EDUCATION TODAY NO. 10

The current trends show an even greater degree of a business oriented model entering the field of education at all levels-Recently President Obama urged women and mothers in particular to seek out loans to continue their eduacation on line-I get about 10 advertisements a day on this-I cannot imagine what the good purpose would be in all this- eduaction neceesarily requires a classrom and a teacher or professor present - sitting in front of a computer all day is not good for anyone and especially a mother with children-this is part of the economic stimulus plan as much as anything else- bringing needed revenue to college and universities- it is entirely uninspiring and unrewarding to not have the person to person interaction with the teacher-and the idea that the advantages will some how counter balance the disadvantages shows an ingnorance of the fundamantal principles of education- Socrates was the first great teacher in Western Civilization the socratic method which involves a dialoguie between teacher and student cannot be replicated on a computer- it is a meeting of the minds and hearts of the teacher and student and last time i checked a computer did not have a heart- the personal relationship of teacher to student is what makes learning useful and effective- the mutual interest of both are part of the process-so are the mutual rewards and it is the teacher who usually learns the most in the process- the trust that is created in the process-the trust that leads to a committment by both is the main thing- computers are not a substitute in this respect and probably never will be- i recently had to battle with an administrator who wanted me to put my class in a computer lab to use a software program called READ ON-while it has its merits-it was never meant to replace a teacher or be a substitute for the teacher student relationship- the administrator could not see this- he could only see the efficiency of the process and the money that would be saved by not hiring more teachers-this is what is going on today in the field of education- not just here but around the world- i will have more to say on this subject later.