OUTSOURCING EDUCATION [a general investigation and maybe a solution]

bY Paul Henrickson, Ph.D.

©2006
The title of this piece comes from the one recommendation for a possible solution to
the problems described herein. There are three interacting and reoccurring main
subjects on this essay which are: (1)WEBSITE OPPORTUNITIES FOR EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS, (2) FACULTY SELECTION AND TREATMENT POLICIES, (3) POLITICALLY
MOTIVATED INTERFERENCE IN EDUCATIONAL AIMS.

Originally, my main objective in writing this piece was to simply record my

experiences, an act, perhaps, not unlike that of “confession”, another version of
which might be the autobiography that serves the purpose of bringing closure, in the
psychological sense, to one’s life path.

Not until I started getting what appeared to be rather weird reactions to an earlier
essay on Mozart did there seem to be some other factor at play. Not until I checked
the background of a professor from Purdue who seemed not to understand why he
should have received the essay on Mozart, in spite of the fact that the reasons were
stated at the outset, that I became aware of a growing paranoia among educators in
the United States.

This paranoia seems to be centered on the “No Child Left Behind” federal program
which seems in the minds of some, to be emphasizing reading and mathematics at
the expense of other educational experiences, despite the fact that there is clearly
provision for other fields being included in the core curriculum.

Aside from the fact that there are inherent dangers in the often characteristic
response of over-responding to federal programs conceptualized to solve problems on
an emergency basis, there is, as well, the attitude of patriotic obedience attached to
any federally sponsored educational pronouncement….as though those non-teachers
in bureaucracies are, somehow, aware of more applicable subtleties than those who
daily face the learner.

I have never fully understood the psychological mechanism that allows one to over
rule experience in favor of outside authority. Unless, of course, the pull of consensual
validation and the phobia of being alone combine to make independent judgment
impossible I have never known a successful farmer to be so seduced.

In any “organic” organization, and the field of education might well be considered
one of those, there are other and contrary, also organic, interests going on which
conscientiously focus on thriving on the rich productions of those who are the real
educators. They seem unceasingly inventive in mystifying most observers. You can
not know them by what they say, for they are most orthodox, but can best identify
where they have been by the disappearance of the most creative and most sincere
members of the faculty who have lacked the required defences.

The “rule by rumor” or “deceive through dissemblance” behaviors even in the rather
small department as the art department was at The University of Northern Iowa on
the late 60’s, there appeared disturbing manifestations of malicious intent regarding
an individual’s research procedures. These did not surface honestly, but were used to
maneuver the then head, Harry Guillaume, who was basically an honest and well-
meaning, but naïve fellow, into reducing the psychological support of a project by
allowing himself to believe something he should have known to be false. He has been
provided with incorrect information regarding both the gender and the nature of the
work of important researchers in the field, such as J.P. Guilford.
The resulting display of ignorance demolished the trust that had existed and the
researcher, unable to deal with the damaged ego of his superior, joined those
political influences that replaced the department head with a less worthy, but even
more galling deceiver, Kenneth Lash, a situation which ended, eventually, with a
seriously fractured educational environment and all of these results made possible
because of the exceedingly high levels of expectation, the incredibly broad levels of
ignorance, and the pervasive mask of pretence, deceit, chutzpah and false pride
which characterizes most of those in the field of education. Humility knows no shelter
in academia amidst the din of self-acclaim. It is this dependence on an abstract
authority that will turn the NCLB program into a fascist tool, and, in the process,
make fools of otherwise sensitive perceivers amounting to a tragedy in the classic
sense.

This situation, now in late 2007, is also apparent among certain public school districts
which, unwisely, have allowed their webmasters to make decisions regarding what is
and what is not SPAM, decisions which, appropriately, should be left up to the
professional educator. They, and not the ego-centric technocrat should be in a
position to make decisions as to what is good or not good educational material.

