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Teacher Union Tries To Block Online Courses
itwbennett writes "Facing budget problems, University of California officials and state analysts say that expanding online courses could help them 'innovate out of the current crisis.' But the lecturers whose jobs are at stake see it differently. Now the UC chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses."
Once you get beyond that level, most people need face-to-face interaction to really understand the subject.
Standford's AI course, currently ongoing, says otherwise.
So does the Standford iPhone programming course which a LOT of people have used to learn iPhone development.
None of this is 101 stuff (well perhaps the first few iPhone courses but not beyond that).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"This isn't a coal mine or dangerous factory job. "
You should really get informed.
http://www.ivorytowerblues.com/
Right now corporations are trying to privatize education to limit political views so they can turn the world into a right wing aristocracy. Universities in Canada and around the world have become more and more dependent on corporate donors and this means freedom of inquiry will be stifled big time. Do you really think rich conservative right wingers want any criticism of capitalism or protection for the poor? There was a big thing at U of T about naming something after Tommy douglas (tommy was father of 'socialist healthcare' in canada which pisses off the corps and right wingers and they still hate him for it) and the administration said 'no' because they were worried about offending the ideals of their donors and the donors denying them future funds. This means universities will become hotbeds of corporatist and unchecked capitalist propaganda and damn the scientific evidence. No thanks.
IANAPhD, but I nearly was. Quote from a professor: "Getting a PhD is not mostly about learning although that is important, it's about getting things done. If you are a PhD student we in the department will essentially do whatever we can to prevent you from finishing your thesis. If you manage to finish _despite_ us, then you will get the PhD. You will have joined the club of 'people who get things done'. Thereafter schools and other institutions who are looking for people who get things done, and your PhD will tell them that you do."
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Unions are a mixed bag.
On the one hand, unions keep management from forcing unhealthy and unsafe working conditions on their labor pool to save money. (Chained to sewing machines, latex gloves instead of neoprine while using mek, etc.)
On the other, unions are a potentially unchecked power that can quickly overwhelm an employer. (Demands for 6 figure incomes for installing rivets, pension plans to rival those of politicians, increased difficulties in termination of unproductive or poor quality workers, etc.)
Unions are a necessary evil, barring very strict government involvement in private enterprise. (Arguably, having the government mandate work conditions is the single scariest thing a worker can hear...) however, when unions themselves become too large and too powerful, they can have a seriously negative effect on not only the industries they work in, but also for everyone else.
For instance, the intractible 26 page proceedure to fire a union teacher in a public school enables a shocking amount of unsavory and unacceptable behavior to go on in those institutions. A policy enacted to help protect teachers from vindictive parents ends up being a mighty shield behind which people with no businss being educators hide to do deplorable things.
(An example would be the events that transpired a few years ago in a nearby public school, concerning a computer science teacher touching female students inappropriately. Since physical evidence could be collected to prove the allegations, his teaching career didn't even miss a beat... until a few years later when he stopped just touching, and got a student pregnant. Even then, I understand it was still difficult to fire him.)
Unions are a good thing when they are kept on the smaller side. When they grow up, they become dangerous, self-serving monstrocities in their own right.
The GP appears to be referring to this latter stage of development in the maturation of unions, not the younger, where they serve an important and essential function.
Much like medication, a little is good for the patient, but more isn't always better, and at a certain threshold more becomes downright deadly. The same is true of unions.
Well, I'd suggest that "featherbedding" doesn't really require a union or any other such organization.
My high school didn't have a teachers' union. But I ran into a problem when, in my sophomore year, I decided to learn some math. By around Xmas, I'd gone through all the math texts that were available from the math teachers. Then, when I asked them for advice and help in getting more, I was told that I "wasn't ready for such advanced texts" as basic calculus. In talking to them, it was pretty clear that they were unhappy with me, and I got a real feeling that it was because I'd just made all their "advanced" classes useless (to me).
But I had some friends at a nearby college, so I arranged for them to find more math books that I could borrow. Some came from their profs, some from the math department's library. I also verified that there are other US high schools that teach calculus classes; this didn't endear me to my teachers, either.
Actually, the organizational problems didn't end there. A couple of years later, I found myself at a nearby college, where the math dept offered me "advanced placement" into 2nd-year calculus. It rapidly became obvious that I knew the material better than the prof did. Trying to convince the department to let me transfer to a class where I would learn something was pointless, so I wasted my time getting past that and a few other "pre-req" classes that I had to take despite already knowing the material.
It's easy to interpret all of this as a case of teachers blocking a bright kid's advancement, because the kid is making the teachers look unnecessary. And I had any number of discussions of the topic with other kids with an "attitude problem" similar to mine.
I also eventually ran across a clever explanation: The classroom lecture is the best method developed so far to teach students who can't read. That does describe a large fraction of the US college student population, of course, so the lecturers are still needed for them. But for the rest of us, regardless of the presence of unions, we're still likely to run into blockades that force us to sit still while the instructors work for their pay.
Since then, I have occasionally wondered whether my getting involved in Internet software development will eventually have any effect on this general problem. If so, don't make the mistake of thinking it was accidental. The topic at hand has been discussed behind the scenes, at least by a few of us. Online "classes" are just one of the attempts to alleviate such problems. There are many students in the world who don't have local access to good teachers, but who do know how to read. I'm one net.developer who isn't very sympathetic with teachers who try to block students' access to information.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.