The coronavirus may be killing more than just people. Brick-and-mortar universities and high schools may be going the way of Amazon, and for similar reasons. Being online is the new norm. It’s more cost-effective and gives back control and freedom to the student and consumer.
It’s an irony of history that the hated coronavirus has spawned university closings right at the same time that online self-education possibilities are emerging as great wonders of the modern world. Internet-based tools are mostly free to all people who want to learn. The learning potential within Wikipedia, Kindle, Audible, and YouTube alone is a dream come true for the motivated student. It’s up to family members, especially parents, to ramp up motivation.
Solitary self-education has been the norm since earliest times. Ask Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great. Medieval degree seekers studied on their own until such a time as they were ready to be examined by experts already holding degrees. Even modern colleges allow students the option to take the final exam, without the class itself, to demonstrate that they already know what’s taught in a particular course, to receive credit. The same approach should apply to degrees at all levels.
Since the 1960s, universities have been politicized. Faculty are hired and fired accordingly. Education schools train teachers in the same way. To keep your job and support your family, you have to believe what runs counter to received tradition. How else can you account for character Winston Smith’s final defeat in Orwell’s 1984?
Students today aren’t learning by well-balanced reading in diverse academic disciplines. Writing assignments aren’t really read by professors, are they? Students are given A’s they don’t deserve in hopes of fostering self-esteem, ensuring that student loan revenue keeps rolling in. Student teams allow one bright student to do the work for others, though all receive the same grade. You still might have to take a standardized test to get into a degree program (ACT, SAT, GRE, etc) but testing at the end of courses doesn’t really amount to much.
There’s even less testing to confirm that a student knows anything at the end of four years. The phrase “going to college” says it all, as if it’s a physical experience like sports. College is pure socializing—and the hope of a well-paying job at the end.
Sure, some students won’t do well studying at home, but they can learn to, can’t they? Intellectual deadweight and academic negativism in brick-and-mortar colleges take away enthusiasm for learning that would otherwise be there.
Even high school students should study online. They’ll be healthier for doing so. In short, social distancing keeps us all independent and healthy—and so does distance education.
