In my Political Philosophy class, the boy I sit behind brings his laptop everyday. And everyday I watch him start off taking notes on lecture and slowly slide into checking WebCT to checking his e-mail to lurking around Myspace. I, myself, literally only bring my laptop to class when I distinctly know that I will not be paying attention to lecture and will instead be working on something else.
"A Vision of Students Today" addresses the ironies of technology and the advancements and setbacks it produces, and alludes to the ever-prevalent decline of the American education system. Overpriced, irrelevant textbooks, impersonal learning settings, and lack of engaging circumstance riddle universities throughout the country and promote not a pursual of higher education and informed masses, but a system in which people work harder to get out of work than that which it would require if they would just give in to the work allocated.
Inequity is quite possibly the root of the greatest problems plaguing us. In the US, kids go to university to party, not to learn, while almost everywhere else in the world education is seen as the greatest privilege and is prioritized in accordance. The part of the video clip I was most compelled by was the statements "over 1 billion people make less than $1 a day" and "this laptop costs more than some people in the world make in a year." In this country we put ourselves in thousands and thousands of dollars of debt for an over glorified four year party while around the world people are living on almost nothing and still working harder than us. We have more opportunity than anyone, yet we are the least likely to appreciate it, and to take advantage of it.
Then there’s the nearly equally absurd fact that education has become a profit industry: what is a basic human right is now priced to force the majority into debt, necessitating loans to cover tuition, texts, and housing. New editions of textbooks are put out faster than anything even remotely necessary and student fees are increasing semesterly at universities around the country. Administrators are getting raises while professors barely make enough to get by in this economic climate. The discrepancies are vast and unjust and little contained.
Technology allows us access to so much and yet we, the masses, use it only to distract ourselves. Meanwhile, people without the privilege that we, here, have work endlessly to ensure that they can take full advantage of the opportunities they receive. While advancements in technology further our downward spiral of non-effort, it is not the technology that needs to be curbed, rather our culture of ingratitude and fear of effort.
2 comments:
"Then there’s the nearly equally absurd fact that education has become a profit industry: what is a basic human right is now priced to force the majority into debt, necessitating loans to cover tuition, texts, and housing."
Nothing truer said. Let's add to that list the ridiculous salary perks Pres. Gonzales gets at taxpayer expense...
The writer makes good points but fell into the trap of claiming that her experiences can be used to measure the university experiences of, well, the universe (of U.S. colleges anyway).
I doubt that all college students would agree with her assessment - even in the same classrooms where she sits.
But the column makes good points, particularly when it talks about how a university education is in the U.S. compared to other nations.
Could it be that by making this education available to virtually all U.S. students we have lessened its value?
Inquiring minds would like to read a column that takes that position.
Post a Comment