Who Would Hand Out the Hall Passes?

In Ted Nelson’s essay, “Computer Lib/Dream Machines” he defends the use of computers-as-teachers in his insert “No More Teachers’ Dirty Looks”. While I wholeheartedly agree with him that the American educational school system is severely flawed in that it tends to squelch the joy of learning in students, I don’t think I’m ready to go all the way with him on his conversion to a teacher-less (teacher-free?) classroom.
Nelson’s comments comparing the way we teach subjects (including the very fact that we flatten and divide material into “subjects” at all) to grinding all of our food into finely ground, evenly-sized monotonic pieces of kibble reminds of an article I read a couple of summers ago by Brian Greene that spoke to this same shortcoming. He likened the way we teach scientific facts and data to our children to a music student being taught only the scales – and never being shown the masterpieces that have come from music. I use the Greene article at the beginning of each semester to stimulate discussion from my students on their own past experiences and how we can re-kindle some of the curiosity that has been lost through traditional science education. I reassure my students that if ever they feel I am simply teaching the scales, they are free to stop me and ask for the “big picture”. Else, we are both wasting our time. On that point I do agree with Nelson.
Additionally, I agree with him that computer-assisted instruction (CAI) can – and probably does – often result in more of the same, with the addition of one more medium in our arsenal of “learning” death. Simply using powerpoint does not make for a better presentation of material (and can even lead to the exact opposite). I could give so many examples, but I think we’ve all sat through a 50+ tortuous slideshow – and can relate!
But when Nelson goes so far as to draw a diagram depicting a student realm on the left and a subject realm on the right, with a teacher brick wall in the middle – well that’s where I fell short in my journey alongside him. I do agree (very much so) that teachers can be THE stumbling block to a student’s learning. But I wouldn’t say that is always – or even mostly – the case. In several discussions among colleagues I’ve had the opportunity to compare notes on the best courses they’ve had, and why. Most often the best courses are so designated primarily because of the teacher’s ability to connect on a very human level with that individual, resulting in a deeper caring and understanding of the material by the student. Sometimes, a student needs a fabulous teacher to help him develop a curiosity for something he might otherwise pass over entirely.
While I find Nelson’s idea of education via hyper-media intriguing (I do think that computers can hugely supplement our learning), I just don’t see that coming to fruition with our widespread access to the internet. WWW…wherever you curious minds leads is… now a very real component in our lives. Yet, how many of us find it so compelling that we are now self-learners, bypassing that dreaded classroom environment for our own personalized learning? Although I know of one colleague who has expressed this would be her ideal way to learn (Phyllis Tippit!), I don’t see this as a viable alternative to our admittedly marred current method. In fact, my personal experience has been that students now are even less likely to seek out material because they 1) become overwhelmed with what is reliable and 2) become just as bored reading an online description/movie/image/etc. of a subject as they would sitting in a class with a teacher who was reading aloud the same dry material. As “fun” and impromptu as computers can be in facilitating the curiosity of a user, I just don’t think that computers will ever be able to entirely replace the teacher – at least the really good ones who know when to step out of the way.