SchoolisHard

Hundreds of years ago, this title would have been completely incorrect. Back then, lectures were pretty much the way to go. Having an expert sit and talk to you and a group of other people (whether you wanted to or not) was the most efficient way to distribute information.

Times have changed. The fact that millions of people will get up today and go to some lectures lasting as long as 3 hours just to listen to somebody talk astonishes me. Hell, the printing press is almost 600 years old.

Many of these people are never absent! Perfect attendance is something some students strive for, but I don’t believe there is a more stifling term in the entire vocabulary of academia. Could these diligent people not be making better use of their time?

What are professors really doing during a lecture and what are they presenting? In my experience professors are brilliant summarizers and essay-graders. A semester permits a professor to talk to you for about two consecutive days, but for many subjects this still isn’t enough time to give more than a relatively broad overview of the most important people, places, or ideas. These classes are often interesting, but they just really aren’t necessary anymore. Like many students, I have never understood the need for a middleman.

I would get rid of the middleman, i.e. lecture attendance, by slowly phasing in the recording of current lectures so that those who feel they are somewhat useful are assuaged. These can be hosted online, and whenever you would have a class that has a pre-recorded lecture, you wouldn’t have to go.

It would also be prudent to abolish textbooks for lecture classes. The professor should provide exactly what the student needs to know. Unless the student is obligated to know every single detail in a textbook, it should not be necessary. I am tired of buying a textbook for a class when all I have to do is write down every single word a professor says like it is gospel.

For the past decade we have been seeing the beginnings of a new education system with online classes. At the moment these classes are somewhat expensive and targeted primarily toward working-adults and overachievers. In the coming years, I hope this will start to change. When more people realize the benefits of learning when they want to and how they want to, there will be far-fewer students subjected to the archaic methods of today.

In 2018, on some random Saturday at midnight, your kid just might be watching one of your classic American History lectures on Youtube as he chats on Google Talk with a professor about Thomas Jefferson.