest, demolished pension programs, health care, and organized labor. We’ve created a world in which human beings have become disposable, interchangeable parts. So maybe online education is really adaptive for the denizens of such world.

The rest of us are merely irrelevant, and — in such an inhumane world — so are the humanities.