The Failing of Higher Education

Jun 012009

The Failing of Higher Education

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My wife is going back to college and to finish her degree. I’m very proud of her for doing this because I know how important it is to her.

But I have many, many fears about the future of our higher education learning systems. As a father of two little girls I wonder if higher education is right for them in the way we know it today. I shouldn’t really say I wonder…rather I feel that this antiquated, one to many, little interaction, test based, grade based, passion inhibiting, lecture based system does very little to create, or rather, produce smart and creative individuals that will one day run our country.

If you look at the real leaders and innovators of our time, they come from free thinking, creative individuals who, for the most part, dropped out of college. Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Larry Ellison all dropped out to start their companies.

So the idea that you have to have a degree and a formal education is great for credentials, and certainly there are areas where this is absolutely needed, I believe the old ideas behind higher education need a big kick in the butt.

Do we, as Americans, really think that memorization and lecture based learning will produce innovation? I mean really?

I don’t have an answer to how we can change all of this, and certainly the Universities won’t want to change, but I can say this: We need a new system. We know already that it’s not the “No Child Left Behind” act that Bush shoved down our throats. Everyone in the education industry already knows the miserable failure that has come from that.

Get rid of standardized tests. This only rewards memorization and in today’s world the real test of one’s knowledge is the ability to research, find information on the web, be able to decipher BS, and use that knowledge to problem solve in a creative fashion.

I see prime examples of this everyday as I, one who is not blessed with a good memory, can resource much of my knowledge from being a good Googler. Our kids, who are growing up with this technology, will be even better than me at this. MySpace and Facebook are not evil. Those are today’s telephone conversations. Twitter and FriendFeed are the way we get the news we want. It’s not FOX or ABC, it’s all about crowdsourcing.

The newspapers are dying, the news stations are dying, the Universities, as we know them today, will soon follow and that’s just fine by me because I truly believe that what will become of our higher education has to evolve or our country is destined to fail as well.

Dammit, now I’m just ranting…

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Nick Lutz

Hi there,
As a father of a young boy, I also thought about his future education and the "failings' of the current educational system. Sharing the same laments and thoughts as you do. I even thought of the same people as models of creativity. But I concluded that these people are more the exception than the rule. I mean there are also a great many creative people in the world and many of them helped the people listed to fulfil thier dreams. Those people did not get where they are entirely on thier own. They enlisted and used the help of many other creative (and university graduates) people. I also concluded that creativity starts much earlier than university and was reminded of an old song by Harry Chapin, Flowers are Red.

I do agree with your comments on standardized tests and rote learning. Living in Japan and teaching at a university, I can see the effects of such teaching methods. But I am hopeful.

Cheers,
Nick

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