RE: Higher Education...Wake the Fuck Up
Yeah, intimately familiar with the supply and demand problems mentioned in the article you cited after watching so many friends graduate with advanced degrees here from the University of Oregon - many are unemployed, or under-employed, and of those who are teaching, only one is on a tenure track (professor of film studies) while the rest are all adjunct professors, many of them teaching part time at multiple universities to make ends meet. Although I would have loved to stay in school forever, get my PHD in Anthropology and become a researcher/professor, I am glad that I stopped after my BA. My student loan debt is crushing enough as it is and free access to the latest research papers is increasing exponentially (fuck JSTOR is all I have to say on that) so I certainly haven't stopped my education - just moved it online, for free :) Good luck with your meeting! Keep us posted - would love to hear more on what specifically you see as alternatives for universities, and also how the meeting went. Cheers - Carl
EDIT - PS what is the image source? Love that image
Thanks as always @carlgnash
These things are all contextually specific at the moment, so I certainly won't claim to have the silver bullet. I just want leaders to understand the shifting paradigm and show me, through their actions, that they intend to prepare for what's coming. I was fortunate to avoid any debt, but I've certainly experienced it by proxy.
I'll write a follow-up post after I've had some time to process. Anything specific you'd be interested to hear about?
Yes, fuck JSTOR and I've included credits (thanks for the reminder).
Well for one I am interested in the work you do - maybe some work related stories if that wouldn't be traumatic (I know some people really don't want to think/write about work outside of work, but for some that actually might be therapeutic! Not sure where you fall on this spectrum) - in specific curious if you have any success stories to share of instructors really taking advantage of new tech to engage students in new ways outside of the classroom setting, and/or if you see ways that instructors could be taking advantage of technology that are currently underutilized. Understood that a lot of your work is probably specific to the university and procedures there, but wondering if you have any higher level generalizations to draw.
I am also curious in general about alternatives to the classroom setting - one person yakking at a bunch of other people has never struck me as the best way to learn, and might possibly be the worst possible way! With how connected everyone can be now in the digital/online age, is the answer some kind of peer-to-peer education model? Decentralized education as it were? Maybe even an "education exchange" of sorts that subverts the "teacher - student" model and goes with a "teacher - teacher AND student - student" model, with people exchanging expertise and learning from each other? Honestly I don't know if you can teach without learning, and if someone thinks that is possible I would suggest they probably aren't teaching... should we make that explicit in a hypothetical future education paradigm? And that might get into some interesting ground where the blockchain / crypto sphere overlaps with education. Possibly even an education token / exchange where you earn education tokens by teaching in your area(s) of expertise and spend them to learn in other area(s)? Ultimately with accreditation to compete with the established University model?
Also let me add that I am glad to see you still active on here! Cheers - Carl
Oh damn...you just opened up a crazy can of crypto worms that gets my neurons all kinds of agitated :)
I've been discussing the education / blockchain collision for quite a while, but haven't been able to pool the resources and/or expertise to really give it the true exploration it deserves (not that it's an original idea...surely there are others working on it). There are so many alternative models gaining traction right now, that a token-driven decentralized exchange would almost inevitably work (at least as a prototype).
I'm happy to take your advice on work related posts, even if it leads to the existential angst that I know comes along for the ride. It's my truth and really all I should be writing about anyway, so I appreciate the support. I'm here to stay...for now ;)