get your degree sans education

When I started blogging, I had my own passionate goo, by which I was motivated to consistency. My goo is not necessarily your goo. So as I've continued, readers' feedback, &tc, have broadened my topics and refocused my efforts on things that are on the minds of those in my sphere, as is evidenced by feedback.
Many days I’ll want to write about something that’s on my mind and then I’ll think, no, no one else will care about that. As if someone else might care about ANYthing I had say. So be ready to see some more Rod's Rants dealing with observations, passions, & aggravation that may be unique to this angry young(?) man.
That said, I shall now embark on a rant du jour, complete with tangents and digressions.
Every day I get spam (lots of it) that seems to fall into only a few categories. Products that will enhance my love life, attempts to lure me to inappropriate entertainment, meet exciting singles in my area, and get rich quick schemes are by far the most common. But there is this other everyday stuff that amazes me. These are mailings telling me how to get my online degree without even leaving my chair. I’m amazed by this education perversion stuff. No, I’m not talking just about online scams and fake diplomas. It seems that the phrase “College Education” is no longer apt. Is college becoming a four-year post high school trade school? Is college attendance only meant to prepare one for specific career? If this is true, then why are we so hard on ball players who want to leave college early to go pro? Are they the only ones who need education that doesn’t directly relate to their career? Why should they have to sacrifice $700,000 potential in their senior year of college while they run the risk of injury and nothing afterward to finish a degree in rec. therapy or hotel management? Why can’t they come back after they’ve gone out there and done what it is that they already do at a professional level?
The degree has replaced education as the motivator for attending college.
“We’ll generously award credit for your previous life experience.” Colleges and Universities are becoming the Wizard who comes out from behind the curtain to award a medal for something that you already had.
In my own circles, I hear justification such as, “we’re providing an education for people who don’t have the time or can’t leave their jobs to attend college.” Education? No. We’re providing credit for people who don’t have the time or can’t leave their jobs to attend college. We stop educating and simply dispense information. It’s darn cheap too. Don’t have to hire faculty, don’t have to print materials. Just scan in handouts and exams from Spring, 1992 and upload.
Then we stop dispensing information and simply award credit for information you already have. Design your own degree based on your previous experiences.
Well then, why does all this bother me so badly? Community.
Every course I took during school (boy that was an old curmudgeon statement) was held in a classroom with a teacher and other students. We discussed, interacted, analyzed, and argued. We ate lunch together, went to concerts and lectures together, and studied together. We learned from one another and raised the standard for one another. Even now, I learn things from my students every day. I better understand my own material from their grappling with it. I see things from a fresh perspective. I have no problem with the occasional distance ed, or extension course, but to base one's college career apart from the college? What a long way we've come from the early higher education models.
I am afraid of a world that runs on theory. Where each fresh generation has been trained by someone’s bulleted outline of the 50 things he did to get where he is.
My philosophy of education is that it is supposed to make you feel stupid. The more educated you are the more you realize you don’t know. Awarding credit based on how smart you already are flies in the face of my philosophy. Where is the chance to realize your stupidity? Learning from a screen and researching from search engine flies in the face of community that allows iron to sharpen iron, and wisdom to rub off on humility.
But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.