[iDC] A Modest Proposal: Let's get rid of the teachers

Thu Feb 19 05:59:57 UTC 2009

Excellent point Sean. I would also add, that the beauty of being a connector who
only links online paths is that it would be so easy for students to only follow
the paths that there is a predisposition to agree with. Wouldn't education be
marvelous and great for the community if it only re-enforced rather than
questioned?  Oh the narrow minds that could be created and focused. No more
questioning, only agreeing.  The pay would nothing, and every cent would be
worth it.

Regards,
Katie Cavanagh

Quoting Sean Cubitt <scubitt at unimelb.edu.au>:

> 
> All good stuff, but I can't help hearing the origins of the phrase "Modest
> proposal" - Jonathan Swift's A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN
> OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY,
> AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC. The plan was to eat them.
> Select quote
> "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for
> landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to
> have the best title to the children."
> 
> So claiming my Irish descent, and confessing to being a teacher:
> 
> The reason universities still have teachers is because when everything else
> breaks down, people can always stand up and talk. This is worth remembering:
> the age of unlimited bandwidth, unlimited servers, unlimited personal
> computers/mobiles is pegged to finite resources. If we network everything,
> what happens when the net goes down?
> 
> The other reason is because it is expensive to make distance learning
> materials work. The Open University in the UK has committees of up to 40
> people working on courses with an expected shelf-life of six years:
> academics, educationalpsychologists, audiovisual producers . . . And that's
> just the design phase. Unless you like multiple choice, assessment is always
> going to need people.
> 
> The question then remains whether a teacher is better employed in a
> clasroom, or will be more sevicable when efficiently redeployed in a
> neoliberal economy as a " most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food,
> whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will
> equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout"
> 
> 
> sean
> 
> 
> 
> On 19/02/09 11:17 AM, "davin heckman" <davinheckman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >> Thanks for this, so well described. Just curious how you would imagine a
> >> teacher doing all of these things as a "feed jockey"? It seems to me that
> so
> >> much of what you describe below -- the "what I really do in class" -- can
> >> only happen in an emergent, participatory, and yes (here I anticipate the
> >> techno-utopians jumping down my throat) less-mediated, if not even
> embodied,
> >> context.
> >> 
> > 
> > That's a good point, Lucia.  And this is also why I think classrooms
> > will continue to exist.  While there are many good "content delivery
> > systems," they just kind of automate processes which are really
> > peripheral to "university education."  Who needs to take a class in
> > Photoshop when you can find plenty of tutorials that teach a
> > particular set of techniques?  What an art or design student really
> > needs is a community which can break the techniques down and
> > reassemble them in some other way...  and that's primarily a social
> > activity.  And, in my experience, the quickest, most efficient way to
> > create the chaotic sort of environment where the routine ways of doing
> > things can be broken down...  is to put a bunch of people in a room
> > together.
> > 
> > Having said that...  aren't we all here having an "educational"
> > experience talking to each other?  And this is just a bunch of smart,
> > engaged people, lobbing ideas back and forth because just because we
> > think it's stimulating.  So, maybe a link jockey is something like
> > this (but with more links)?
> > 
> > Davin
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> Prof Sean Cubitt
> scubitt at unimelb.edu.au
> Director, Media and Communications Program
> Faculty of Arts
> Room 127 John Medley East
> The University of Melbourne
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> Australia
> 
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-- 
Katie Cavanagh
Coordinator, BCA Digital Media
Screen and Media Studies
HUMN127
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide 5001
South Australia
p: 61 8 8201 2077
f: 61 8 8201 3635
e: katie.cavanagh at flinders.edu.au