Tag Archives: Education

Automatic Grading

Posted by on April 12, 2013 15 comments

When I learned that EdX had developed software that would instantly grade written work, my first reaction was one of skepticism. After all, while

The Turing Test (Doctor Who)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

spell-checkers work well and grammar checkers work sort of well, it seems unlikely that software could properly evaluate written work. My second reaction was that of hope-after all, I grind through hundreds of papers each year and automating that task would make my job much easier. This lead to my third reaction, namely worry regarding the implications of such software.

While my knowledge of programming is mostly obsolete, I do know enough about artificial intelligence to know that the current technology is most likely not up to the task of properly grading written work such as essays. After all, while checking such things as spelling and grammar can be automated relatively easily, properly assessing a written work would seem to require robust language comprehension-something that existing artificial intelligence can not do. Interestingly, in a letter about animals, Descartes argues that purely mechanical systems cannot engage in true language. While he was writing about animals, his view also applied to automatons and would now apply to computers. While Descartes might be proven wrong someday, I would suspect that day has yet to arrive.

Of course, it would be foolish of me to take my view to be certain. After all, I am not an expert on artificial intelligence and perhaps EdX has made an exceptional break through in the field. Naturally, the rational approach is to consider what the experts have to say about the matter and to consider the available evidence.

One expert who has been critical of such software is Les Perelman. In a detailed paper, he does a careful analysis of the effectiveness of the grading software. While the paper is somewhat technical, it does make a compelling case against the claim that such grading software is effective. In any case, readers can review the paper and assess his reasoning and evidence. Perelman is also well known for crafting nonsense that receives high marks from grading software. That this occurs is hardly surprising. After all, the grading software is obviously not actually capable of comprehending the essay-it is merely running it through a series of programmed evaluations and someone who knows how specific software works can create nonsense essays that a human reader would recognize as nonsense yet pass the programmed evaluations with flying colors. This sort of thing could be seen as a variation on the Turing test: being able to properly grade a written essay and distinguish it from cleverly crafted nonsense would be a passing mark for the software/hardware.

In regards to the matter of hope, the idea of automatic essay grading is appealing. Like many professors at teaching schools, I grade hundreds of essays each year. Unlike many professors, I get the graded work back to the students within a few days.  In most cases, I am sad to say, students merely look at the grade and ignore the feedback and comments. As such, an automatic grader would reduce my workload dramatically, allowing me more time to handle my usual 6-9 committees, being the unit facilitator and so on.

Also, I believe the software might encourage students to write more drafts. My students have to wait about 15-30 minutes for me to review a draft during my office hours or as long as a day if they drop the paper off at the end of the day. But, if a student could get instant feedback, they would have more time to revise the paper and hence might be more likely to do so. Or perhaps not.

As might be imagined, not all professors have my rapid turnaround time on drafts and papers (my students alway seem shocked when they get their work back so quickly). In such cases, automatic grading would be even more useful-rather than waiting days, weeks or even months a student could get instant feedback. There is also the fact that some professors do not provide any feedback beyond a grade on the work. If the software provide more than that, it could be rather useful to the students. There is also the practical point that even not-so-great software could still be better than the evaluation provided by some professors.

Of course, the usefulness of the software is contingent on how well it actually works. If it can be gamed by nonsense or does not actually assess the essays properly, then it would be little more than a gimmick. That said, even if it was limited in functionality, it could still prove useful. For example, I already use Blackboard’s Safeassign to check papers for plagiarism. While it does yield false positives and can miss some cases of plagiarism, it is still a useful tool. As such, the grading software might also serve as a useful tool for drafts and for a preliminary evaluation. However, I am still skeptical about the ability of software to assess written work properly.

My final response was concern about the implications of the software. While it might be suspected that I would be worried that such software could put me out of a job, that is not my main worry. While I would obviously not want to be unemployed because I was replaced by some code, I am well aware of the nature of technological advance and that automation can make certain jobs obsolete. If a program could do my job as well as me, it would be unreasonable of me to insist that I be kept on the payroll just because firing me would be bad for me personally. After all, the university is not there to give me a job.

My main concern is not that I would be replaced by an automatic equivalent or better (that is being replaced because the task no longer requires a human), my main concern is that I would be replaced by something inferior for the main purpose of saving money. In more general terms, my worry is not that progress will make the professorship obsolete, but that the grading software will be used to cut costs by providing students with something inferior (most likely without informing students of this fact).

It might be countered that such grading software could be combined with the massive online courses and thus produce fully automated education factories that could provide education to people who could otherwise not afford it. To use an analogy, the old model for universities would be a fine (or less fine) restaurant with chefs and the new model would be the fast food joint with food technicians.

I will admit that this does have considerable appeal. After all, bringing education to people at a low cost would have numerous advantages, such as allowing people who could otherwise not afford education to be able to acquire it.

Of course, there is still the obvious concern that the software would be used to sell an inferior product at the price of the premium product and also the concern that education could become a degree mill in which students just click their way to a diploma.

Having been in higher education for quite some time I can attest to the desire to make education more like a business. Being able to automate education like a factory would certainly be appealing to some (such as certain politicians and the folks who would sell or license the software and hardware). As might be expected, while I do believe that certain things can be automated (like grading T/F tests), education does not seem well suited to the factory model.

Another obvious concern is that automated education might not democratize education by allowing everyone low-cost access to higher education. It might very well create an even more extreme inequality than exists today. That is, the premier institutions would have human professors providing high quality education while the other schools, such as state schools, would have automated classes providing education to the masses.  While this sounds like a science-fiction scenario, it is actually well within the realm of possibility. I can attest, from my own experience, the push to standardize and automate education and the education factory is not many steps away from the model being strongly pushed today. This is not to say that the education factory will arrive soon or even at all. But it is likely enough that it is worth being concerned about.

