Even in fields of early acknowledged
creativity-e.g., computer programming, networking, genetics, and
nanotechnology-education continues to apply a policy that takes
away the edge of youth, inventiveness, and risk.
The lowest quality of education is at the undergraduate level in
universities, where either graduate assistants or even machines
substitute for professors too busy funding their research, or
actually no longer attuned to teaching. This situation exists
exactly because we are not yet able to develop strategies of
education adapted to new circumstances of human work and to the
efficiency requirements which we ourselves made necessary. The
"network of recurrent conversations," to use Winograd's
terminology again, or the "language game" that Wittgenstein
attributed to each profession, hides behind the front of
literacy and thus burdens education. Once accreditation
introduces the language game of politics, education distances
itself even more from its fundamental mission. Accreditation
agencies translate concerns about the quality of education into
requirements, such as the evaluation of colleges and
universities based on scores on exit tests taken by students.
These are supposed to reflect academic achievement. In other
cases, such scores are used for assessing financial support. The
paradox is that what negatively affects the quality of education
becomes the measure of reward.
Pages:
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449