Higher Ed: Outdated?

Been a bit slow around here lately, hasn't it? Today I want to deviate a little from the normal political talk and discuss another passion of mine: education. This article from Utah's Deseret News piqued my interest.

Higher education in America today is, for the most part, following in the footsteps of a few hundred years of traditional university-style learning. Hour-long lectures, with (more or less) occasional discussion interspersed. Outside the classroom, studying is done individually (online or textbook) and in small groups. What I find interesting is that this professor at BYU predicts the "end of the University" in its current format.

Wiley's work in creating Open Course standards and material is laudable. I am certainly of the opinion that "information wants to be free", and the ubiquity of instant information access from a variety of channels is fascinating to me as a lover of education and knowledge in general. And from this standpoint, Wiley is correct: the model of one lecturer standing and feeding information to pupils is increasingly going to be anachronistic. The iPod/laptop generation (which will give way in a decade or so to even smaller, ever-connected devices) changes what can be done in the educational realm. My university, I am proud to say, is on the bleeding edge of this paradigm shift. Certainly, it is not widespread on campus yet but the always-on lifestyle of students does have an effect, and that effect will grow to change things in the university world even further.

What I disagree with Wiley about is his thesis that universities will be irrelevant. Perhaps he means, universities that do not change to meet the times will be irrelevant. That is true. Universities, as businesses, must adapt and change if they are to continue viability.

Some things, however, I believe will not change. For one thing, college students are social creatures. The university campus is ideally suited for promoting and nurturing the creative common nature of college students. That is an aspect that can never, and should never, be replaced or subsumed in a pervasive online culture. The world is global, sure, but face-to-face interactions are very much local. Even the emergence of cheap teleconferencing technology (skype, webcams, etc) do not compare with sitting in a classroom or around a table or in a dorm room learning with (and from) experts and peers. The social aspect of learning manifests itself both in the sharing of ideas and in the sense of teaching social graces, independence, critical thinking, the importance of a diversity of ideas, and other unquantifiable lifestyle markers.

I do not want to get into the left-leaning politics of universities or the generally sorry state of primary and secondary public education. Those topics have been discussed at length before, and by smarter people. What I'm discussing is the need for the continued relevance of formal higher education. Universities, staffed by very intelligent people, should foresee the changing technology trends and rise to meet them: forging a link between the traditional lecture and the instant research available online. I would love to think that Socratic teaching methods will return, but Americans have been ingrained to avoid conflict and "hurting someone's feelings" - which equates to not debating ideas, which is the same as "what's right for me is not necessarily what's right for you". That being said, professors in the classroom no longer have absolute moral or factual authority, because it is very easy to check facts online via iPod or laptop while the professor is still speaking. Students so inclined may challenge stated beliefs and have instant backup from numerous online sources. This will require the professor (and other students) to be able to logically defend their position. I think this is all to the good.

The rub for universities isn't just in recognizing the challenges of new technologies - and the predilection of students to adopt those technologies quickly and efficiently, then wonder why in the world everyone else doesn't use them - but in understanding how and when to implement them in the learning environment. I would argue that in many cases, technology should not be a mere supplement to traditional education, but should in fact be the means (and sometimes the ends) of future higher education. Like most businesses, universities that meet the challenge will gain new students and prosper. Those that do not, will indeed become irrelevant.

You have got to be kidding me

1) Financial crisis occurs. Myriad, sundry reasons.
2) Reduce myriad, sundry reasons down to one: banks did Bad Stuff and are now undercapitalized.
3) Ergo, to reduce the damage to the American economy and reverse the Bad Stuff, give TARP cover to banks, ostensibly so banks can become profitable.
3a) TARP cover has strings attached, natch.
4) Demagogue that bank-caused financial crisis led to auto maker crisis.
5) Force banks to write off very significant loans now in default by auto makers.

Hm. Force banks into unprofitable banks further into unprofitability to save unprofitable auto makers.

See the logic here?

Happy Tax Day

Happy taxing day sucka! :) Okay, here are some words from Thomas Sowell, because he says it so-well. Get it? Okay go: readme

Homosexuality Debate

Obama has recently appointed Harry Knox to the Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. You can read article here.

Below are some interesting debate videos between Harry Knox and Gino Jennings. Whether conservative or liberal, I think you'll find that these debates stir up some truth below all that murky water that is today's "progressive normality". I couldn't find all the parts to it, but here are the bits I could locate (not sure if they're in the right order).

Atheism vs. Christianity

In the spirit of our last post, this debate also promises to be a very interesting showdown between theist William Craig and atheist Frank Zindler. If the following debate interests you, the links below it may also be of interest.



Click here for a link to one of William Craig's more recent debates with Vannity Fair columnist and author, Christopher Hitchens.

