July 25, 2012
One method is the promotion of “hands-on learning,” a form of “learning experience” that spares the customer the inconvenience of ever having to open up a book except to remove the cellophane wrapper. I”ve heard students say they picked a certain college because it did not oblige them to do “any book stuff.” Instead they dive headfirst into “service learning.” Whatever these buzzwords mean”whether picketing with the teachers” union at a state rally or emptying garbage cans in a Third World country”the students will not be forced to do “book stuff.” For these kids there exists only “real learning.”
“Distance learning” is another new “teaching delivery resource.” The customers don”t have to pull their wasted bodies out of bed in the morning to attend class but can complete college work on a computer in between playing video games.
Even better is the “semester abroad,” which in my experience allows the students to receive college credit for transferring their dissipation and idling to a foreign country for six months. Usually the educational requirements are sufficiently flexible so the tourists will not be burdened with undue learning while outside the US.
Another means of keeping intellectually unqualified students busy in a “learning environment” is the emphasis on “diversity.” Entire majors and minors have sprung up around this expanding form of distance learning. One is taught to express endless sympathy for women, Third World peoples, alternative-lifestyle practitioners, and visible minorities who have been crushed by Western Christian Civilization’s heterosexual white bigotry. One is also encouraged to decorate one’s dorm door and even body with appropriate political testimonies and to express remorse or indignation over the stifling oppression in which one is forced to languish.
The best part is that one never has to study African or Asian languages or do anything that is intellectually taxing. One becomes educated merely by emoting”and of course by paying outrageous tuitions.
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