Technology is not education

Much of the fondest and most enjoyable moments of campus life during my college years were those spent outside the classroom. Those were the times spent in extracurricular activities just hanging out with friends in the different areas of the campus like the canteen or empty classrooms or the different eating places just outside the campus. The most popular in my school during that time for snacks and inexpensive lunches was a place called Archers’ Nook. I may not remember what our laboratories look like, but I will never forget this popular hangout. Outside the campus, I remember the parties, college fairs and the soirees.

Those experiences are not available now. Most university teaching has moved online and parties are banned. In-person events are now frowned upon for health purposes. According to the Financial Times: “Across the world, coronavirus has fundamentally changed the student experience. It has cut away at the freedom, serendipity and physical closeness of campus life. It has also reinvigorated the debate about what universities should offer to whom.”

I listen to all the debates and learning sessions on how to lecture and present lessons online. I can recall who were my favorite professors. Offhand I cannot recall any lectures they gave to our class. They were great teachers because they somehow found a way of creating an indelible impression on our young minds. It was not their lectures. It was the way they made us want to learn more; and they taught us how to think and created a desire to become the “complete man.”

I remember one of my favorite professors telling me that “teaching is, to a large part, theater.” While lecturing, he would walk back and forth in front of the class; and then would walk among the seated students. Instead of simply asking questions, he would engage the students in a discussion as individuals or as a class. While lecturing, the tone and volume of his voice would vary. He was able to spot any student whose attention was drifting away; and would call their attention right away. I remember his image as a teacher and how he motivated us to start reading literary works. This was Brother Andrew Gonzalez FSC.

As a teacher, I read about teaching practices that would enrich the learning experience in my classes which go beyond the lectures and the required readings. For example, I read that in the law and MBA programs of Harvard University, during recitations students who fail to give the correct answer will stay standing up until someone finally gives the correct answer. This was an incentive to study harder and prepare for recitations. This also made the persons who gave the correct answers the status of class heroes.

According to Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think tank in the United Kingdom: “Learning is a social act. People want to learn alongside human beings and they want the validation of other human beings.”

Most educators now pay public allegiance to the maxim that the goal of education should be to develop critical thinking; but I feel that most institutions do not try to develop teachers who are well versed in this area of teaching. Instead, the focus now is on technology.

The “Socratic method” is a form of argumentative dialogue between individuals based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. It is named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. If there is going to be online learning, it must be able to find a way to still use the Socratic method. This is the only way that will develop in students the desire and ability for critical thinking.

Any online learning that is geared towards giving of information is already obsolescent no matter how sophisticated is the technology.

The biggest question for educational institutions now is – how can we prepare our children for a world of such unprecedented transformations and radical uncertainties? A five-year-old child entering school for the first time this year will only be 35 in the year 2050. What should we teach that child that will help her or him survive and flourish in the year 2050 or even possibly the 22nd century?

Nobody knows what the world will look like in 2050 and beyond. For example, it has now become fashionable and popular to learn certain foreign languages. By 2050, it is possible that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can code software better than humans. A new Google Translate app can enable a person to conduct a conversation in flawless Mandarin, Japanese or French.

Educators will always have technology to be used as tools; but only as tools. Decades from now students will not remember the apps they used when they went to college. It may already be obsolete by then. The students will still remember the teachers who inspired them and led them on the path to critical thinking and to fall in love with books and learning.

I hope that this complete dependence on technology is only temporary and we can return to “normal” when the pandemic is gone.

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An invitation to online writing classes: Young Writers’ Hangout, Nov. 21, 2-3 pm. with Rin Chupeco.

Adult Series on Writing Human Interest Stories, Nov. 28,  2-3:30 pm with Paulynn P. Sicam.

Contact [email protected]. 0945.2273216

Email: [email protected]