This situation reminds me of one a friend of my father’s told me when I was about
eight in which he described a horse race in which the point was to discover which
horse would run the slowest. Well, the horses didn’t run at all. At eight years old I saw
no point in the race nor to the request that I predict what the men involved in this
horse race decided to do since even then I sort of knew that horses lined up to start a
race, would want to start the race and might just do that. Eventually, this friend of
my father told me the solution. It was for the riders to change horses. Well, the point,
I imagine, of this somewhat ridiculous situation is that if something doesn’t work one
changes the rules. Following rules laid down by webmasters will not advance the
goals of education. Of course, that may actually be the point.

It is from this background that I make the following observations concerning a truly
valuable technological advance that promises to change the social structure of the
entire planet for the better if it is employed toward that end. In any event some
changes will take place and if one doesn’t do what one can and maybe should, then
someone else will do it their way. In the final analysis make the contribution and
leave the choices up to those who feel able to make one.

A CURRENT ISSUE IN LOST WEBSITE OPPORTUNITIES

I had been retired, so to speak, for several years from any formal daily
contact with educational institutions when I thought it of potential
value to consult internet resources. I thought I may have lost contact
with current educational mindsets, events and opportunities. At first, I
thought it a local lack of awareness when an institution, if it maintained
a website on the internet at all, failed to present an orderly and
comprehensive picture of what it thought itself to be. It took me awhile
to come to the conclusion that administrations of institutions simply
didn’t know what instrument for education they had at their disposal…
and that they were, regrettably, also unwilling to learn.
However, after a few years of e-mailing statements of professional
interests, items that normally would have been welcomed in
professional circles, and in the process learning how the internet itself
behaved my awareness of this reality was maturing. There are several
developments that now, after some thought, I find seriously
frightening.

EXPANDING DISAPPOINTMENT
In fact, in some instances, it is beginning to appear as though either
the institution has hired (outsourced) a web site designer who is
notably unaware of what an educational institution is, what it purports
to be, or what it has the potential of becoming. The technician,
however, may be doing the best he can under those circumstances,
having been given no insight of what else might be done. One might
deduce from this that those who commissioned the website designer
also did not know what should be done, and that these people, in turn,
had been given an assignment by those who knew little enough about
any of the fields involved to do very little more than to exercise their
power to give orders…and to appear important.

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN DISCIPLINES

The website designer may have even less awareness of what a
university is than having the general impression that it is a group of
large buildings with a lot of people running around exhibiting self-pride.
A friend of mine was once employed by a radio station in West Virginia,
some fifty years ago, as an announcer and she boarded with a local
family. The family was curious about where and how this new tenant
worked so she invited them to take a look at something they’d never
seen before. The radio station with its transmitter was located on a
remote hill and when they approached the site the little girl, aged
about 5 years, seeing the small building next to the large building
blurted out the observation: “Thaz the cutes lill oll pee house ah’ eva
don seen!” Well, after a half century I suppose we can tell the
difference between a pee house and a radio transmitter.

This outsourced technician can not be blamed for not understanding

that this institution, the vast educational edifice, as we in the west
know it today, brought our world out of the ignorance of the dark ages
through a mighty risky and tortuous route and that, perhaps, today, it
stands balanced on the edge of the abyss once again in danger of
toppling back into darkness through a combination of malicious, stupid
and neglectful behaviors.

I should add, at this point, that there are a few, but a very few,
institutions which have shown some understanding that the internet is
a valuable contact with the outside world and have some idea of its
power to affect events favorably for both themselves and those who
respond to their presentation, but the percentage appears low.

AN EDUCATIONAL BREAKUP
There are many fault areas which suggest potential breakups in the
structural integrity of contemporary education. Some of the more
obvious faults in websites are to be seen in the ways that faculty may
be mentioned, if they are mentioned at all. In some instances they are
not called “faculty” but “staff”. In several instances faculty lists with
appropriate addresses and telephone numbers are not found under a
major faculty heading but might be found under the appropriate
school, college or department.

