After about a year of taking online courses I have to wonder what exactly I am learning and why colleges bother to hire professors.

In all the classes I am taking the curriculum is based on whatever textbook is chosen as appropriate for the course. In the case of the college I am going to (which is in most respects a traditional “students attend in person” college) the college has taken the idea of choosing texts one step further and have chosen a publisher to provide the courses of study taught at the college. So in effect is not the publisher of the texts then the professors at the college? Are not the authors of the text the experts that should be teaching the classes that I want to attend?

As it stands, the professors at the college present students with a text, they read from the text and supposedly create assignments and projects based on the text. However, the assignments could indeed be created by the text authors, projects put together by the publishers, and finally all the quizzes and exams written by the publishers and authors. If this is the case, why are we bothering to hire professors? What exactly do they bring to the learning experience that is not already provided by the text authors and publishers?

It was always my understanding that colleges were places of higher learning. I thought higher learning was something more creative than just reading a book and parroting the facts back. So where is that creative higher learning? I want to be there; I want to think about things that are new and cutting edge. I thought that professors were people who invoked original thought from their students? I thought college and professors passed on ideas that may not be published, examined, determined, judged, argued, written down, scrutinized, re-examined in various editions, judged again and finally just accepted. Isn’t there supposed to be an original thought somewhere? Weren’t professors the gardeners of human knowledge? Weren’t students supposed to be the fertile soil tended by professors in which new ideas grew? Where is that? What if the texts are wrong?

Seriously, with the current teaching in college you might as well get high school teachers to teach the subjects. There is no point in paying professors with letters behind their names if they are not going to teach something other than what is written in the textbooks. After all, is that not why you hired the professor with letters after their names in the first place, to teach something new, to bring a new perspective to the subject, a fresh way of looking at something, to explore their ideas and promote “higher learning”?

Recently I asked the following question to my “online professors”:

Please forgive the perceived sarcasm, but I have been taking online classes now for a year and it seems that there is very little “taught” in these classes that you could not get by buying the book, reading it and doing the review. So, what is it that you, as a professor, offer me in terms of value add to this course of education aside from accreditations?

Not one of the professors could answer this question. The least answer I was expecting was “guidance” or ‘expertise”; but even these answers did not arrive. This is interesting when you think about it. I am taking classes to get my BA in Secondary Education with an emphasis in computer programming and fine arts and I have already thought about this question and I know what I would answer if this question were asked of me. My answer:

I hope to bring to the student a new and fresh way of looking at a subject beyond what may be written in any textbook. I bring years of experience in the business world and an understanding of what may be expected in a career in programming or fine arts that is just not written about in any text. I have analytical skills that help me to understand what it is you need to learn better and more fully. My goal is to give you the student tools that you can use and be successful with. Hopefully my experience and ways of understanding things can help you. I am here to help you be successful and creative.

I think my answer is pretty good. I think that when a student eventually asks me that question he/she will be happy with my answer. I think at that point my having letters behind my name is not proof that I read the books, but rather, a signal that I have added to the world in some way and this is recognized with degrees. I hope to inspire new minds and tend to new ideas encouraging them to grow.

Right now I have to go back to work and read more textbooks and not really learn anything at all, just dedicate to memory information that will be forgotten about 5 minutes after the exam that must be taken in order to get my credits for the degree that will be earned on information that is fugitive and really not needed for anything that I will be doing in the future.

Someone hand me a #2 pencil.