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“In the 1930s, the FSA employed several photographers to document the effects of the Great Depression on the population of America. [Dorothea] Lange’s image of a migrant pea picker, Florence Owens Thompson, and her family has become an icon of resilience in the face of adversity.”
In a comment on an earlier post about online higher education, I used the phrase “poor white trash” to describe one opinion on this pedagogical method as first applied by Professor Margaret Soltan at George Washington University. For those unaware of her excellent blog, University Diaries, I plug it.
I contacted Soltan for further clarification of her use of the phrase. She graciously replied, with permission to quote:
First, as to the phrase: It seems to have become quite mainstreamed — there’s a best-selling White Trash Cookbook, etc. — so while it’s certainly pejorative, I don’t think it’s got much shock value anymore.
I use it to designate forms of education that are of strikingly low value. The trashiest form of education — by all measurable standards — is for-profit online education. That’s why there’s a national scandal going on about it right now. One flight up there’s non-profit online education, where cheating is easy and where standards vary wildly among institutions and among courses (which is why professors at quite a number of schools — most recently U Cal Berkeley — are resisting the trend.)
Since online is the wave of the future, the best thing for its advocates to do is ignore critics like me. Online has won the debate, and in the next few years most American university courses will be offered via computer screen. My critique is directed to professors and administrators who might want to resist the trend, and to other observers who want to think about things like this in a way that goes against the grain.
The use of the word trashy caused a sharp mental twinge. Nabokov coined a word, “poshlust,” that also describes much of online higher education.
Poshlust, Nabokov explained, “is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive.”
Please understand that I am not criticizing all uses of technology in the classroom or online learning for the acquisition of certain types of skills.
But I point out that a small place down the road from the University of Minnesota in Northfield doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot of online learning. Carleton College has recently been described as one of the most loved higher education institutions in the U.S. based on the percentage of alums who vote with their wallets. Maybe they are doing something right?
And I remember my own undergraduate experiences at Northwestern. I do not believe my courses in political theory, philosophy, my science courses and all of my laboratories could ever be duplicated online.
Having been called poor white trash occasionally in my youth, it pains me that online education is deemed good enough for such folks. Thin gruel indeed compared to what is offered at a good liberal arts institution or university.
8 Responses to Online Higher Ed: From Poor White Trash to Poshlust
cfox53 - January 31, 2011 at 10:07 am
“And I remember my own undergraduate experiences at Northwestern. I have no idea how courses in political theory, philosophy, most of my science courses and all of the laboratories could ever have been duplicated online.”
Hence the heart of the issue – if you cannot imagine how it could be done then you should try to teach on-line until you can at least imagine – and then get some real mentoring on how it can be done. I have taught ethics in on-line and hybrid and traditional formats. Each time I introduced more educational technology I was told by other faculty that it couldn’t be done – I ignored them and worked with a very good educational technologist (THANKS JENNIFER) and the courses were very successful based on the objectives I had for the course. They aren’t identical nor interchangeable but they achieve what I set out to achieve and the students learned what the courses were designed to help them learn.
Although I am not a historian of education I have been in education long enough to suggest that each curriculum innovation (‘what is this service learning stuff?; why do you have them work in groups – you’re the teacher?, what do they have to learn from each other? – back to – how can they possibly learn without in-class recitation’. Being a scientist and clinician I understand having problems understanding how people can lean in a radically different way then we did – but you miss a significant point – on-line learning isn’t duplicating traditional courses – it is using new pedagogues to arrive at similar (perhaps identical) learning goals. I am reminded of the saying that ‘the limits of our abilities to understand is not the limit of what there is to know.’
Charlie
cfox@pointpark.edu
wbgleason - January 31, 2011 at 10:51 am
Charlie-
Thanks for your comments.
Please note that I have modified the penultimate paragraph of the post in response to your remarks.