That has its logical reasoning, but it is not precisely logical to have two
listings for faculty without referring to them as a list where one can
locate and identify faculty as opposed to a list of contact offices faculty
members need when making contacts within the university. Conflicts of
this sort suggest that the website designer was not informed and no
one saw to it that he was. Although he does the best he can, which is
not enough, and the university gets a bad image and the website
designer fails to augment his professional reputation favorably .

FAULTY DESIGN OR MALICIOUS P0LITICAL INTENT

In other cases staff and faculty are listed in the same list alphabetically
without, distinction as to how their functions might differ. The image
that that design projects is one either of an ignorant website designer,
or of a university administration that sees itself as preeminent over
faculty. It is entirely possible that both are the causes and many
faculties will recognize that state institutions are run as agents of
politicians. An intelligently designed website will make it apparent that
the functions of staff are not the same as those of faculty.

Perhaps my conception of the differences in function between a

secretary and a professor, or even an instructor, is faulty but I would
normally expect a secretary to behave differently from the way a
professor behaves and while I grant that the functions of a secretary
may be, or, at last, should be, of vital interest to the professor, they, in
no way can be thought of as the same…in fact, they are, properly,
quite dissimilar. But one would not think so from the ways in which
some websites have been structured.

My reaction to a website that fails to indicate a significant difference

between staff and faculty is an institution too dominated by a
misapplication of democracy to make a meaningful contribution to
education. If the function of a university is to maximize the intellectual
and the creative talents of individuals regardless of race, color, creed
or gender, it will then value what the staff does as it values what the
faculty does separately and individually for the end result that it hopes
to achieve.

WEBSITE UPKEEP
What has happened occasionally when academic material is sent out
to an institution which lists email addresses and does distinguish
between secretaries, office administrators, janitors and professors one
often finds the emails….sometimes all of them, but, on average 1/3 of
those listed … being returned as having been faultily addressed. This,
additionally, indicates that there is no one in attendance on the
computer’s automated behavior. The system in operation has rejected
the emails perhaps because the basic address has been changed, or
the turnover at the institution is so great that no one thought to
maintain the site so that that proper and correct information was
available. It seems that maintenance has not been in effect and that
the sponsoring unit, the University, doesn’t care. It is more difficult to
believe that someone wishing to send out information to 80 or 100
people would consistently make a typing error of that magnitude.
Although it is, of course, possible.

APPEALS TO THE PURIENT

High on the list of academically disheartening observations of
institutionallysponsored notices are not only mention at the
top of the lists of the institutions accomplishments the
facts. endlessly detailed and illustrated with erotically
tinged photographs of straining gladiators, evidences of
their team’s glorious accomplishments on the football,
baseball or basketball arena, but there are those which
draw the reader’s attention to social events, clubs,
fraternities or “in your face” informing

readers that interracial fraternization is not only tolerated but

encouraged. My concern is not that interracial
fraternization takes place, my concern is that an
educational institution is taking a socio-political and a non-
academic (read: non-scientific or non-creative)
investigatory position on a touchy political issue. In one
particular example, equally blatant as some but
outstanding for the interracial, faculty-student physical
closeness seemingly supportive of homosexual contact, an
 over-weight cherubically smiling white man of thirty has his
arm wrapped around the lean shoulders of a cowering,
apprehensive black youth presumably from a foreign

what an obscenity!!! But not because of the sex,

rather because of the misplaced emphasis. If the institution involved
wishes to act the pimp it is guilty of fraud if it claims to be an
academic institution.

country, a country where quite possibly such intimate contact,

regardless of the sex involved, is never exhibited. I could
name, off hand, a few such places.

I am not judging sexual experiences as such, by this comment,

homosexual or heterosexual, only that I do not accept the
behavior of an institution of higher education playing the
role of pimp. On the other hand it is possible for me to
accept incidents of erotic involvement of an older person
with a younger one within the general setting of an
educational institution but not as part of its advertised or
subliminally suggested extra-curricula activities. That is a
matter of personal behavior. Were I a student seeking
guidance in the development of mental perceptions I would
avoid such an institution as I would the plague. It raises,
however, the question as to how many higher education
graduates have achieved success not because they were
intellectually or creatively competent but merely because
they were a good lay.

AREAS OF LEADERSHIP WITHIN A CULTURE

Some of the same sorts of perplexingly unprofessional behaviors also
occur in government, where they shouldn’t. But, because it does occur,
it may be a reason why it also occurs in the educational institution.
However, in the hierarchy of importance I hold a professor in
somewhat higher esteem, generally speaking, than I do a politician,
especially, for example, a senator, Pete V. Domenici, from a sovereign
state such as New Mexico who allowed someone appointed to be his
Director of Correspondence, a charming, affable and adept Danish
woman, just the sort of northern European which would attract a
southern European, to deny a meeting to a constituent on the grounds
that the constituent had been an embarrassment to the Senator’s
office (as though senators need help in performing acts they should
find embarrassing).

How could this be? How might it possibly be that a constituent could
embarrass a Senator unless the Senator had done something
thoughtless, wrong or stupid? …or had it done for him? As serious as
such breaches of concept are in the political arena they are even more
serious, I suspect, when educational institutions fail to understand who
they are supposed to be. The Senator is supposed to represent the
thought of his constituency. The educational institution is expected to
develop the individual’s intellectual abilities, analytical talents, and
creative insights, a potentially far more influential behavior. The
assumed importance of our political leaders over the importance of
those involved in the development of mental abilities in the young is
one of the grossest errors of our epoch. Politicians are the
mountebanks of civilization.

FACULTY SELECTION AND TREATMENT

As we seem, somehow, to have drifted in our discussion on
disagreeable behaviors by our traditionally more august institutions,
the very institutions upon which we depend for a more bountiful and
peaceful future, we now arrive at a look at one of the more pivotal
procedures in the selection and the treatment of an academic faculty. It
is a given that someone filling a particular position within an academic
department know enough of the subject matter of his discipline as to
be able to teach others and to conduct related research in the field.
Beyond that other behaviors such as personal, social, political,
religious, sexual should be of less concern for an administration, but
this is not always the case. It is the administration’s responsibility to
provide the resources, equipment, supplies, and general environment
so that success in the faculty members’ efforts might be realized.

Given the above description of a standard faculty and a standard

academic environment the following descriptions, which come from my
own experience, do appear to be grossly out of place and detrimental
to our stated goals as a profession and as a nation.

A professional, an ethical academic, a creative thinker would not,

ordinarily, succumb to the temptation of accepting a job offer on the
basis of anything other than those conditions which augment his
talents as a teacher, thinker or producer of creative products.
Anything that detracts from those legitimate and highly desirable
outcomes of professional activity in the field are as out of place as
spilled food on a shirt, blouse, or lap.

Yet, in my necessarily narrow and limited experience the history of my

applications for academic positions have been highlighted by
inappropriate approaches on the part of the official leaders of
educational institutions, (a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico),
where it later developed that I was expected to perform the functions
of lover for the director’s wife; department heads, (a Florida State
University) where my willingness to perform oral sex was the only
requirement for employment; an offer of a position at a Wisconsin
State University had been accompanied with the condition that I and
my wife be open to faculty group sex.

In other instances, where sex seemed not to play a role in the hiring
process, the interview was marred by a clumsy display of psychological
one-upmanship where the so-called professional head of the
psychology department, (Worcester, Massachusetts) sat behind the
applicant and out of view during an interview in order to gage the
applicant’s submissiveness to authority.

At The University of Southern Illinois the President (1961) informed the

applicant who had just arrived after several hours of commercial travel
that he would be picked up at his motel room in thirty minutes. The
President was absolutely on time, if not a minute or two early, and the
applicant had been unable to dry off from the shower he had thought
he might have time to take, but hurriedly dressed to accommodate the
President who had some additional administrator drive them to the
reception room where hung the scores of signed photographs of
notables, performers, celebrities testifying to the magnificence of this
unenlightened state-appointed showoff.

