Friday, June 15, 2012

Pedagogy as Theatre

Pick of the day for me is the piece I find at The Atlantic's website on what the folks at the University of Phoenix do when they wants to film a roomful of attractive and engaged students--they hire models.  Wouldn't want to distract the viewers with the likes of, say, Walden College, and don't even think of  Animal House (told you...).   Though personally, I'm always saddened that I didn't enjoy the ministrations of Quincy Adams Wagstaff, as in "Now then, baboons, what is a corpuscle?"

But I'm not at all sure Phoenix has gone far enough.  My friend John says his students have dinged him on his evaluations for imperfect use of PowerPoints.  Couldn't we raise the general level of beatitude if we hired an apprentice Vanna White to highlight the bullet paragraphs as John proceeds through what he calls his "Socratic monologue?"  And why stop at one?  How about twins?  And in spray-on bikinis?

He could even position one outside the classroom door during open enrollment.  As in, "hello, student, going my way?"  Who knows, a few of his aspirants might wake up in a rustbucket en route to Macao.  Now, that is education.

No comments: