It seems to me that most of you are writing as if students are not likely to read your comment. Well, hi, I just graduated (from a UK university) this year.

I kind of agree with Richard (Sharpe). Bachelors, at least, have been devalued. Now students need more qualifications (costing more money) to be qualified. With a First (I don’t know what the system is in the US or elsewhere, but that’s the top grade in UK) I didn’t even get invited to an interview for my first 3 non-ambitious job applications.
But I’m lucky, my family and my savings can support me until I get a job. As for my fellow classmates… one couldn’t pay his rent and had to apply for hardship funds (v. difficult) because his mother couldn’t support him at all, but he didn’t consider himself a victim. Everyone I knew on my course was forced to live with many others in rubbish accommodation in one of the poorest parts of the city. To add salt to the wound, at the end of it employers won’t take their degrees seriously (and they’ll have debt to pay off). *That’s* something to whine about.

To make it worse, top-up fees came into effect a few years back; brought in by people who got degrees for free plus extra bonuses. What’s worse - breaking the rungs of the ladder after you’ve climbed it or biting the hand that feeds you?

But anyway, I think many of us are missing Ken’s point - are we not all turning into helpless victims whining about the whines made by other victims??

I hear too much about how degrees, A levels (in UK) etc are becoming easier and easier and I hear practically no good suggestions of an alternative arrangement. But I guess raising the issue is a start.

p.s - all my tutors know my name (because I went to a ‘crap’ university by some standards), but until recently they didn’t know I was learning Chinese - now I’m known as the student who ‘hides her light under a bushel’.

Sorry for the late reaction, had been away from this site for a while.

Admitedly a pet peeve is an opinion, but I would have said a pet peeve is more strongly felt, somewhere between passing comment and personal crusade.

I agree with the outline of the argumetn and narrative you put forth, only I would have said “*aula lectures* are 19th century” which it seems to me changes the focus quite a bit.

Levi-Srauss once said that words are tools you can assign any meaning you choose, just agree upon it before you use them. That’s what this video (willingly?) fails to do, hence this phenomenon where many of the people on this thread seem to be taking about linked but different topics a lot of the time.

http://www.immaculatemachine.com/home.php

It seems to me that there are many people in Universities today who should not be there. They are at University because they have been indoctrinated that a degree is the only way to advance themselves, and because many other sources of qualifications, like trade-schools, have been closed down in the west. A side-effect is that to cater for these people, university educations get dumbed down, so degrees are no longer worth what they were and employers looking for technical and knowledge worker staff have to carefully screen candidates (I’m pissed at the amount of work we have to do to find a good developer in our team).

So, these people (who probably should not be at University) distract themselves with the cool, cheap gadgets that they can easily get but which are created by other people. Oh well. In fifty years maybe we will move back to the more useful approach that we used around fifty years ago.

Anyone expressing an opinion about something says something about himself, about how he reacts to that something. That does not mean that these opinions and reactions are not relevant to the something being observed.

In fact the video had a clear narrative and argument.

“University is 19th century. Students are disconnected from it. They are distracted by their social games (facebook, text messaging etc.) and looking for some set of values or fashionable causes to grab on to. The person who organized the video is very 21st century.”

And what is the difference between an opinion and a pet peeve in your opinion?

Why is it that every time I see piece bemoaning the rise in technology within the educational system, there’s a traditional learning academic behind it? Look, I’m not saying everything technological is great, but if you’re going to rip off a cheesy ten-year old telecom tv commercial to make your argument, I’m not impressed.

(Yawn) Wow. All that, like, politics stuff made me tired. What time’s that keg party tonight?

Chinese pod versus a college language class…where is the motivation greater?

On the other hand, my experience is that when we allow students to take responsibility for their own learning, they become extremely creative and motivated. I am amazed at some of their learning strategies and how much they actually progress. So, despite the coded message of Wesch’s video, as Ken observes, when we empower students they end up shining!

I hope your Monday gets better Tom!