Bias Incident takes no prisoners in lampooning our country’s higher education system.
There’s a good reason for this. For many, if not most, students a bachelor’s degree is a horrible idea.
Charles Murray, he of the article linked in the previous paragraph has proposed a series of certifications that employers could use to determine the skill level of their employees as an alternative to the phoney-baloney bachelor’s degree, which tells employers exactly nothing about one’s qualifications in most non-math, non-science and non-engineering subjects.
Educational upstarts across the Web are adopting systems of “badges” to certify skills and abilities. If scouting focuses on outdoorsy skills like tying knots, these badges denote areas employers might look for, like mentorship or digital video editing. Many of the new digital badges are easy to attain—intentionally so—to keep students motivated, while others signal mastery of fine-grained skills that are not formally recognized in a traditional classroom.
At the free online-education provider Khan Academy, for instance, students get a “Great Listener” badge for watching 30 minutes of videos from its collection of thousands of short educational clips. With enough of those badges, paired with badges earned for passing standardized tests administered on the site, users can earn the distinction of “Master of Algebra” or other “Challenge Patches.”
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Employers might prefer a world of badges to the current system. After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned. Students using Mozilla’s proposed badge system might display dozens or even hundreds of merit badges on their online résumés detailing what they studied. And students could start showing off the badges as they earn them, rather than waiting four years to earn a diploma.
“We have to question the tyranny of the degree,” says David Wiley, an associate professor of instructional psychology and technology at Brigham Young University. Mr. Wiley is an outspoken advocate of so-called open education, and he imagines a future where screenfuls of badges from free or low-cost institutions, perhaps mixed with a course or two from a traditional college, replace the need for setting foot on a campus. “As soon as big employers everywhere start accepting these new credentials, either singly or in bundles, the gig is up completely.”
Imagine a future with no student loan debt, no more political correctness, no more degrees in useless fluff and a future of real learning instead of overpriced four-year parties (nothing against parties, but at the price that most universities are charging, young people could have much better parties at much lower cost).
This is such a fantastic idea that it is certain to be shot down by the courts in short order due to it being racist, sexist or homophobic. Why a system of badges earned for demonstrating mastery of a specific academic skill would be considered bigoted is anybody’s guess, but I’m sure our robed spoilsports will figure out a way (probably having something to do with “disparate impact” or some other nonsensical fig leaf).
Naturally, the idea already has its critics.
Some observers see a darker side, though, charging that badges turn all learning into a commodity, and thus cheapen the difficult challenge of mastering something new. Rather than dive into an assignment out of curiosity, many students might focus on an endless pursuit of badges, argues Alex Reid, an associate professor of English at the University at Buffalo. “The presence of a badge could actually be a detriment to an otherwise genuine learning experience,” he wrote on his blog earlier this year.
But in an interview, he agreed that in today’s tough job market, people are searching for alternatives that better reflect the range of their qualifications.
Note that the critic is an English professor. ’nuff said.
Of course, I’m probably biased in favor of a system of badges because I am, as of this writing the proud owner of 564, count ‘em 564 Khan Academy badges, and I’m eagerly working my way towards a pair of “legendary and unknown” Black Hole badges. In achieving these badges, I’ve learned more mathematics in the last three months than I have in my entire educational career.
Here’s to hoping that this could, somehow, be a part of our nation’s future.
