President Obama’s speech today to American schoolchildren is right and appropriate. Civic leadership, after all, is an important part of the American presidency, especially in the television and Internet age.
But the most important lesson in the president’s speech is not the uncontroversial message to schoolchildren to work hard and to complete their education. The most important lesson is the lesson to educators to be open and transparent in teaching. Indeed, in response to controversy over the president’s remarks, the White House agreed to post the president’s speech online for all to see in advance of delivery.
Would that colleges and universities did this with their lectures! Would that parents and students could see actual transcripts and digital recordings (on YouTube) of the lectures given by college and university professors! That way, parents and students could see, unedited and in context, the leftist propaganda that often gets spoon-fed to the unwitting victims of American higher education.
I can imagine the howls of outrage from cosseted college and university professors. “Absolutely not! We cannot publish online transcripts and YouTube recordings of our lectures, because that would inhibit academic freedom!” But publicity is the very opposite of censorship. It allows the community to see and evaluate the work of the academy. And in fact, some of the best college and university lectures already are digitally captured and sold to the public by companies like the Teaching Company. Good professors welcome public engagement and evaluation. Bad professors, by contrast, fear openness and transparency.
As is the case with most of our nation’s political and social ills, the answer to what ails American education is greater openness and transparency and much greater freedom of speech and freedom of choice. By posting his speech online for all to see, President Obama has set an excellent example for our teachers and professors to emulate.
6 responses so far
1 hoobalkanoobal // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:42 pm
There are two problems with doing this. The first is that we want students to come to class. If they can get the content online beforehand, then there is no reason for them to do so.
You might think then, why should they come to class? Because they learn better if they participate.
Which leads to the second problem: if you recorded classroom sessions, it wouldn’t just be the teachers etc. who are on the line, but also the students, who would be even shier about participating.
Sometimes not being exposed to public and specifically political scrutiny is necessary to foster an environment where people feel they can speak freely. Maybe that is different from “free speech,” but it certainly is a necessary condition for free speech to be meaningful.
2 oldgal // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Colleges and universities are putting lectures online (videos rather than text), more every day.
It occurs to me, however, they must be careful about showing student discussions…too many of these and we would never be able to elect a college graduate. Candidates would be proven “bad people” because of sound-bites that would surface from their college years.
I was not allowed to apply to some of the best universities in the country because my family considered them bastions of liberal thought. That behavior made me curious so I started reading some of the “dreaded” liberal thinkers. This has a lot to do with why I am an independent today instead of the Republican I was supposed to be – the liberal thinkers didn’t seem evil at all, they just had a different point of view that added substance to topic. I learn much more through discussions with folks I disagree with than those I agree with, and I would be extremely bored in a world that did not have diverse points of view.
3 John Guardiano // Sep 8, 2009 at 7:34 am
Hoobalkanoobal,
I do not propose that we post a professor’s lecture online before the actual lecture. Instead, I propose that we post a professor’s lecture online — the actual lecture — that is, a verbatim transcript and a digital YouTube recording. That way, people will be able to see what a professor actually said, and not just what he promised he would say.
As far as students having a reason to come to class, that is incumbent upon the individual student. If a student doesn’t care enough to come to class, then perhaps he doesn’t belong in college. Higher education is a big business for which people pay big bucks. For this reason, a certain level of adult responsibility must be vested in the individual student I think.
Your point about inhibiting students from asking questions is well taken; that could be a problem. But the answer to that problem, I think, is not to avoid posting lectures online. Instead, it is to simply avoid putting the camera on the students. Keep the camera instead on the professor. That way, people could hear the questions that students ask, but not see the actual students.
Moreover, the point of my proposal is not to subject college professors and university lectures to “political scrutiny.” Instead, it is to subject them to public and student scrutiny. There is wisdom in numbers, it seems to me. The way to promote free speech is to promote free speech. It is not to stymie free speech in the name of promoting it.
4 John Guardiano // Sep 8, 2009 at 3:06 pm
OldGal,
I quite agree that we often learn more by engaging contrary points of view and people with contrary points of view; that is an important part of any good education it seems to me.
I also quite agree that students should be exposed to the best thinkers regardless of the thinkers’ political pedigree (or lack thereof). And in fact, some of the best thinkers — Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Madison, Jefferson, et al. — transcend narrow or obvious political categorization.
Unfortunately, most college students today are not exposed to a variety of thinkers, nor even necessarily to the best thinkers. Nobel prize winning economist Friedrich von Hayek, for instance, is ignored in most college classrooms, even though he is unquestionably one of the greatest and most influential economists ever to walk the face of the earth.
The point of my proposal is to help foster much greater diversity of thought within the cloistered American academy — a diversity of thought that you seem to embrace and to champion.
My experience is similar to your own, but with a different result. Indeed, like you, I, too, began to read widely and really just to satisfy my curiosity. I soon discovered that, pace the American academy, the classical liberal tradition, (which is today championed by most conservatives), is the wellspring of our freedom and our relative wealth and affluence. My advice to you: Keep reading!
5 sinz54 // Sep 9, 2009 at 10:54 am
john-guardiano:
I was fortunate to have attended Columbia University’s School of Engineering as an undergraduate. Despite all the hoo-hah about political correctness, Columbia continues to require a two-semester course in Contemporary Civilization for all undergraduates, for either a B.A. or B.S. degree. As a result, I was exposed to thinkers from Aristotle through Hobbes and Locke. Columbia’s engineering school wasn’t on a par with those of M.I.T. or Stanford. But ironically, it was Contemporary Civilization that first got me to think deeply about problems, something that stood me in good stead as a consulting engineer. I believe that all engineers should study some philosophy.
You are right, however, in that many of these introductory philosophy courses ignore economic philosophy and political economy. Columbia’s Contemporary Civilization course pointedly ignores the philosophies of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Harold Laski and Hayek. I had to learn that stuff on my own.
These days, it is very important for students to understand these issues. I’m thinking of a course that uses a textbook like “Commanding Heights” (or the excellent PBS series based on it).
BTW, “Commanding Heights” may be viewed on YouTube. I recommend it.
6 sinz54 // Sep 9, 2009 at 10:57 am
One more thing. Economics is fundamentally based on the theorist’s view of the nature of Man and of human behavior. It’s therefore odd that introductory philosophy courses ignore it.
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