During the interview it became apparent that the only hurdle to

surmount was the one of being impressed by the President himself, as I
was of course, but not the way he would have liked. One’s academic or
creative insights had nothing whatever to do with qualifying the
applicant for the position of Head of the Art Department. An Art faculty
member, a sculptor, who was also present at the interview was aware
of the ridiculousness of the event and, in an exchange of apologetic
eye contact, let the applicant know it.

In Radford, Virginia, the interviewing President, Charles Knox Martin,

informed the applicant that he would NOT have friends of color and
when the applicant wondered what he was to do with the ones he
already had the interview was nearly terminated. His employment was
terminated two years later when at a faculty meeting he, as head of
the department, advised the President, that the newly imposed rule
that faculty members had to agree on the selection of one text for all
of the multi-sectioned courses was an abridgment of the rule of
intellectual freedom. Then, as a diversion from the real issue, the
President acted as the originator of libelous gossip, released to the
news media, intended to discredit me in the eyes of the community. Six
years later the President was removed in a shower of professional and
social disapproval, but at what cost to the six classes of graduating
students? Later, that president’s wife, who had shown no special
interest in art, was done the honor of having a university art gallery
named after her. This was a most perplexing outcome of indifference.

Interestingly enough the only two positions I’ve held where I have been
outstandingly successful were those where the administration had left
me entirely alone. One of these was at Valley City (ND) University
where I had orchestrated a significant international art exhibition and
multicultural event ,THE VALLEY CITY FINE ARTS FESTIVAL that
continued on for at least another 25 years. The second is discussed in
the following section.

POLITICS AND EDUCATIONAL INSTIUTIONS

The second experience with success occurred at The University of
Guam in the Marianas Islands where the only time the President,
Antonio C. Yamashita, aught not to have left me alone and undefended
was when I was under surreptitious attack, according to the then
Governor of the Island, Manuel Leon-Guerrero, by a highly politically
ambitious woman named, Madeleine Zeien Bordallo now representing
her area in the United States Congress, whose early political associates
included two convicted governors, one of them her husband, and the
President of The Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. She, a little Jewish girl
from a small town in Minnesota became the President of the Asian
Women’s Association with a membership of 5,000,000. through, one
might assume, the advice given by Meyling de la Cruz who, as the aunt
of Ferdinand Marcus, was the family advisor in political matters and the
director of what advertised itself as The Guam Academy of Music and
Art, but which functioned more as a “marriage bureau” for single
Philippinas in their search for United States Citizenship.

Madelein’s later connivance, with an academically inept, but clever

falsifier, Marvin Montvel Cohen, whose son, Even, has, in the not so
distant past, been associated with a major defrauding of a charitable
organization, (Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club in The Bronx- $875,000)
and, in some way, a significant broadcasting organization (Multicultural
Radio Broadcasting $1,500,000) to a total of something over two
million dollars..thus illustrating that leopards do not change their spots;
that duplicity is the way to achievement by those who lack the
appropriate talent; and that the effects of bad behavior last from one
generation to another effectively denying success to us as a people…
all in the cause of selfish ego-enhancement of and by the mediocre…
and this process is supported by local, state and national governments
and the politically compromised, would-be educators, appointed to
administrative positions.

Madeleine, according to the then Governor, evidently felt she needed

to rid Guam of what she thought was her major competition. She was
mistaken for our aims were not at all the same, although I seemed
unable to keep from pointing out to her, her ridiculous affectations.
However, her efforts to discredit me, included having the then District
Attorney bring in, by the bus loads, students to discover who among
them I had seduced. The grape vine told me that not one, of the 150,
had claimed to have been seduced by me. How awesome! I either had
a bevy of loyal lovers or no lovers at all, from the point of view of the
Attorney General, that is.

In the short run The University of Guam, and Guam as a territory,

probably could not detect the difference between the progress that has
been made, after forty years, and the progress that would have been
made had Madeleine’s selfish political interests not been at stake and
in competition with the more idealistic goals of an academician. Had
she been insightful enough to have made room for differing talents and
motivations rather than having supposed that everyone is motivated
by the same sorts of ambitions as she, Guam might really have turned
into a real beacon of Western thought just a stone’s throw from Hong
Kong.