If you're increasingly interested in this stuff as I am, then you may want to purchase the latest debate that just happened a few days ago between William Craig and Hitchens (sort of a "round two") at Biola University by going here: http://www.doesgodexistdebate.com/ I couldn't find it online for free.

Also, an article that was written in reference to that debate can be found here.

Morality Debate

Dinesh D'Souza & Peter Singer debate on the question: Can there be morality without God?

You can watch the video by clicking here.

A funny story about the advent of nationalized health care

Let's say you've got a massive organization (we'll call it "government", just for kicks) which has a monopoly on the health care providers and payment system of a particular country (which we'll call "America").

Now suppose you are in charge of running said health care monopoly. Now you got a degree in business from a prestigious school and you remember your professors saying the way to make a business grow is to exercise good financial management: to wit, hold down costs and increase revenue.

Increasing revenue is easy. Since the same "government" that runs the health care monopoly is the one that can raise taxes, just raise taxes and designate a portion of those taxes (less government employee salaries, kickbacks, bribes, and other related costs) to fund the health care monopoly. (For the sake of this argument, we'll assume that you went to an Ivy League business school where your professors didn't teach the Laffer Curve, the Austrian School of Economics, free-market capitalism, von Mises, Hayek, or Friedman. Plus, you work in an Administration that eschews such economic drivel, preferring to pursue an Agenda, and economics be damned.)

So. If you were going to hold down costs related to health care, you'd look at two places - the health care providers and the health care recipients. Now in an actual competitive business environment, you can't consider the health care recipients as a "cost", since they are the consumers - the source of revenue. But in a health care monopoly run by "government", health care recipients are a cost driver, not a revenue source. How do you lower costs associated with health care recipients? Easy: You want them to be healthy; you don't want them using the health care services. In a health care monopoly, how do you accomplish that? Two potential ways.

1) Raise the price of items, services, and activities that you deem "health-averse". Or mandate against (i.e. ban) items, services, and activities that you deem "health-averse". This would be anything from fast food (too fattening, leads to obesity, increasing the need for health care) to motorcycles (too dangerous, no seatbelts, higher incidence of accidents, increasing the need for health care) Since the health care monopoly is run by the same "government" that can pass laws banning such items (or heavily taxing "health-averse" items, services, and activities, making them so expensive as to essentially remove the consumer market for same), this course of action should be of primary importance. All you need to do is make a list of characteristics exhibited by habitual health-care users, then make a list of items, services, and activities that contribute (in one form or other) to said characteristics. Ban or heavily tax such items. Which leads to the second way to lower costs related to health care recipients...

2) Note that elderly adults are disproportionately disposed to need health care, and at a typically higher-level (read: more costly) version of health care than their less-senior counterparts. Ergo, advanced aging is bad, and should be discouraged. Since outright murder of elderly citizens is not politically efficient, in practical terms "discouraging aging" means withholding (or making so costly as to effectively prevent the use of) health care for certain "high-risk" health care recipients, the elderly being among those considered "high-risk". Also, diabetics, AIDS patients, and preemie (the so-called "Million Dollar") babies.

To summarize: a health care monopoly run by "government" is one predisposed to pick winners and losers (those who can receive a modicum of health care, and those who cannot, respectively). Winners being young, healthy, wealthy, and/or risk-averse citizens. Losers being elderly, chronically ill, low-to-moderate income, and/or thrill-seeking citizens.

A modest proposal? A brave new world? No. Look no further than the first paragraph of this AP article:

Smoking takes years off your life and adds dollars to the cost of health care. Yet nonsmokers cost society money, too -- by living longer.

Not such a funny story is it?

UPDATE:
Heh. Hannity and British MEP Daniel Hannan discuss the topic. The Brit knows whereof he speaks.

Woodstock II: A Savior Among Us

It's rather interesting that people all need a savior and will turn to a wishy washy politician to be thier idol if they can't find the real thing? Here is a good place to start. It's more complicated than believing red string tied on your hand will ward off evil spirits (Demi Moore?), but it's also much more real.

Is it any wonder that a false savior will, in subtle ways, downplay the importance of two of the things that keep powerful "leaders" at bay and protect American families: God and guns. I don't promote using guns against our politicians of course. What I am saying, however, is that our ability to protect ourselves and our families from criminals as well as totalitarianism is important. Whether speaking about an individual or a country, having the firepower can deter the need for using it. As we learned from the Karate Kid, you do not learn karate for revenge. You learn karate so you don't have to fight, Daniel-san! The alternative of needing firepower or fighting power and not having it would be quite unfortunate, and as we see in every crazed school shooting, it always is.

April Fools

See, it's not so bad. Click here to see why.

Word from Beck