Bitching #3 Self-directed learning

The idea of self-directed learning has always baffled me. If learning is truly self-directed, then why are there physical establishments that dictate your learning schedule and forces specific literature onto you? Why not make everything online, with a test at specific intervals to evaluate your understanding of the material? The answer lies in, shockingly, money. If all universities adopt this business model, the student will be able to save on transportation fees, book fees, hell even the basic money needed to buy pens and paper. The only thing that anyone would need is a computer. Furthermore, there is also an issue with legitimacy. Just like pirating, such curriculums can just be copy-and-pasted to be freely distributed – no one will have to pay for it. So since it’s not a viable option for the evolution of education, why call it self-directed learning since well everything about it is arbitrary and the only real control students have over their curriculum comes down to the basic “do or die”. If you follow everything and do everything as required, you will pass and maybe even excel in it, if you don’t you fail. Self-directed learning, or rather the phrase itself, just seemed like roundabout way of saying “we don’t really know how to teach this subject, so there, if you fail it’s your fault, if you succeed, it’s our meticulous plan to make you want to learn”.

So… If you’re in a position to make changes in the structure of the classes taught in any establishment that passes on knowledge to the paying masses, please consider just spending the time to actually teach, rather than throw useless information at your students and make it sound justifiable.