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MOOCs

Posted by on January 10, 2013 12 comments
MOOC Crib

MOOC Crib (Photo credit: snowpup5)

Thanks to games like World of Warcraft, many people are familiar with MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games). However, people are probably somewhat less familiar with MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).

While MOOCs vary considerably, the name provides their basic features. First, they are massive (or potentially so). This means that such a course can support an indefinite number of students. This is in obvious contrast to the traditional classroom which is limited by the size of the room and even with the now traditional online classes which are typically limited in size because they are taught by one (or a few) teachers.

Second, they are open. This is in contrast with the traditional closed course which is available only to students registered at a specific school. Currently, the MOOCs are operating on a free model as well—that is, students do not pay to take such classes. However, the monetization of MOOCs is certainly inevitable.

Third, they are online. This also typically involves a high degree of automation for the course. In most cases, a MOOC is pre-packaged course without interaction with an actual teacher.

Finally, they are courses—that is, they are aimed at teaching people something. The best known MOOCs, those offered by Coursera, are college classes. However, they could be classes at any level. Currently MOOCs do not provide college credit, but there are plans to change this—most likely as part of the monetization process.

Obviously, MOOCs do have some clear positive features. Since they are massive, they can support a large number of students, thus making the courses more widely available. Since they are open, the classes are available to anyone who can access a computer, thus making them available to people who might not otherwise be able to afford college classes.

As might be imagined, I find these aspects of MOOCs very appealing and consistent with my own view of broad education. After all, I have made my work on fallacies freely available for almost two decades and I have various (admittedly lame) educational videos on YouTube. However, as a professor I have some concerns about the future of MOOCs.

As noted above, it is a matter of time before MOOCs are monetized. In general, I have no problem with this—after all, I work for money and sell books via Amazon. Heck, I’d probably get involved with a reputable MOOC service. My main concern, then, is not that MOOCs will go from open to being monetized. Rather, my concern is what impact they could have on the quality of education.

Having been in education for a while, I am well aware of the business-model push to minimize costs in education. Before the web, there was (and still is) a push to have classes as large as possible—in my case, I am paid the same whether my class is a mere 35 students or a ridiculous 75 students. The web merely allows this to be taken to an even greater extreme, since it is not limited by the size of a physical classroom. With truly massive online courses, a single professor could supply an education product to thousands of students. There are, of course, some obvious concerns here. One is the workload of a professor responsible for a massive class. Another is the quality of education in such a diluted learning environment, even if the main professor is supported by graduate students or staff.

Of course, greater savings can be had by eliminating the professor entirely. That is, the class can (as MOOCs typically are now) be a pre-packaged learning product that the students click through, without any actual teacher. While a professor or other professional would be needed to design and create the course content and assessment material, this could be done once (like a book) and updated from time to time. Thus, rather than paying a professor for each semester, a professor could be paid to put himself (and others) out of a teaching job.  No doubt, some star professors (like star authors) would make good money off the courses they created. However, it would probably not be very good for most faculty.

Naturally, if the MOOC is for credit, there would be a need to grade the work of the students. Much of this can be done, obviously enough, by the use of software. True/false tests and their ilk can easily be graded automatically. Papers, lab reports and so on would still require a human grader. However, just as graduate students are currently used as grading machines, they could be employed (at vastly lower pay than professors) to grade such work. Others could also be hired solely as graders, perhaps paid like migrant farmers in terms of the volume of their work—so much per page graded, perhaps. Outsourcing would also be an obvious approach here—just as students talk to a person in India for support for their software, their papers would be graded there as well, perhaps by the same person.

This would be a dream come true for some: the arrival of the industrial revolution in education in which the labor of a person (the professor) is replaced by a vastly more efficient mechanized (or rather computerized) education machine. Students simply pay their money, log in and click their way to a degree at minimal cost to the university or college. At long last the knowledge factory would be a true factory.

For those who would profit from such a system, it obviously has incredible appeal. A college could now operate like a true business, largely unburdened by costly and often troublesome professors. It could also be advantageous for students: they might pay significantly less for their education and be able to complete it faster than they could via the traditional means of education (or even via normal online classes).

There is, however, a point of great concern: would a MOOC be an adequate substitute for the traditional class or even the traditional online class? That is, would students have the same quality of education?

Honesty compels me to admit that when it comes to classes that are traditionally taught as massive lectures there would probably be little difference. In fact, a well done MOOC might actually be superior to the education acquired by sitting in a lecture hall with 800 other students, watching a professor up on stage. As such, such massive service classes could be reasonably replaced by MOOCs.

Obviously, some classes would not work as pure MOOCs, such as classes that require actual lab work, dissections or other such things that require a physical presence. Of course, a college could simply have labs run by low paid staff members with everything else being done via the MOOC.

However, there seem to be many classes that would lose a great deal of educational quality without the sort of interaction that having an actual teacher would provide. To use an obvious analogy, while clicking about on a web site to diagnose an illness can be a good start, at some point a person should probably see an actual doctor.  Likewise, clicking through an automated class can be a good start, but at some point one should probably interact with an actual educator.

