by David Lloyd
Thirteen years ago I woke up and decided that I needed to change my life’s path and become “educated.” Three universities and thirteen years later, I find myself still trying to find that elusive wall hanging that I hope will prove my intellect.
I grew up in a little farm town in Idaho and, although my life there had many good points, it certainly did not place “getting a college education” anywhere near the top of my to-do list. As a child of a working class father, I was a little bothered when I heard someone refer to another as being “uneducated.” The idea of any human being simply surviving life without being educated seemed rather unlikely to me. From my perspective, many of us too often misuse the term “educated.”
If you were asked what it meant to be educated, what would you say? What constitutes an education anyway? Can people who live and breathe on this crazy spinning globe really be uneducated? I believe that life has a way of forcing some sort of education upon even the most unwilling of students. As John Dewey rightly said, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” (Dewey)
We are often convinced that education starts on the day we walk into that first classroom. In reality our education started the moment that we took our first breath; some would argue it was even before that. My father often claimed that he was a student of the School of Hard Knocks, that life was his teacher, and his “lessons learned” were gained, at least in part, through the pain he found there. Yes, my father is one of those that many would consider to be “uneducated.” However, regardless of his “uneducated” status, he taught me an incredible amount. There is no doubt that he could use a bit of refinement, and even he would agree that a college education would have improved his life. However, for my father and many others like him, that college education or the degree that would hopefully come with it, was seemingly out of reach.
I am certain that many would argue that anyone who wants an education badly enough can obtain it, and that may be true. However the credentials, so often needed, to prove our educated status are much harder to come by. Perhaps it’s time to start finding and promoting ways to make gaining those credentials a little more feasible. Perhaps it’s time that we begin to see our task as educators just a little differently. Many universities are already recognizing and accrediting the educational value of life itself. Some institutions are promoting the use of options like CLEP and Prior Learning Assessment to facilitate accelerated degrees for adult learners.
CLEP is available here at the University of West Georgia, and I am proud to be part of an institution that is working towards making such assessments more available. We even offer Prior Learning Assessment options (PLAs), although this is primarily advertised to our military students ("Military Options"). As UWG continues working to achieve the goals of Complete College Georgia (CCG) and its outcome-based funding model, increasing and promoting these options is certainly in our best interest. Collegeboard.org has some suggestions for ways we can do that. (College Board) We need to take a closer look at what we require from our students, of all ages, in order to obtain that much-needed degree. I believe it’s time to look at the path to gaining that accredited education differently. To produce the graduates that CCG is predicting will be needed in the near future, we must stop doing things “because they have always been done that way.” Students must be allowed to move more rapidly than trudging the slow painful path that many of us have taken.
Recently, Dr. Micheal Crafton created a focus group here at UWG to consider the future of education, specifically higher education. It is my understanding the group will focus on what education should look like in 15 years. I believe that our current education process has admitted flaws and probably many more that only a few would be willing to admit. After all, if you admit something is broken, you are often given the task of fixing it.
In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, Eric Schmidt, the pioneering chairman of Google, said, "Innovation never comes from the established institutions; it's always a graduate student or a crazy person or somebody with a great vision." (McGregor) Of course, for those of us who have dedicated our lives to those established institutions, that statement may sting a little. However, regardless of the sting, there is surely a measure of truth in the words. I often hear educators refer to the educational system as a massive ship, rarely seen as being great, or even good, at changing its path.
As we look to the future, I believe it’s time for an established institution to prove Eric Schmidt wrong, and I believe the University of West Georgia can be the institution to do that.
David Lloyd is the faculty development coordinator and emerging technologies specialist for UWG Online.
