Every college student knows that having an engaging, inspiring teacher makes all the difference in how well the material is learned.
Unfortunately for the state of Wisconsin, State Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, thinks that the teacher doesn’t matter at all.
In fact, ThinkProgress reports that the GOP Senator recently told a state political news service, WisPolitics, that it’s about time we stopped wasting money on college teachers altogether.
The Wisconsin official has apparently never sat in a classroom where an over-tired, unprepared substitute teacher has popped in a boring video instead of actually engaging the class in an interactive learning session.
He told the news program that the U.S. could be saving money on higher education by allowing college students to learn from the internet and videos rather than hiring actual expert teachers.
OMG! Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (GOP) recommends saving $ by replacing instructors w Ken Burns videos https://t.co/Df4Bg2Spka #highered
— Georgia Strange (@georgiakstrange) August 22, 2016
He said:
“If you want to teach the Civil War across the country, are you better off having, I don’t know, tens of thousands of history teachers that kind of know the subject, or would you be better off popping in 14 hours of Ken Burns’s Civil War tape and then have those teachers proctor based on that excellent video production already done? You keep duplicating that over all these different subject areas.”
This ridiculous comment comes in spite of the extensive research which shows that students who lack a meaningful connection to an actual live teacher are more likely to fail and/or withdraw from classes.
Students who sit passively in front of videos or computer screens are unable to stop the professor to ask for clarification. They are unable to add to their knowledge by asking good questions that take the lecture in another direction.
Most importantly, students who are sitting passively in their rooms watching an online lecture lack the interactive discussions with classmates that lead to new ideas, innovative problem solving, and new areas of research.
Socrates knew that the roots of deep thinking lay in structured discussion and debate. All good educators know that learning is an active process that requires questions, answers, and a constant fine tuning of beliefs.
It’s depressing and incredibly frustrating to see another Republican politician talking about education without understanding the first thing about it. It’s maddening to hear another Republican politician saying that saving a few dollars is more important than insuring an educated population.
Featured image by Roman Boed via Flickr. Available through Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License.