Of course, there is still the question of whether or not having the real thing (a doctor or professor) is worth the price. This is a matter that should be seriously considered. Of course, if we take the approach of replacing people whenever they can be replaced by automation, at some point we would replace everyone—even the administrators, shareholders and students.  But perhaps the ultimate dream is to have a completely automated system: machines teaching machines and money automatically multiplied in automated banks with no humans left in the process at all. More seriously, the challenge, then, is deciding when the automation is not worth the price.

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My Teaching Philosophy

Posted by on October 12, 2012 No comments
education

education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Teaching involves numerous general challenges and teaching philosophy involves some special challenges. Two of these challenges often manifest themselves in two stereotypical types of students. The first is dogmatic student who regards his or her own beliefs as sacrosanct and competing beliefs as unworthy of consideration. The second is the student who regards philosophy as a matter of mere opinion and hence as being useless.  Not surprisingly, dealing with the challenges has helped shape my teaching philosophy.

In the case of dogmatic students, it is often tempting to dismiss them as close minded and teach around them rather than trying to engage them. But, this is a mistake. In many cases dogmatic students can be reached by showing them that philosophy is not in the business of destroying beliefs or forcing people to convert to a specific view, such as atheism. In many cases, if a student can be shown that philosophy is about exploring beliefs they can be lead away from their dogmatism and to developing reasons in support of what they sincerely believe. Further, by exposing them to other views and their supporting arguments, they can begin to understand why other people might have different beliefs and this can help them become intellectually tolerant in cases where such tolerance is warranted.

Students who believe philosophy is merely a matter of bickering about useless opinions pose a different challenge.  I address this by showing that while philosophy begins with opinions it progresses into arguments and these are not just a matter of opinion. I also show the students the historical contributions of philosophy and then go on to show them how philosophy can be useful in what they regard as their real life. For example, students are often surprised to learn that epistemology has relevance for the legal system in terms of assessing evidence and what it means to establish a claim as being beyond reasonable doubt.

While my approach to teaching has been shaped by the two challenges just discussed, it has also been shaped by various negative experiences I have had as a student and as a teaching assistant. Perhaps the most negative and hence most shaping experiences involved students being left largely in the dark in regards to such important matters as the goals of the class, what the class would cover, the way grades would be calculated and how the written assignments should be done. Such situations made me feel like I was on a derelict vessel adrift in a sea of confusion. Naturally, this was not a good feeling. One of my most painful memories as a teaching assistant was having several students break down in tears during my office hours because they had no idea what the professor was doing or what he wanted for them. Sadly, I did not know either and I could only tell them that I would do all I could to see that they were graded fairly. These sorts of experiences lead me to ensure that my classes have clear objectives, stated and fair means of assessment and an overall plan. The students might consider it something of a strange trip, but they can be confident that the ship is on course and that the captain knows what he is doing.

I consider the writing of argumentative papers a key part of the philosophical education. After all, an essential part of philosophy is being able to present both rational defenses and rational criticisms. Based on the experiences mentioned above, I believe that students need to have a clear idea about what they are expected to do in such papers. Hence, I provide highly detailed paper guides that include extensive hints, careful details and even sample papers. I have found that, in general, the students greatly appreciate this. One potential risk I have considered is that the students might be too constrained by such detailed guides. However, I think my approach is justified by using and analogy to driving a car. A student needs to learn how to drive within limits before they can fully strike out on their own. Letting a student just set out on the road without any guides might be a learning experience, but it is more likely to teach them what it feels like to crash into  a telephone pole than it is to teach them how to drive properly. The same can be said of writing papers (without the actual crashing into a telephone pole, of course).

My positive experiences also shaped my view of teaching. Like many professors, I have had caring and excellent professors who made my education a positive experience. From these professors I learned that it is crucial to provide students with the extras that show one is concerned. Some of these extras are things directly related to education, such as downloadable class notes and downloadable practice tests. Some of these extras are not directly related to education, but are part of being a thoughtful person-such as my tradition of bringing candy to my classes on Halloween. The students sometimes laugh a bit at this, but the candy bags are always empty at the end of the day.

While it might seem a bit odd, my experiences as a long distance runner and a martial artist have had a profound effect on my approach to teaching.

Teaching philosophy is very much like teaching Tae Kwon Do. In the case of Tae Kwon Do people must be trained to defend themselves and practicing it develops both physical and mental fitness. While the practice of 21st century philosophy does not develop physical fitness, it does develop mental fitness. It can teach the students confidence and the ability to engage in intellectual self-defense. But, as with Tae Kwon Do, students must learn to practice control and respect for others. As with Tae Kwon Do sparring, there is always the possibility that people might lose their tempers while arguing and harm one another. As a teacher, one must guide the students so they learn to handle challenges, but at the same time ensure that no one is actually harmed.

When it comes to running you must train regularly and push yourself. If you do not, you get out of shape, grow weak and certainly do not improve. Just as with running, it is rather easy to start taking it easy when teaching. Just as with running, the consequences are equally serious. I know that if I do not keep up in my training for teaching, then my actually teaching will become rather poor. Because of this I regularly update my classes, use up-to-date examples and make sure that I am in good mental and physical condition for the classroom. While, unlike running, there are generally no trophies to win in teaching, a similar motivation is provided by the satisfaction of doing well and the shame of doing poorly.

Speaking of trophies, the rewards of teaching are manifold. Many people value making large life changing differences in their students’ lives. While I value doing that, it is usually the little things that matter most: having a student smile and say “I finally get the concept of validity” or getting a card from a student who says that although she thought my class was “a bit silly” what she learned is now helping her in law school. Often it is the many little things that make it all worthwhile. Of course, the big things are nice, too.

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Migrant Professors

Posted by on September 17, 2012 10 comments

 

This image was selected as a picture of the we...

