So, this is an idea that is not completely fleshed out, but the foundation and motive are in place.
College today still has a small portion of its original goal in that you do learn a bit when you pass a class. In many classes you have to take it upon yourself to go above and beyond the scope of the class to gain true understanding of the subject using the class only as a supplement to your studies. This is because the classes are hindered by the idea that we need to have busy work not for the purpose of practice, but rather for the determination of an insubstantial letter grade that determines your worth as a student. Whose stupid idea was it to pay someone to grade you in the first place? Oh, right… I forgot we need those letters to tell the world whether we are qualified for a specific degree, even though someone can graduate and still have no real idea what they are doing despite being able to regurgitate methods learned via the aforementioned busy-work.
Letter grades are only a side-effect of the problem. The root of the problem is a flawed philosophy of education that leads students to focus only on passing classes rather than actually learning the material and grasping the concepts. The drive is to be educated for economic gain instead of education for the sake of education. This has led the college environment to become some sort of retarded rat-race that only vaguely resembles what I imagine a real institution of learning to be. Being qualified for well-paying jobs should be a side-effect and secondary goal of becoming educated. Like I said before, in passing a class you WILL learn a bit, but it could be so much better.
I think if colleges had no grading system, and no degrees it would set the stage for classes based solely on learning. I am not saying we should get rid of the grading system entirely. After all, we need some way to show competence. It would certainly be bad to have someone who knows nothing about nuclear fission trying to run a power plant. I would instead have a branch of government in place to elect professionals from a given field to come together and make a competency test. These tests (if passed) would grant you a degree. Each test would be based on what you will need to do in a professional environment. For programming degrees, part of the test would be writing programs. For history, you might have to demonstrate simple knowledge of past events. For philosophy, you would have to write papers demonstrating your grasp of philosophical concepts. The tests would be free, or have a minor charge based upon staffing needed to administer the test. There might also need to be some limitations put into place to ration the tests so that completely unqualified people don’t repeatedly take the tests and waste testing resources.
Ok, back to how you learn what you need for the tests. There would always be the option of free self-education, but colleges would exist to guide the learning process. Tuition fees would remain the same, but you would be paying only for instruction, not a letter grade and a piece of paper. There would be guidelines or suggested classes for specific degree goals for those that have no idea where to start, as well as suggested prerequisites. Everything would be up to the student though. The student would determine what classes to take, his/her own requirements for those classes, and how much work to put forth.
Some might argue that certain students don’t have the discipline and responsibility to create their own goals and educational requirements; That they are not self-reflective enough to see their weaknesses and gaps in knowledge and need someone to tell them exactly what to learn. Some students might need that letter grade at the end to drive them to learn. My response is simply that those people don’t need to be in college just yet.
The basis of all this (granted that the student is actually interested in really learning the material) is that you should know what you don’t know far better than any instructor can and don’t need a grading system and busy-work getting in the way of your progress, only the guidance and expertise of an instructor whose sole purpose is to give you the understanding you lack.
So, what holes are there in this plan? Do you think it would actually work to change the focus of college away from simply getting the degree?
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I really like what you put here. You hit a lot of good points and i love the way you articulated how things currently are. Job qualifications should be secondary while the actual education is primary. I would love to find ways to root out those people who just skip by and put no work in whatsoever. I agree the class is supplementary UNLESS you actually do go above and beyond. Only at that point you actually learn and get the most out of the class. The going above and beyond part can not be given.. it is part of the learning process that someone develops on his/her own.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, i feel like this is addressing undergrads primarily. Nearly every grad school in America has a very challenging competency test that one must take in order to continue past their first year and begin their thesis/research/internship. If it is a degree that is leading towards a specific career field, then a grueling licensure test must be taken after graduation. For example, in a lot of philosophy grad schools there is a competency test that must be taken in order for one to be awarded a masters degree/continue past their first year. This test is absolutely grueling and goes over the entire history of philosophy. It usually takes over 6-7 months to prepare for and has no structure that one could just simply memorize. The test is reviewed by the entire faculty and they all have to comment and agree on the grade given to the student. This test means a lot especially if the student does outstanding on it (i.e. it makes life a lot easier for funding). If a student just barely passes, they most likely will not be accepted to continue their study in the PhD program at that particular school.
The other issue that grad school addresses is that the class size is smaller and is geared specifically towards the overall discipline at hand. The people in the class were all individually reviewed by faculty and were admitted based on their reccomendation letters, essays, past GPA, and interview. This takes care of the issue that we all too often see in undergrad classes, which is the class being made a bit too easy for those who are not part of the major or are just using the class as an elective... therefore hurting the education for the people who are taking the course in order to learn something that will directly affect their career/scholarly pursuit.
I really do like your idea and i think it rings a lot of truth, especially in terms of high school education, undergrad education, and many corporate/entry-level positions. However, the idea is for the most part already in practice in grad school education.