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

Thu Feb 19 08:06:10 UTC 2009

The Swift is right on.  His point is exactly it-- we're not in classrooms to
be efficient or pragmatic, but more to humor those pretensions while meeting
our desires.   We want to enjoy our traditions, see eachother's faces, have
sex in the dorms, and some of us can afford to do it... and we can wrap it
up in some pragmatics and efficiencies.  Success and knowledge have been
amply available outside the institution for those that desired it enough--at
least since the library card.

...And the talk about googled knowledge reminds me of D.W. Griffith talking
about the end of books and teachers, because someone could just sit down in
front of a screen and experience history itself.  ...but it turned out no
one wanted to.
garhodes

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Sean Cubitt <scubitt at unimelb.edu.au>wrote:

>
> 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
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