(Photo credit: Dorothea Lange)

Many years ago I was running with a friend of mine who is also a professor. We were talking about the fact that university faculty in the Florida state system generally have nine month contracts and hence are effectively unemployed in the summer. We also talked about how the adjunct faculty had it far worse: they tend to work on a course by course basis and have no job security beyond the need to have them teach classes. My friend said that this was somewhat like being migrant workers— working part time and moving from job to job without any security and with terrible pay. Naturally, the migrant professors, as my friend called them, have it somewhat better than migrant laborers who pick crops and do other such backbreaking work for pitiful wages. However, the comparison seemed apt.

At my mother’s suggestion I did try my hand once at picking blueberries for extra money. When she was a kid, this was something commonly done by the Maine kids. But this was apparently before the days of cheap migrant labor and, as we found out, things had changed. My sister, her friend and I gave it a shot, but we did not make it through a full day and ended up in the hole because someone stole our rakes and baskets. It was the worst job I ever tried.

Years later, I started my academic career as an adjunct professor. I taught four classes each semester for $2,000 per class and had no benefits or job security. The next year I was hired as a visiting professor and made $30,000 for the year—plus benefits. After three years of that, I was finally hired into a tenure track line. Though I am a tenured full professor, I certainly have not forgotten those adjunct days. It was not as bad as raking blueberries, but it was a lot of work for very little money and it felt a lot like that blueberry day, although it lasted for an academic year.

During this time, it was common for my university to rely heavily on adjuncts. There was, however, an effort made to hire full time faculty and this met with some success. However, there are still many classes taught by adjuncts and other universities rely very heavily on adjunct instructors who are treated as migrant laborers in the academy.

Like migrant laborers, the migrant professors are poorly paid. Back in 1993 I was paid $2,000 per class, making $16,000 for the eight classes I taught over the school year.  In 2010, the median salary for adjuncts was $2,700 per three credit hour class. The low was $2,235 and the high was $3,400.

Like migrant laborers, the migrant professors generally have no benefits. While there might be some exceptions, adjunct (or part time, although “part time” might actually mean teaching what would be a full time number of classes) faculty typically do not get health coverage from their employers or other benefits. When I was an adjunct, I was fortunate to be young and healthy, but a major medical problem would have ruined me financially. The same is no doubt true of other adjuncts.

Like migrant laborers, the migrant professors typically have to travel from workplace to workplace to make their living. One of my colleagues, who has a doctorate and years of experience, typically teaches at my university, Florida State, and Tallahassee Community College. He has to rush between classes to get from school to school. His situation is not uncommon—other adjuncts I know teach at both universities in Tallahassee, the community college and other colleges in town just to make enough to live on. Some even travel about the county from job to job, literally acting as migrant laborers. While regular faculty have offices, phones and computers, adjuncts sometimes do not. They might, for example, be assigned a room for office hours and have to get the department office manager to open the door for them because they are not given a key.

Unlike migrant laborers, the migrant professors are highly educated professionals who are doing jobs that normally pay full time employees reasonably well. To use an analogy, the situation of adjuncts in higher education is comparable to what it would be like if hospitals employed adjunct doctors. The adjuncts doctors would have their medical doctorates, perform surgery, treat patients and so on. That is, they would be just like the regular doctors except that their pay would be a fraction of what the doctors received and they would have little or no benefits or job security.

As might be imagined, this terrible disparity in pay is rather unjust. After all, the adjuncts are being paid far less for doing the same work and they are generally just as qualified as regular faculty. It would, of course, be another matter if adjuncts were far less educated or did work proportional to their pay. However, this is not the case. As such, the treatment of adjuncts is clearly wrong.

Naturally, those employing adjuncts have a good reason to use them: they do professional work at a fraction of the cost of hiring regular faculty and they can be terminated simply by not re-hiring them next semester. It is also not uncommon for universities to hold off providing an adjunct with a contract until two or more weeks into a semester—that way they can be sure that the class with fill and that the money is available. An adjunct without a contract can typically and unfortunately just be let go. I have seen this happen—people working for two weeks, then being told to not come back for week three. This is unfair as it hardly seems unreasonable to be able to tell a person in advance whether or not they will be teaching that semester. Obviously enough, the failure to pay an adjunct for the time worked would be theft, although this does happen.

One irony of the plight of adjuncts is that the students they are teaching will generally increase their earning potential significantly by getting a college degree. In fact, the college graduates will most likely end up making more per year than the adjuncts who taught them.

One rather obvious question is why adjuncts put up with the terrible conditions rather than simply getting a job elsewhere. While in some cases people do admit that they have been unable to get a job elsewhere, the majority of adjuncts I have spoken with (and I have met many over the years) make it clear that they love teaching and that they are willing to live with horrible salaries to do what they love to do.

Naturally, this claim might be doubted. However, this sort of attitude holds all through teaching, from K through the graduate level. After all, people who have the degrees needed to teach could make much more money working in other professions, yet they choose to remain in academics. While they might have some other reasons, it is most often because they believe in what they are doing and like teaching.

Unfortunately, this love is being unfairly exploited and little is being done to address it. In fact, the current trend in public education has been towards cutting budgets and for educators’ unions to be subject to concerted attacks. As such, it seems likely that the situation in higher education will worsen. This suggests that there will be an increase in the number of adjuncts (some universities are 33-55% adjunct faculty). Oddly enough, education costs continue to increase—but you can be sure that this money is not going to paying adjuncts properly.

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How Much is Other People?

