Interesting take. I agree that the transfer of knowledge can happen faster than in a traditional classroom. I also think that college isn’t about only the transfer of knowledge….it’s also about working in teams, getting to know and having to work with people from backgrounds different from your own. And there are some areas of study that would be difficult or impossible to do remotely — theater and engineering, chemistry or physics labs, for example.
While the transfer of knowledge is the single most important thing, there’s more to college than just book learning.
We’re in wholehearted agreement with the middle point about learning tracks, The issue is they’re about impossible to implement from a political standpoint. You can, however, implement them in fact, if not in name.
I went to Tuscaloosa High School in the mid to late 1970s. Big school with almost 2,000 students. My graduating class was almost 600. This was before AP classes even existed, but we had Latin, Calculus, Chemistry, Physics, etc., etc. I even took a class called Comparative Anatomy (no, it had nothing to do with sex ed….get your mind out of the gutter) where we dissected animals of increasing complexity to understand what actually constitutes higher level development, and why.
The thing is, they were offered to everyone, but the students effectively put themselves on tracks — you saw the same kids in all of the harder classes, and very few not in the “academic” group.
Point of all that being, I think you can implement learning tracks without having that formal structure in place — you just have to offer the tough classes and not compromise on academic rigor. The kids will put themselves in tracks.
Regarding apprenticeships, we may be headed in that direction already. Lots of emphasis on internships (kinda sorta apprenticeship), and working in industry for class credit — lots of that kind of thing at the Mercedes plant outside of Tuscaloosa.
Good discussion.
