Online Training vs. Online Education
If you are a fan of what is called "online education," you might want to read the piece my friend Cliff Orwin published today in Toronto's Globe and Mail. The key to understanding his contention that online and education are terms that do not belong together is the fact that he distinguishes education from training: "By 'education,'" he writes,
I don’t mean training or even mere instruction. Widget-making (however complex the widget) may well be teachable online. By education I mean formation of the whole person, to which the humanities have traditionally aspired – as have the natural and social sciences in their noblest conceptions of themselves.
Orwin does not deny that an electronic component can be useful. He recognizes that viewing a lecture on a screen from afar at one's leisure can be an advantage. But he insists that something of great importance will always be missing.
The New York Times of July 19 contained an excellent column by the University of Virginia’s Mark Edmundson. He explained why teaching requires the physical presence of the students. Prof. Edmundson likens good teaching to jazz. It is inherently responsive and improvisational. You revise your presentation as it goes, incorporating the students’ evolving reception of it. In response to their response, as individuals and as a group, you devise new variations on your theme. You don’t address students in the abstract or as some anonymous throng scattered throughout cyberspace. You always teach these students, in this room, at this time.
So it matters to me to know who my students are, to know their faces and names, to see how they dress and what they’re reading. I need to talk to them before and after class and listen to what they’re saying among themselves. Above all, it’s crucial for me to hear their voices as they answer my questions and ask their own, to heed their inflections and mark the expressions on their faces. In my large introductory course, I devote a third of the time to discussion. That’s not just so the students can probe me, but so I can probe them.
It’s equally important to the students that I’m there. They need a real person with whom to engage. Someone to interrogate. Someone to persuade them. Someone to resist. Someone with whom they can identify or refuse to identify. Because education addresses the whole person, it requires a real person to model it. It matters to the students not just to hear what I say but to hear the voice in which I say it – the hesitations as well as the certainties. They need an example of someone who, like them, is learning as he goes along – but just happens to be further along than they are.
Live education is expensive, you say? The best things in life tend to be.
What Orwin is arguing for here is, of course, a liberal education, and he knows perfectly well that such an education is not suitable for everyone. But I think that, within the limits he sets, his argument is sound.
The most important course I ever took was a seminar taught on Plato's Republic at Cornell in 1968/69 by Allan Bloom. I vigorously resisted his argument; I fought against him both terms; and, in part for that reason, he was never especially fond of me. But the exchanges we had nonetheless changed my life. I fought him until he persuaded me, and those exchanges inspired me to do a great deal of reading in subsequent years as I struggled to understand through the lens of certain great books what was going on all around me.
There was an electricity in that seminar that I have always tried to replicate in my classes. My aim is to provoke and to inspire -- to get the students to interrogate the texts that they are reading and to think. And when I succeed, as I sometimes do, they force me to rethink -- for, if they get drawn in, they either resist my interpretation or press it further than I have.
The same thing can happen as a consequence of a lecture. Most often, things come alive when I open things up for questions. Sometimes I learn things I did not know. At other times I have to think on my feet -- and when I do I learn things that I would not otherwise learn. Online education cannot be much more than a pale shadow of the education that takes place in a seminar or when questions are posed.
Training may well be another matter. A video can help me see how to put a bike together. A video can teach me the rules of poker (especially if I can watch it twice). An online lecture can help me understand Hamlet. But it is not a substitute for what goes on in a seminar on Hamlet. Some things cannot be done on the cheap, alas.
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Comments:
Nov '11
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Foxfier
Astonishing
Of course, what's objected to is not theword, but theimplicationthat education is superior to training. But if you think your experience is equal or superior to the other, why worry about the word?
Why aren't engineers content to brag about their "training," to sneer at those who are merely "educated"?
. . . Training implies that it's a mechanical sort of thing, while educated implies that thought and understanding is required.
I do agree that most people realize the word education still implies something superior to training, otherwise engineers wouldn't get indignant about it. (Words can be stubborn that way.) But I don't exclude thought and understanding from training . . . or from dogs, for that matter.
(Gotta go be sociable for a change. It's been fun.)
Edited on August 19, 2012 at 1:32amSep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
John Walker
Paul A. Rahe
For the most part, what goes on in engineering schools is training in certain techniques. When, however, you get to the cutting edge, it is indistinguishable from science.
This is a foul slander of engineers. Watch our donations to Hillsdale drop by 90% in the next decade. · 1 hour ago
John, I think that's only a "foul slander" if you believe pure science is higher, nobler, or better in some way than practical skill so thus accusing one of having the latter and not the former is slander (this is of the modern mindset).
I disagree. Holding science as it is conceived today in higher esteem than practical knowledge of an extremely high degree is an error--there is a type of prudence an engineer must exercise that is of the highest level of wisdom and that is no less noble and good than working on math and experiments to develop the latest physical model of the universe, and in fact may be higher wisdom.
Would you consider being called say a Michelangelo or a Raphael instead of a Newton to be a slander?
Also, remember Aristotle called magnanimity (megalopsuchia) the crowning virtue.
Edited on August 19, 2012 at 3:11amMay '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
But would you not have gotten an even better education had you had the opportunity to sit in a room and interact with Sandel and a reasonably sized group of individuals with equal interest and engagement? Someone can educate themselves effectively by reading and engaging with the ideas. But they can educate themselves much further by then engaging in intellectual discourse with both their equals and those more experienced. This is something that cannot yet be sufficiently replicated by technology.
On a fundamental level this practice is what every college student is positioned to do, although it more often fails in application due to bad students or professors.However, I don't see how making everything virtual change this problem, as many people here want to suggest. It simply moves the same problems to a different medium (while creating many new ones). In the process, it inhibits those students with initiative from maximizing their educational experience.
May '11
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
It is not only slander, but it shows a remarkable degree of ignorance as to what being an engineer, scientist, nurse or a doctor is.
Science is not just learning techniques. Engineering is not just copying methods. Anyone who claims that is not educated.
May '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Charles Breiling:
I fully understand the argument that a live, in-person classroom is superior, but I'd argue online is more accessible. · 4 hours ago
Which I think is the best argument for it, and a valid enough justification for its existence alongside more traditional, proven, organizations for education. One need not be destroyed or marginalized for the other to exist.
Apr '12
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Kofola
But would you not have gotten an even better education had you had the opportunity to sit in a room and interact with Sandel and a reasonably sized group of individuals with equal interest and engagement?
Problem being that you're not going to get that in a live classroom, either.
You'll get a class that's mostly people who would rather be somewhere else, and the teacher may or may not even be familiar with the topic-- or, from the folks I've heard complain about modern college, even be there. Someone mentioned that it's a challenge to get folks to bother to turn in their home work, let alone engage in the class... sounds like folks who wouldn't do any good in a real class, either.
The ideal, perfect examples of classroom interaction? Sure, that's better than just computer learning. But video those lectures, put them online, and have a reasonably well educated teacher stand-in to work with the folks learning, and it's better than a normal-to-bad live classroom. Plus, less expensive and more flexible.
Mar '12
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Dr. Rahe (if you ever manage to get all the way to this comment),
The education I got at Hillsdale had convinced me of your argument before you arrived here to make it. I work in education policy and digital learning is some people's next savior for the unwashed masses. The only counterargument I would extend is the same one made in the comments on the piece you link to: Ok, so perhaps a liberal education is the best, but many people simply cannot get the best. It's too expensive. They've only realized it's the best after having kids. Universities (and K12 schools) do not teem with the best offerings. For many, online education's accessibility and offerings are far better than anything else available.
So while I think it's important to remind people of the best and hold it as an example, I think also that the best shouldn't become a barrier to them getting as close to it as possible.
(Incidentally, I wish I could do Hillsdale all over again! But, alas, we have kids and a mortgage.) --Joy
Mar '12
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
One more thought. Tocqueville, as you well know, deeply thought about and expressed the ingrained democratic impulses of Americans. We don't like to think that the best is out there to be had but some people cannot access it. Is democracy illiberal, then? (My answer: yes. Obviously. The U.S. is meant to be not a democracy, but a Republic.) But are our democratic tendencies such that we cannot at once see what is best and see that most cannot have it? (Again, my guess is yes. What, then?) --Joy
May '11
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
I've lost a lot of respect for Hillsdale today. I used to hear people talk about them and was willing to hope that the good things were true, but it appears Hillsdale drinks its own koolaid. I hope this thread is not a true reflection of the entire school.
Liberal arts are important, but to say it's the only "real" education is just absurd, snobbish, and ignorant. Ignorance is not a trait normally ascribed to college professors and I'm shocked to feel the need to do so.
Mar '12
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
It seems Skyler has epitomized my last comment.
May '11
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Well, Pullmanns, a liberal arts education is certainly important, but if that's all someone has, then their education is lacking.
Too much of our government and society is run by people with only a liberal arts education when our society is built on science and engineering.
How many times have you met someone who is trying to come to grips with anthropogenic global warming and they just shrug at the math involved and believe what they are told because they have a liberal arts education and can't understand the issues? They'll sound convincing to each other though.
How many times do people talk about medical policy and believe that immunizations cause sickness because they don't understand the biology and science? I suppose with that liberal arts education they should know a bit more about the history of disease, but that doesn't seem to happen.
Anyone can study history and make all kinds of whacky conclusions to fit their preformed agenda. And many do. A liberal arts degree by itself is generally meaningless because of the distortion and destruction of rational thought at our universities over the past hundred years.
Apr '12
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
$30,000 per year at Hillsdale it is out of the price range of most parents to send their children to hear Dr. Rahe lecture (when he is out of the hospital and God willing back at work). English 101, basic history, calculus ... can be much more efficiently taught on line. Higher level courses can be worthwhile to be in the flesh and worth paying top dollar for. Education is a major cost burden on families and costs have to be controlled before the bubble bursts.
May '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
On another list, while discussing economics, I was wont to refer on occasion to things "going the way of the buggy whip." at one point a good friend who is also a horsewoman advised me that buggy whip manufacturers are still doing quite well; that it is a small market, but the now custom made whips are in very high demand by the upper end horse fanciers. I stood corrected. There is still a buggy whip industry. It is just a niche industry that caters to a very small segment of the population and that, while significant to wealthy horse owners, is utterly insignificant in the lives of most Americans.
Notwithstanding the fact that I graduated from a selective, small, liberal arts college; notwithstanding the fact that I worked a career in higher education, I am persuaded that the Orwin/Rahe model of education is, in fact, the buggy whip industry circa 1910. Times change. Needs change. Forms change.
Sep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Skyler: It is not only slander, but it shows a remarkable degree of ignorance as to what being an engineer, scientist, nurse or a doctor is.
Science is not just learning techniques. Engineering is not just copying methods. Anyone who claims that is not educated. · 2 hours ago
You seem to have a misunderstanding as to what the Liberal Arts constitute. And there seems to be a misconception that just because something involves technique (the greek "techne") that it does not involve art, a mistake that no truly liberal soul would make. I don't think Dr. Rahe is advancing that argument.
You are aware that some of the best traditional liberal arts education is produced at military colleges aren't you?
Sep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Skyler: It is not only slander, but it shows a remarkable degree of ignorance as to what being an engineer, scientist, nurse or a doctor is.
Science is not just learning techniques. Engineering is not just copying methods. Anyone who claims that is not educated. · 2 hours ago
So now we know where you stand on the Raphael versus Newton question?
Greatness is not defined by "discovery" alone. Engineering is an art, and art allows for greatness just like discovering new scientific information does.
I wouldn't rank Homer or Raphael below Newton or Einstein.
Saying engineering is an art in most cases and not a science is not a slander. It sounds like perhaps you're just putting too much weight in the tokens "science" and "scientific" without considering the differences between science and art as practiced at the highest levels like those notables I just mentioned.
Socrates through Plato said that Philosophy, love of wisdom, was the highest pursuit. I don't think anyone would confuse the normal work of a professional scientist or engineer with philosophy. There may be philosophers in both those groups though, and we can be thankful for that as wisdom guides their work.
Edited on August 19, 2012 at 6:41amSep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
I'm surprised at this comment. This seems to be a misunderstanding of both the word "liberal" and the word "art". The artificial separation of the arts and sciences was a product of the 17th century Enlightenment and not only isn't reflected in the curricula of many liberal arts schools (you can take a look at the University of Dallas for just one example) but I think even a cursory read of Jacques Barzun's The House of Intellect would quickly disabuse anyone of the notion that pedantry is somehow a logical byproduct of a liberal arts education.
Sep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
our society is built on science and engineering.
Could you please elaborate on this?
Sep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
Pseudodionysius
I'm surprised at this comment. This seems to be a misunderstanding of both the word "liberal" and the word "art". The artificial separation of the arts and sciences was a product of the 17th century Enlightenment and not only isn't reflected in the curricula of many liberal arts schools (you can take a look at the University of Dallas for just one example) but I think even a cursory read of Jacques Barzun's The House of Intellect would quickly disabuse anyone of the notion that pedantry is somehow a logical byproduct of a liberal arts education. · 0 minutes ago
Yes.
Sep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
I am persuaded that the Orwin/Rahe model of education is, in fact, the buggy whip industry circa 1910.
If you would read John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University, you would see that he predicted the implosion of the modern university into a multiversity and he described how and why it would happen. What you also seem to be forgetting is that the vast majorities of universities aren't what they claim to be. By definition, there should be relatively few true universities and many more professional and trade schools.
Sep '10
Re: Online Training vs. Online Education
On the contrary, too much of our government and society is run by pedants. Pedants can have Phds in sociology as well as Phds in engineering or molecular biology or MDs. Chapter 9 of The House of Intellect is called The Language of Learning and Pedantry