Posted by on August 27, 2012 6 comments
A text logo for Ohio State University

A text logo for Ohio State University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In his famous quote about standing on the shoulders of giants, Sir Isaac Newton credited at least some of his success to efforts of others. While most of us will not see as far as Newton, we also stand upon the shoulders of others. After all, we are born into societies and have access to centuries of human accomplishments such as language, technology and society itself. As such, the success of any individual is but an addition to an already vast structure of human achievement (and failure) and is built upon well-established foundations. For example, the language I am using to write this was developed long before my time. The computer I am using to write this was made possible by past achievements in theory and technology. As such, any success I glean from this work involves a debt to all those folks who made it possible for me to sit in front of a screen and type out words in English.

Of course, the contributors to our successes (and failures) do not just include people who are long dead. Obviously enough, a person’s very existence and survival depends on other people who are (or recently were) alive. Much of a person’s education also depends on others and there are many other debts (for good or for ill) owed to others. Naturally, I am making a distinction between the state (which is just people) and other people in this context. For this essay, the other people would be people who are not acting in their capacity as state officials or agents.

For example, I would not be able to write this if it were not for the education I received from my parents and the teachers at Lewis Stairs Elementary school. I would not be a philosopher without the education provided by the professors at Marietta College and The Ohio State University.

Naturally, some of the failures I have experienced can also be attributed in part to others who have impeded me (intentionally or not).

As such, it seems clear that some of a person’s success (and failures) is due to the contributions of other people. The interesting question is thus not “do people owe others for their success (or failure)”, but “to what extent do people owe others for their success (or failure)?”

It seems easy to show that at least some of a person’s success is due to her own efforts. After all, if a person’s success had to depend entirely on the contributions of others, then an infinite regress would seem to arise, thus making success impossible. As such, it seems reasonable to infer that people can contribute to their own success (unless, of course, all success and failure is ultimately attributed to God, the un-helped success).

As might be suspected, the degree to which other people contribute to an individual’s success (or failure) will vary a great deal. For example, a businessman who was born to wealthy family in the United States, was provided with the best education money can buy, and was then helped out throughout life by family connections must clearly share must of his success with other people. As another example, a great poet who was born into poverty, was abandoned as a young child, and taught herself poetry from scavenged books would owe far less of her success to others. Interestingly, the wealthy businessman might be more inclined than the poet to claim that his success was mostly of his own doing.

One area in which the division of success (and failure) is of special interest to me is in education. Obviously enough, teachers have a role to play in the success or failure of a student. It seems equally obvious that the student also has a rather important role to play in this regard. As I have mentioned before, students often tend to blame teachers for their failures (“she failed me”) and accept credit for their successes (“I earned an A”). While this is natural, sorting out the contributions of each is a matter of some importance, especially these days. After all, there is a growing tendency in the United States (and probably elsewhere) to place the majority of the accountability on the shoulders of educators. One practical reason for this is, of course, that teachers can be fired or replaced while public schools tend to be stuck with their students, thus making the changing of teachers an easier approach to the problem. This does not, however, show how the responsibility is truly divided between teacher and student.

My own experience at the college level has been that the exceptionally good and the exceptionally bad students would tend to learn about the same regardless of the teachers. After all, the very good students take a very active role in their education (and thus will compensate for bad teachers) and the very bad students generally do not pay attention on the rare occasions they actually make it to class (and hence largely negate the impact of teaching). As such, an educator probably cannot take a great deal of credit (or blame) for the success (or failure) of these students. There can, of course, be exceptions.

Not surprisingly, it would seem that the most impact is upon the majority of the students—those who are not exceptionally good or bad as students. Of course, even then there is a question of how much the teacher is accountable for their success or failure. Also not surprisingly, education policy (especially such things as firing and merit) is being made without much understanding of how the responsibility for success and failure should be divided. This is, of course, but one example of why the division of responsibility between people matters.

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Philosophical Provocations Vol. 1

Posted by on May 3, 2012 3 comments

In a shameless attempt to get money so I can buy luxuries like food, I’ve assembled, edited and organized my finest posts into Philosophical Provocations Volume 1 (A Fistful of Provocations). Naturally, you can read all the originals here, for free-once again showing that philosophers are not always very good at this capitalism thing.

The United States Kindle version is my usual book price of 99 cents and the UK version is the equivalent in fish & chips.

Of course, your money is probably  much better spent on Jeremy Stangroom’s and James Garvey’s The Story of Philosophy: A History of Western Thought . 

 

 

 

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University Dress Code

Posted by on April 13, 2012 22 comments
Dress code as seen at a London Club in the Soh...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My university, Florida A&M University (FAMU), recently adopted a dress code (or, to be more technical the trustees approved new dress standards). This code allows professors to prevent students from attending classes (or other functions) if the students are not dress appropriately. Previously only the school of business had a dress code.

There seem to be three main reasons for this code. The first is that it is taken as educational. That is, it is supposed to teach students what sort of dress will serve them best professionally and socially. The second relates to classroom order, namely it is intended to deter students from wearing clothing to class that could disrupt the class. The third is a matter of image, specifically that it is aimed at preventing students from wearing clothing that will make FAMU look bad.

While I have not (as of  this writing) been supplied with a list of banned attire, it does include “do-rags”, hoods, and the infamous underwear revealing “saggy pants.” Rumor also has it that tube tops and t-shirts with inflammatory language will also be banned.

As might be imagined, I am somewhat divided on this matter. However, I will endeavor to sort through the matter from a philosophical and professorial perspective. I will do so by looking at the reasons behind the code.

