Every so often imbalances occur in a society that get so far out of whack that a simple idea can cause a dramatic snap-back ... that usually takes most inside-the-box thinkers by surprise. I think we are coming up on such a boomerang in our educational system ... much like what we recently had in our housing market. Current tuitions at higher-educational institutions are unsustainable ... as are the levels of student-loan debt that our younger generation is burdened with ... about one trillion dollars ... more than the nation's total of credit-card debt. (I think that the Occupy Wall Street movement has had this spectre as one of the only visible pillars of protests.)
The educational process in our country (and around the world) is shockingly unproductive. One professor ... or assistant professor ... or teaching assistant teaches a class of 10 to 100 students the fundamentals of a science ... or a language ... or a humanity ... or finance ... or a hyphenated feel-good course for an outlandish fee. This atmospheric price is mandated by a bloated administration and the heavy hand of government which pours money at this process with few performance or productivity requirements. The rationale for this horse-and-buggy approach is that the interchange of ideas requires such intimacy. The problem with this is that higher-educational pedagogy is less and less a give-and-take and now much more a "give" only.
A few generations ago the entertainment industry went through such a cataclysmic transformation. One did not need to attend a Frank Sinatra concert to hear him sing or attend a play to appreciate actors emoting ... records and movies created an enormous transference of services into products ... i.e., "productivity." So far the educational process has resisted such a revolution ... possibly because it sees the dire implications ... loss of sinecures and ivy covered walls.
But enabling technologies are continuing apace and communications advances such as Skype that allow the two-way networking among many participants ... and software/hardware advances such as Google that permit a world of knowledge at one's fingertips ... will eventually allow universities to take two or three of their best professors from each discipline and offer them to their multitudes with little or no loss of the educational experience. (I still recall, years ago, a physics professor from Cal Tech who did a bang-up job along these same lines on Public Television.) This would also open up opportunities for decentralized learning and dramatic tuition cost reductions. Won't that be a kick?
In my current tutoring gig, I have had some dealings with "teaching" programs. And, unfortunately they are generally of quite poor quality ... taking little advantage of the technological opportunities. This may be because few administrators have a computer background to understand how good things could be ... and techies know little about teaching. (Many years ago, I also saw a physics-teaching program on a Macintosh computer that is my idea of how real progress along these lines could be made.) Anyhow, the confluence of broad-band communications improvements, computer hardware advances, and truly-innovative software will most certainly unlock educational innovation to the point where productivity gains of gigantic proportions will transform this archaic industry.
Any educational institute (or K-12 school) that doesn't see this coming train wreck in the not-too-distant future ... and factor it into its planning will likely be rudely surprised ... and pity our poor younger generation who must still pay off the loans on their horse-and -buggy educations.
Addendum: My more-learned wife pointed me this morning to a David Brooks' op-ed in last week NY Times on this same subject, The Campus Tsunami, and a series of related letters to the editor in this morning's newspaper. The only thing that Mr. Brooks does not focus on is the potential for a Skype-like back and forth during this on-line educational experience.