Best wishes, Bill
cfox53 - January 31, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Thanks
marktropolis - February 1, 2011 at 11:12 am
Bill, I’m curious if you see any correlations between the phenomena that Berlinerblau points to in his blog (“When Did Professors Get So Damn Respectable http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/when-did-professors-get-so-damn-respectable/31669) and this business about online learning.
I think things get sticky in the online-learning debate when any critique of said learning is interpreted as wholesale rejection. And vice versa. But I think the other piece being that much of the push for online learning appears to be coming from the for-profits – who right now don’t really have a good reputation when it comes to actually being concerned about student learning. And yet the same could be said of many IHEs (I’m thinking the larger, flagship, state and private institutions like the MSUs, UVAs and Stanfords of the world, and NOT the Carleton’s of the world) in that they appear to more concerned about their business model than student learning. Which tends to cloud the issue.
But I’m struck by this juxtaposition between the “respectability” of the professorial class and the drive to make IHE’s more like for-profit enterprises (including talking about students as customers, etc.).
All that said, I do like the poor white trash phrasing…
wbgleason - February 1, 2011 at 11:47 am
Hmmm…
So respectable? In the seventies, briefly, you could drink beer legally at 18 in MN. More than a few times I would go out with students to a local tavern for a beer or two. I also awarded a six pack of beer to the winner of the annual Martius Yellow competition at Carleton. The students had a great deal of fun, some even came in boxing trunks with, perhaps, Rocky music…
We are unfortunately stuck with on line learning as Margaret laments. I still maintain that NOTHING beats the old fashioned methods, but that argument is lost most places. It will be interesting to see if Berkeley really can present a decent college experience on line. I doubt it but would be happy to be proven wrong.
My guesstimate is that we could probably use online methods for the equivalent of about 1.5 yrs of undergrad education. For a fair number of courses, hybrid models involving light to heavy use of technology would work.
But I feel that at least two years of higher level instruction involving heavily interactive discussion with the prof or other students is necessary.
I am saddened as noted in the post that the second rate method of online education is considered good enough for the economic or socially disadvantaged. On the other hand, the student debt at graduation is significantly lower at Macalaster or Carleton than at Minnesota publics, so I would encourage bright young people who don’t have much money not to rule places like them out.
My best, Bill
marktropolis - February 1, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Methinks you and I need to figure out this Carleton connection. I may need to track down your UM address…
I’m more than saddened about this thriving of online white trash education. In many ways it echoes what happened in the housing market – with predatory lenders flooding the market all in the interests of helping all those poor minorities achieve the American Dream. And while those folks ended up losing their houses, the execs at the banks kept making bonuses – since as far as Wall Street is concerned, the housing debacle is just one more opportunity to make money. And that same callous attitude towards what I’d call the working public plays out in the predatory practices of the for-profits, many who are selling these online options as “just as good if not better.”
And you’re right about Mac and Carelton. Part of that is that Carleton (can’t say about Mac, don’t know it enough) has a need-blind admissions, and they put a significant chunk of their own money into student aid. Something like 60% of the students on work study?
Shape of the River did a decent job of making the case that even those students of color who didn’t excel in the Ivies still did a lot better in the rest of their lives – and not just in making money but in contributing to whatever community they became a part of.
I’m really sick and tired of all this free market ideology driving the conversation. The reality is that for the for-profits, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders first and students are merely a customer. And that’s always going to be the case. Yes, there are things the privates (and the publics) can do better, but I hardly think that acting like the for-profits is at the top of the list.
profe1 - June 8, 2012 at 7:07 am
Untenured faculty not only need experience on committees, they need exposure to the faculty across the college or institution. Our colleagues may have a habit of calling on those they already know, so passing on the opportunity may be a good thing. But senior faculty should also protect junior faculty by taking care with the kind of opportunities passed on.
danieltetreault - June 9, 2012 at 4:28 am
Saying “No” is a fundamental right we should all have and above all, feel that we should say no.
Dan