Michael Wesch and his cultural anthropology students at Kansas State University have made a video that brilliantly depicts the shameful quality of education at large academic institutions. The professor earned a Wired Rave Award, as well as other accolades, for his previous short documentaries.
As a graduate student, and recently a teaching assistant, I think that their assessment is spot on.
Set to haunting music, the short film points out many symptoms of a faulty educational system, but it does not overtly delineate the solutions.
As I have said before, one of the greatest shortcomings of higher education seems to be a lack of competent counseling services. In my limited experience, most academic advisers do little more than tell their students the requirements for graduation and offer them a checklist of classes to take. They should make some projections about the future job market, learn about the interests of each young scholar, and offer them tailored advice for how to best prepare themselves.
Without knowing where the world is headed or what it can offer them, it is no surprise that many students lack passion for the subjects they study.
The film labels chalkboards as obsolete educational tools that can’t possibly compete with distractions like facebook and email. Once again, I could not agree more. To capture the imaginations of modern students, teachers need to make use of concise, vivid, dynamic media — like this movie and the collaborative web project that created it.
A caption in the film reads: "I buy hundred dollar textbooks that I never open."
For young men and women that are accustomed to the instant gratification of the web, even the simple act of flipping through the the glossary of a textbook may be unthinkable. Venerable professors may view this as impatience and laziness, but that would be a superficial assessment. My generation has become acclimated to the efficiency and immediate feedback of the internet. Once you have shown a farmer a tractor, they will never want to plow a field by hand again.
It would be easy to blame all of the alarming facts and figures listed in the class project on the students themselves, but it is the responsibility of teachers to innovate and make their courses understandable and engaging. After all, that is what the kids and their parents are paying for.
I would love to read your comments about my commentary, but there is also an ongoing discussion about the film here. Link