It would have taken, perhaps, the personality, character and resources

of a John Crosby who established the now internationally famous Santa
Fe Opera in a rocky mountain village in New Mexico, some 7,000’
above sea level to have turned the University of Guam into the beacon
of intellectual and creative insight it might have become. I will say
this, out of respect for the facts as they are, it may be debatable
whether there is any long term benefit to be gained from the
imposition of a more sophisticated culture upon a relatively primitive
rural culture. On the other hand we might also ask whether or not
there is a real difference between peoples, as groups, that might
account for some developing a culture and others simply living the one
they find themselves in.

EDUCATION AND POLITICS –THE IDEAL AND THE POSSIBLE

In any event that episode represents a long-time defeat for Dr. Antonio
C. Yamashita, the then President of The University of Guam, and
everyone else associated with the effort to create a viable educational
environment. In that assessment I include the generations of students
who have subsequently graduated from the University of Guam who
have had their horizons blocked by the limited perceptions of
Madeleine Bordallo That event also represents what at the moment
amounts to basis of the public opinion that Representative Madeleine

Zeien Bordello has done “some good

things for Guam”. Very little has been pointed out that these “good
things” are the results purely of that representative’s limited
perception …and very much defined by that. In this there should be a
lesson for all of us. From this experience I would judge that it is in the
best interest of educational effort for university administrations to act
the role of an effective patron for their faculty and to protectively fence
off from attack faculty members who are particularly susceptible to
manipulations from outside, and very selfish, interests.
A more current example of that is the rather public argument between
Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard and Rodolfo de la Gaza of
Colombia over Huntington’s claim that there is developing in the
United States a “clash of civilizations” in this instance between the
Anglo and the Hispanic.

SCHOLARLY RESEARCH AND POLITICAL AGENDA

When the occasional faculty disagreements reach the attention of the
general public as they recently have in the issue between Samuel
Huntington and de la Garza over Huntington’s published piece “The
Clash of Civilizations” wherein Huntington outlines the cultural
importance of the increase in the Hispanic population through illegal
immigration among other means. Professor Rodolfo de. La Garza has
criticized the research, on the grounds of Huntington not having
referenced opposing opinions, this de la Gaza regarded as
inappropriate even for a student, one, had the student been his, he tells me,
he “would have failed”.

This assertion rather perplexed me since soon after having made that
statement he is scheduled to give a talk at High Point University in
North Carolina on the subject of the Latino creating a political
community. There appears to be some illogic abounding here where on
the one hand de la Gaza criticizes Huntington for outlining a cultural
conflict between the Anglo and the Hispanic and then, on the other,
urges the Hispanic community to organize politically. Such behavior
seems to be fulfilling Huntington’s prognosis.

Such advice as offered by de la Garza may be seen mainly as merely a

tactical threat, most especially in a nation that publicly claims it
eschews racist philosophies, but were the concept to be found
attractive to the mischief maker it would, in its most extreme, be the
end of a democratic society.

There may well be those who feel that in the democratic system as it
has existed for the last century not all races have had their
achievements recognized and to have received a just reward for them.
I would take exception to the claim and may later cite examples, but
even if the claim were true, the suggested solution that programs of
positive action be instigated is, at its very roots, racist….to single out a
specific group for advancement on the basis of its earlier periods of
deprivation and on its racial origins, although I sympathize with the
aims, does severe injury to the discipline in the area of achievement
involved and onerous injury to the general concept of achievement.
One achieves because one is black or Latino and fails because one is
not is an unacceptable solution to historic maltreatment.

It is a form of bread-pudding, made of leftover stale bread soaked in

milk a sop containing no great amount of nourishment and a minimum
of delight. It may fill the stomach for the moment but fails to provide a
memorable experience. As a child, though, I loved bread pudding. As
an adult, I also enjoyed steak.

