The Changing Face of Education

 Education is changing.  "The jobs your children may have one day probably don't even exist yet,"  Rynn's teacher tells a room full of parents in September.  Today I wonder whether the college education they may have in ten years may not exist yet either.

Last fall I straddled two very different educational experiences. With one foot soaking up a literature class under the ivy towers of Northwestern University,  I planted another foot in the world of community college online education. By taking an online Chemistry class I finally complete nursing school prerequisites.  With a box filled with chemicals, test tubes, graduated cylinders, and matches I set up a Chemistry lab in my kitchen.  I log on to the college's server once a week for a 'virtual lecture' with a 'white board' upon which the teacher works out chemical equations and answers our questions.  I scan homework and labs to upload, complete a group project, and turn chemicals blue with fire in my kitchen.  All this is accomplished without ever laying eyes on a human being.  Convenient?  Absolutely.  Logging in from the waiting room of the hospital when Jason was sick, I am able to multitask by learning acid/base calculations, take a quiz, and watch daytime TV all at the same time.  Did I learn Chemistry?  Sort of.  Did I learn and understand it to the depths that I probably could have in a classroom?  No.  Is this the way of the future?  Many would say- yes.

Change is a tricky thing to measure.  History teaches us that some change is gradual (ideas). Other change is precipitated by a cataclysmic event (think -the atomic bomb).   In hindsight we look back and put history in tidy categories that help us make sense of the years.  Every generation has seen their own time to be the one in which change is happening faster than ever before.  We are no different from those who have gone before us in thinking that our generation is seeing unprecedented change.  But it is difficult to ignore the recent rapid pace of change the internet has brought to education.

Change is happening not only in how people pursue education but in where they go to achieve their goals.  This year Oakton Community College has received more applicants to the nursing program than they've had in ten years (I know....great, eh?).  This summer they will break ground on a 39 million dollar health and science building that will offer all kinds of cadavers (lots of human) and state of the art health and science education.  Why?  Because record numbers of people are jamming the desks of science classes and bringing unprecedented cash to the community college system while tuitions costs at private universities continue to rise beyond middle class accessibility.


This semester I begin more classes at our local community college.   There is a significant difference this semester from the last- PEOPLE.  All kinds of people.  And people make learning infinitely more interesting.   Sitting next to me in a science class is a PhD in Global Studies on one side and a Master's Degree English teacher who just returned from five years of living in Korea on the other.  I'm not an expert, but I don't think this was the demographic that filled community colleges twenty years ago.  The economy and the internet are changing the way Americans seek education.  The jobs that are available are changing as our health and educational systems are changing.  The way we learn is changing as our attention spans continue to be molded by instant and constant streams of information.  How will we navigate these waters?

How will this impact our children?  What kind of education should they seek?  Should we discourage them from online pursuits or see it as another way of competitive 'multitasking'?  What about the Liberal Arts?  Should these be taught on the internet?  Could community college be the new grad school?