What is Education?- A thread on learning and teaching, the creative process, practice

[Steve Blair]

I guess I think it is funny that a bunch of soldiers who complain about the malfeasance and arrogance of civilians mucking about in military affairs have no issues tromping about redefining higher education.

Interesting observation, Sam. I see this in ROTC a fair amount, and it's always interesting.

Back to Marc's point, I can relate mostly from the student perspective (most of the stuff I teach here is really along the lines of moderating and facilitating map exercises and developing those exercises, so it's more of an interplay with students as opposed to structured "sit there and learn" stuff). The best professors I have had didn't tell you what to think...they were more interested in helping you discover what you thought about the material and why you might think that way. And some of the more interesting discussions revolved around methods...and how thought about history and historical events have shifted over the years. The worst courses were "learn what I want you to learn" driven and had an agenda that would have made Stalin proud (not necessarily in terms of ideology - although it was close - but more in terms of method).

John makes some interesting points as well.

One of my MMC professors at South Carolina once said of "higher education" -
As an undergrad we tell you what to think
As a master's student we teach you how to think
It's not until the PhD level that was ask "so, what do you think?" *


* caveat: my experience with Ohio State these past 6 years has led me to believe that they are unable to get beyond step 2 in the process, and they reach that step only occasionally and almost always by accident.

And that to me is one of the lingering and most malign influences of the 1960s on higher education. And I have heard professors of that same mindset bemoaning the fact that their masters students can't write coherent papers or essays. They always got defensive when I pointed out that they had some of those same students as undergraduates and obviously failed to prepare them for the demands of a masters program.

Simply because the system currently functions that way doesn't mean that it's ideal or that it accurately reflects what education *should* be, both for the teacher and the student.