It may be a difficult fact to accept but changing long standing

standards of excellence takes a great deal of effort, hard work, a
constantly developing and ever sharpened exposition of new insights
and values over the established ones. Without that the victory, if
there is one, is indeed a hollow one and not at all real. That
understanding has some relationship to this present essay. It takes
time to change behavior, it seems, if reason is required and no time at
all, it seems, to subvert it.

For me, the value of the internet is demonstrated by this Huntington/de

la Garza controversy for without it I might never have known about it
except that the Santa Fe New Mexican, a daily, picked the story up
and presumably because of the density of Hispanics in the area
thought it timely. Unfortunately, only de la Garza responded to my
questions, Huntington did not.

Huntington is fortunate , perhaps, to have refrained from answering

questions originating with an individual intimately familiar with views
of what is considered proper academic behavior at Harvard, within and
without the university, and understood his reticence. By and large,
however, it was not a decision consistent with the idealistic goals of
education, and in the present milieu of the fourth estate a response of
“no comment” often misleads the reader.

It would seem that, once again, we are faced with socio-political

problems of some magnitude and the support, either willing, forced, or
contributed ignorantly, of those who give voice to a culture and are
required to smooth the way for those changes desired by others. For
those with a contrary mindset perhaps the benefits of the internet for
the development of educational potential might be looked at more
closely.

ONE APPROACH TO A SOLUTION

Considering all the above mentioned threats to the sanctity of the
educational process to say nothing of the dignity of its institutions, it
occurs to me that the internet may be the most evident solution, and
one readily at hand, to frustrate pressures for behavioral conformity
and for the profession of educator to come into its fill promised
blossom which is to bring out, as a midwife does a child, the emergent
self. The child aught not to be conceived of as a collection of fleshy
molecules that is acquiescent to being pressed into a reading or
mathematical mold, or any other “mold” for that matter.

Now that the technology is at hand that will allow an individual with a
curious mind to seek out its own appropriate expression let those of us
who exist at some point along that continuum of sophistication lay out
our contribution to the banquet through the internet.

One of the more focused criticisms of existing internet educational

programs is that they have not used its technical flexibility and the
physical remoteness it encourages to the advantage of the learning
process, but has merely transposed what takes place in the traditional
classroom to film, tape or electronic impulse and the more immediately
personal interests of the students in the subject are held at even
greater remove.

The concerns of the individual student in aspects of the material being

taught are submerged in a class room of 30-70 or more and if any
questions are encouraged, or even allowed, they must, out of
consideration for the group’s interest be limited in scope and very
factual in nature. All fascinating nuance is vacuumed from any teacher
student interaction.

The e-mail, on the other hand, maintains the proper physical distance
but allows for as detailed expression as those involved wish to give. It
is a form of private tuition but it is superior to private home lessons
because all other attendant environmental or physical concerns no
longer play a role. Either participant can do what needs to be done in
pajamas and slippers. The student is not bound by a class scheduled
meeting time and place and neither is the instructor, but most
important of all is that the student’s question can receive a highly
detailed response from the mentor that, in a class room, others might
have little concern. Tuition fees and the structure for paying them are
largely already set up and in use by retailers and service providers.

A student desiring a degree from a particular institution may seek the

opportunity to be tested on his command of the subject as part of the
process of applying for advanced course credit.

In the final analysis one should achieve an enriched product

IMPLICATIONS OF OUTSOURCED INSTRUCTION

The most immediate result of outsourcing instruction would, I believe,

be a marked increase in the exercise of flexible thinking brought about
by the increased focus by both instructor and student on individual
concerns and a decrease in the number of responses by students
which mainly reflect the very generalized responses acceptable in
most classrooms. The key to understanding
The importance of this conclusion lies in the underlined words,
“flexible” and “generalized”. Where “flexible thinking” encourages a
search for knowledge, a
Generalized, or politically correct, response is an expression of
minimum satisfaction unacceptable in an educated person.

I could continue, but I shall not, enough is enough already.

Paul Henrickson