The first reason nicely matches Aristotle’s views of education. When discussing moral education, Aristotle notes that young people do not find a temperate life to be particularly appealing, so it is necessary to condition them to such a life. Doing so, he argues, will make it less irksome and hence it will be all the easier to ensure that they follow the right path throughout life. As might be imagined, many college students would prefer to not dress like professionals and prefer to be rather more casual. Also, some college students clearly prefer the now forbidden styles. As might be imagined, the job creators who will hire the students when the graduate will expect their employees to dress in appropriate ways. As such, the university would merely be extending its mission of conditioning students for the workplace by adding in control over their modes of dress. After all, the American education system has been training students to follow schedules, do boring work at the behest of others, obey petty authorities, stand in lines, and so on. What, it might be asked, is the problem with adding a conformity of costume to the curriculum of conditioning?

The obvious problem is, of course, that such an imposition seems to violate the liberty of the students. Since they are adults, there is a presumption in favor of their right to dress as they choose. Naturally, this should match the laws regarding public indecency (although those could be challenged as well). However, provided the students are not violating such laws, it would seem reasonable to not impose on their liberty. Unless, of course, the harm done by specific attire would morally warrant imposing on the liberty of the students. This takes me to the second reason.

The second reason does have some appeal. While I have never had a class actually disrupted by someone’s choice of attire, it does seem possible for this to happen-provided that the clothing was such that it would create a significant and lasting impact on the class. In all my years of teaching, about the most extreme reactions I have seen is having some students stare briefly at another student because of his/her choice of clothing. This has sometimes been followed by some whispering. However, this sort of “disruption” is nothing compared with the disruptive influence of personal electronics and people talking to each other in class. Naturally, students coming to class partially or fully naked would probably have a significant impact-but that is already covered, I think, by existing laws regarding public nudity. Because of this, I have never really considered improper attire a threat to my classroom-but my experience might be unusual. There is also the possibility that I am blind to the damage it has been doing in my classes.  If other professors’ classes (and mine) are, in fact, being disrupted by improper attire, then the code would make sense on this ground. After all, the disruption of class would harm the other students and thus warrant imposing on the liberty of the student whose attire is causing the disruption.

Of course, it could be countered that there are cases in which the student cannot be reasonably held accountable for the reaction of others. To use the obvious analogy to free speech, if a student says something that annoys, offends or otherwise bothers other students, this does not automatically entail that the student should be compelled to be silent. For example, if a student presents an argument in favor of God’s existence that really annoys some atheists in a religion class, it would hardly be right to silence the student because of this.

The obvious counter to this is to argue that the clothing being banned is not the clothing equivalent of a rational argument that bothers those who disagree. Rather, the clothing is on par with someone shouting vulgarities in class. If this is so, the code would seem sensible.

The third reason also has some appeal. While philosophers are supposed to be concerned with wisdom rather than with the “sights and sounds”, I recognize the importance of appearances when it comes to matters such as recruitment and reputation. For example, if prospective students and their parents see FAMU students dressed inappropriately for higher education, this might impact their decision to attend FAMU (although our enrollment has been at record levels). As another example, photos of the university that feature inappropriately attired students could also do damage to the school’s reputation. After all, reputation is often more about appearance than substance. Naturally, it might be countered that people should be more concerned with the substance than with the appearance, but that idea seems quaintly out of touch in a time when people assert that “perception is reality.”  In any case, if the damage done to the university by the inappropriate attire exceeded the damage done to the students by imposing on their liberty, then the imposition of the code would thus seem morally warranted.

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Higher Education: Too Good of a Deal?

