So far, so good. Or not. The problem is, we don't learn a lot here. I'm not talking about names of famous beings or theories; I'm talking about putting the ideas into use. I believe that education at its highest point is not just about theories, but more on adapting them into real-life situations. If we wanted to learn about theories or concepts, we can do that in any book. Or even on the internet. Education at universities should be much more than that. We should be more interactive, and through this interaction learn more about adopting textbook theories into the real world.
I am not indicating that what we learn in our classrooms presently is bad. It is important to know the background and structure of the world we live in. However, I feel that the actualization of these blueprints is a far more important process. What we learn in ICU is good. It is simply inefficient.
What we need are incentives to induce professors in making their classes more interactive. It is easily said than done. Monetary incentives seems the most obvious, yet distorts the true meaning of education. Yet the present incentive of "spreading knowledge of their field" is insufficient. We can see this by looking into many of the classrooms, where the majority of the students are asleep or doing some other classwork. The best option would be a hybrid of the two; a realistic and idealistic incentive put together.
A college institution based solely on competition may be a good idea as well. We would have students rate the professors (not in a vague way like the TES scores), and generate lists on good professors and bad professors. We reward the good ones, and fire the bad ones. It will not pervert the ideals of education, because obtaining knowledge is simply insufficient. To be a true "intellect of owl", professors must be good at emitting their expertise to their listeners. The generation of knowledge being stacked on old bookshelves has ended. Along with the web 2.0, such information and knowledge is easily attainable through internet. University professors must be able to offer students more than that.
Koji,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post very much.
During this class I was taking the other day(America and the World,) we were given an assignment that was so vague most of us students didnt know what to do or where to begin. When we talked about our problems to the professor, he responded by saying that we were perhaps overwhelmed with the freedom he gave us. that was a good wake up call for me cause all my life, id been given specific instructions to do everything, even in icu.
when we go out in to the real world, we'll be given a white black sheet of paper and a problem. our one mission is to fix it. how we do it, where to begin,,,thats all completely irrelevant. we JUST have to fix the problem.
no matter how much information we gather in college, it would be completely meaningless if we never got the chance to USE it. that's what i think we need to practice here at icu. to not just perceive information but to consume it and make use of it.
sorry for the long comment!
we should discuss this next time.lolol
Shiho
Koji,
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your opinions, but I am a bit skeptical about your idea on creating a education system solely based on competition. Professors would find ways to get better ratings, and that would defeat the purpose. Also, the criteria of how professors are to be rated is probably going to be too subjective and vague. I think creating any society solely based on competition is potentially dangerous, as capitalism in recent years has shown. (A good example is the food industry in America.)
Take
Hi Koji,
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of what you are saying, and related to what Take says above, I was just reading about education in Korea in which rating teachers is very common practice, with those rising to the top of the rating game becoming very famous and successful through their online lecturing, textbooks, and the like. One teacher was said to make some US$4,000,000/yr. teaching English which boggles the mind.