John-Howard Oxley

What Changes, What Does Not

I have been teaching in the nontraditional adult education environment for over a decade, and I think some things have changed:

* The idea of "career change" is less attractive than it once was, particularly in the context of a 'package' of easily-learned classes which will enable the student to start on a high-paying career [IT was the model for this].
* "Adult" comfort with technology has increased greatly -- most people who come to university now have experience with computers and the InterNet.
* The development of portable devices enabling instant and constant contact, supported by social networking software, greatly alters the expectations and to some extent, the needs, of people to whom this technology web has become a way of life, and higher educational systems have not [in my experience] done a good job of adapting to this.
* The whole concept of "cheating" and what it means to "cheat" had radically changed in an age where what is 'original' may be impossible to determine, and where few people are individually responsible for a product or outcome.

I also think some things have not changed:
* Certification and the appearance of competence is more important than actually achieving such competence for most of our students.
* Ultimately, if 'training' and 'education' are at loggerheads, the former wins.
* However necessary critical thinking may be [and I am not arguing that it is not necessary] it is more of an innate ability than something which can be cultivated.
* The greatest success comes from the individual who is at the greatest distance from the main current [especially as we define "a good student"]. The problem being that the greatest failure comes from exactly the same thing.