Posted by on March 7, 2012 9 comments
education

education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

One rather sad fact about higher education is that it is one area where, as I heard a comedian say, the customer wants to get as little for her money as possible. This is demonstrated quite nicely by the relatively low attendance rates in many classes and the fact that students often fail to avail themselves of office hours. Being a professor, I have often thought about why this is the case. Part of it, obviously enough, seems to be the nature of the American education system-it seems almost intentionally designed to be a boredom factory. Another part is that professors are not trained to entertain and hence we are ill equipped to compete with the media smorgasbord offered by the internet and television. A third part is that students have found that they can get by without actually putting in much effort and they generally do not see much value in putting in the effort beyond what is needed to get by. In this students differ not at all from the rest of the population-try to think of how often you encounter excellence and people going above and beyond in their endeavors. While I could keep going with various factors, the last one I will present is that higher education is often a pretty good deal. This assertion might, on the face of it, seem insane on two grounds. First, it seems like madness to claim that students would be less inclined to get more out of education because it is a good deal. Second, it might seem beyond insanity to claim that education is actually a good deal-after all, the cost of higher education is supposed to be absurdly high these days. However, since I enjoy seeing people argue against my mad claims, I will endeavor to argue for both of these. On the face of it, people should be more attracted to good deals than inferior deals. After all, its seems eminently rational to want to get more for less. However, what seems rational and what people do tend to be two rather different things. To illustrate this, consider the matter of free stuff. On the face of it, people should be very drawn to what is free. After all, they are getting something for nothing. While this can hold true in some cases (for example, people grabbing free swag at expos or free samples at stores) the opposite often holds true. For example, free events often fail to attract as many people as the same sort of event that is not free would attract. A rather plausible explanation is that people value their time and hence that will always be a cost, even for free stuff. So, if an event takes time, a person will presumably consider if the event is worth their time. An event that is available for free can be thus seen as lacking value (after all, if it was a worthwhile event, surely people would charge for it). So, people will be less inclined to participate in a free event. In the case of higher education, it is not free. However, if it is seen as relatively low cost for the student, s/he might not see attending class or going to office hours as worth the cost in his/her time. After all, the loss of not attending class or office hours is seen as being less than the loss of attending class or going to office hours. To use a rather specific example, consider the case of a student who works. If she is in class or at my office hours talking about philosophy, then she is not working and getting her hourly wage. As such, attending my class or going to my office hours is a loss for her. Of course, if she fails the class, then this a loss-but this can be avoided by putting in just enough effort to pass. Thus, the student can have both-getting the credit hours to graduate and also getting as much time as possible for other things, such as work or Facebooking. If, however, the class or office hours were very costly, then students might thus be more inclined to attend. After all, missing the class or office hours would cost more than what would be gained by skipping class. Another point well worth considering is that although the class (and office hours) might have a high cost, this need not be paid by the student. So, if the student is attending college at the parents’ or states’ expense, then they do not “feel” that cost and hence they have less motivation to attend class since any alternative will tend to give them more perceived value for their time. Naturally this is not always the case-some students do value their class time even when they are not paying the majority of the educational bill. I now turn to the second point, that higher education is a rather good deal. Back in 2009 I fell from my roof and tore my quadriceps tendon. The repair surgery took about 40 minutes and I was in the hospital only a few hours (most of which was spent waiting). The bill was about $11,000. While this is an extreme example, people routinely pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars per hour for experts such as psychiatrists, doctors, politicians, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, and so on. People often wait a long time for appointments and the wait even more when the appointment time arrives. While folks complain, they do seem to value these services. In the case of higher education, a student typically is guaranteed about three hours of access to a professor per week in class and also there are office hours open to all students. These days students also expect email access to faculty-I get emails around the clock from students. While students sometimes have adjuncts or graduate students as professors, at my university the vast majority of classes are taught by professors with terminal degrees (usually a doctorate) who are experts in their fields. Since a semester is 16 weeks long, that means that a student gets access to a top professional for about 40 hours a semester (not including office hours, emails and phone calls). Even with the rising cost of education, this seems like a rather good deal for the students-perhaps so good that it causes students to undervalue education. After all, how many people pay a plumber, medical doctor or engineer and simply fail to avail themselves of the time they paid for? Of course, a viable alternative hypothesis is that educators like myself are, in fact, offering far less value than we believe. If so, perhaps students are wise to miss our classes and avoid our office hours because they could always be doing something far more valuable with their time, such as Facebooking about how useless their classes are.

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Is Education a Public Good?

Posted by on February 8, 2012 12 comments

Seal of the United States Department of Education

While higher education is generally regarded as a good (mainly because folks with college degrees make more than folks who lack such degrees), there has been considerable debate in the United States as to whether or not higher education is a public good.

The United States, like other Western democracies, subsidizes higher education through such means as grants and student loans. There are also numerous state schools that receive their funding primarily from public sources. This public support of education has generally been regarded as a legitimate function of the state (typically based on the view that higher education is a public good), but this has been called into question.

One stock objection against public funding of higher education is that some (or perhaps many) of the taxpayers will either not attend a public college or avail themselves of public funds for education. As such, their tax dollars are being spent in a way that does not benefit them and hence they have the right to insist that public funds not be used to support higher education.

This objection, a version of which was advanced quite some time ago by Thoreau in his discussion of taxes, does have some merit. After all, if the state is taking my money and spending it in ways that do not benefit me (or in ways that I do not approve of) then I would surely have the right to insist that this stop and that my money be spent in ways that benefit me (or that I pay less in taxes).

It might be replied that although my tax dollars might be spent on things that do not directly benefit me, as a citizen I have a duty to contribute to the general good. As a man, I will never get uterine cancer. As an adult, I will never have a birth defect.  However, it would seem odd of me to insist that the state stop spending public money in such areas merely because such spending will not benefit me directly. This can also be expanded beyond specific medical research to all those things that benefit other people but do not directly benefit me. This, as might be imagined, would include many things that those other people would regard as legitimate venues for public funding. As such, the fact that some folks do not pursue higher education at public institutes or making use of public funds hardly seems to justify not providing such funding.

It might be countered that higher education is a purely private good. After all, it could be argued, it would be as unreasonable to expect the state to subsidize my education as it would be for the state to subsidize my business, my crops or my hobbies. The advantages of my education are accrued solely by me and provide no public good-hence the state should not fund higher education on the basis of it being a public good.

One  reply to this is that funding higher education can be seen as purely self interested investing. People with college degrees generally have higher incomes than folks who do not and hence they contribute more tax revenues, thus paying back that investment many times over. Those who do not avail themselves of the public support for higher education gain directly by the fact that these other folks are contributing more in taxes than they would otherwise.

A second reply is that the people who do not avail themselves of public support for higher education benefit from the folks who do. After all, these people will need doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, teachers, and other educated people. Many of these educated folks will have been supported, to a degree, by public money (either directly or indirectly). As such, higher education does seem to be a definite public good.

A third reply is that publicly funded higher education contributes significantly to science, technology, medicine and other very practical and beneficial areas. As such, even the folks who do not avail themselves of public support for higher education gain direct advantages from the public spending in this area.

A fourth reply is that publicly funded higher education contributes to the education of citizens and provides a means by which those of lesser financial  means can achieve success, thus making this a public good.

One final objection is that while such funding might have some good results, why should “Joe the plumber” be forced to pay the bill for “Ashley the anthropologist” or “Arthur the art historian”? Or, even worse, why should “Joe” be forced to pay the bill for folks who never graduate or who never get a job?

This objection does have some bite. After all, the budget cuts caused by the meltdown and the currently dominant ideology (which seems to be “punish everyone else for the sins of the financial folks”) mean that less money is being allocated for higher education and it would make sense to ensure that this money is well spent. As might be imagined, the same concern can be raised regarding the billions spent on defense, business subsidies, special interests and so on. In fact, it might be argued that it seems odd to be  really worried that Ashley might get a small Pell grant to study anthropology when vast sums of public money have literally been lost elsewhere.

In reply, while it is reasonable to be concerned about money being wasted, the fact that some people might pursue degrees that some people look down on and the fact that some people might not complete school or get a job do not suffice to show that education should not be supported by public money. To use the obvious analogy, the fact that all investments do not yield a profit is not reason to stop investing. To use another analogy, the fact that all efforts do not succeed is not an argument to stop trying.

Looked at in purely “practical” terms, higher education certainly repays the public good for the investment made in this area.  Obviously, not every investment pays off-but that is hardly to be expected.

Naturally, there are also the other benefits of higher education that are often seen as “intangible”, but a strong enough case has been made for public support that the addition of these reasons would  be more cake piled on a well frosted cake.

 

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Educating for Profit

Posted by on January 13, 2012 4 comments

 

Official photo of General David Howell Petraeu...

Image via Wikipedia

 

In the face of the economic mess, American states and the federal government have been cutting education spending. In some cases, this is no doubt a matter of legitimate necessity. In other cases the economic woes have been used as a cover to “justify” certain policy changes. Regardless of the cause, American public schools are experiencing serious budget woes. Interestingly, college enrollment is up and this makes things even worse since schools must do ever more with ever less money for the actual process of education. As might be suspected, the administrative side of most schools is generally doing great in terms of numbers employed and salaries.

In contrast to the woeful state of public funded schools, the new for-profit schools have been doing quite well. For example, 20 for-profit schools saw their income from military benefits alone (acquired by taking military personnel as students) increase 683% over four years (from $66 million to $521 million). These for-profit schools also get a significant percentage of their income from public money, namely federal student aid.

Given that for-profit schools are making profits off public funding, one might wonder why public schools are suffering budget cuts and are thus less able to serve the public good by providing high quality education to students. After all, it does not seem to make any sense to funnel public money away from public institutions so that for-profit schools can make a profit at the expense of taxpayers.

Of course, one can try to counter this sort of concern by the stock mantra of the private sector proponents: the private sector is better than the public sector. That is, the for-profit schools are doing a better job and hence it makes more sense to turn public dollars into private profits rather than turning public dollars into public education.

If the for-profit schools were doing a better job, this would make at least some sense. After all, if the goal is to get the most education bang for the public buck and private schools delivered a bigger bang, then perhaps they should get the bucks. However, this is not the case. The average graduation rate for the for-profits is around 28% and this is about half that of the national average. The big state schools often have excellent graduation rates.

Also of concern are the fact that those who graduate from the for-profit schools seem to have a much harder time securing employment. They also graduate with far more debt than students at traditional schools (half of all student loan defaults are from students who attended for-profit schools). As such, the for-profit schools cannot claim that they are providing a better return on public dollars than public schools. In fact, they are doing far worse.

The United States congress recently focused its attention on the severe problems with the for-profit schools. However, intense lobbying on the part of the for-profits succeeded in watering down legislation intended to make such schools more accountable for their effectiveness in order to continue to siphon public money into their coffers. This has apparently been a bi-partisan effort with Republicans and Democrats answering the call of the lobbyists. Interestingly, the usually pro-education Democrats proved to be excellent allies of the for-profit schools, or at least allies of their lobbying money.

One particular egregious practice of the for-profits has been targeting  military veterans. Holly Petraeus, wife of General David Petraeus, has written that veterans are “under siege” by the for-profit colleges. These colleges have even been accused of targeting veterans who have brain injuries, which is particularly reprehensible.

Veterans are a very desirable commodity for the for-profits. As noted above, there is a lot of money available from military benefits and these can spell major profits for schools. More importantly, there is a “90/10″ rule for these schools: at least 10% of the revenue for a for-profit must not come from federal financial aid funds. Coincidentally, military benefits do not count as federal financial aid funds, so this money can count as the 10%. This entails that for every military student enrolled by a for-profit, they can have 9 other students who are paying 100% using federal funds. In short, with the right number of military students, a for-profit can get 100% of its revenue from federal funds.

This, as might be imagined, bodes ill for higher education in America. First, federal funds will continue to be diverted from public education to the for-profits. This means that the public schools will continue to suffer. To give a concrete example, enrollment at my university has increased significantly while our budget has dropped significantly. Faculty salaries have stagnated, class sizes have increased dramatically, financial aid has been significantly reduced, and so on. In short, public schools such as my own will see underpaid faculty teaching oversize classes packed with students who often must struggle to pay for their education. Meanwhile, the politically connected for-profits will be making profits on public dollars. Second, while a for-profit education need not be inferior to a traditional public or private college education, it (as a matter of actual fact) has been markedly inferior in terms of graduation rates, job placement and the debt students graduate with. As such, it seems reasonable to conclude that federal funding is being misdirected in ways that are not conducive to providing students with the best education, the best chance of graduating, the best chance of getting a job, and the lowest debt upon graduation.

Unfortunately, the for-profit schools for profit model means that they have plenty of money for lobbying and hence they seem to have been able to get their way in Washington. As such, it seems likely that education will continue to decline in the United States. But, at least some folks (including lobbyists and politicians) will be making some sweet profits. That is what really matters, right?

 

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