Has a quiet revolution been happening in the realm of education?

A while back as I was hammering away in the studio on my vessels I was thinking about the whole idea of a free, or really cheap, college education available to everyone that I’ve read about many people desiring. Just how feasible is that? Sure it sounds nice but if you look at the world as a whole interlocking matrix of systems, material, and energy flows one has to recognize there is no “free”. The costs get paid for somewhere. Never the less, wouldn’t it be nice if this was a priority for our culture, something we collectively and willingly put our personal efforts into making happen.

Then I started thinking some more. I realized I was focused on how to fit this into the current higher education system as it exists, missing the thought that other options are possible, perhaps even better. So I started thinking some more about other systems to provide knowledge and training. A realization hit me, one could say there has been a quiet revolution underway in the realm of education for some time. I don’t think many have recognized its potential, or that it could be on the cusp of a tectonic shift forward.

I think we have in fact already created and put in place the bulk of what’s needed for basically open access education for anyone, at least here in the US where I live. What’s more it is something our culture has collectively and willingly done through a great deal of individual personal effort. I think the fact that “free college” hasn’t been recognized is that for the most part it hasn’t happened through colleges. Rather it is happening on-line in places like You Tube, blogs, podcasts, etc. Of course more traditional information sources are involved too such as the books, magazine, and media found in our public libraries.

Think about it for a minute. When you want to learn about something new, whether it’s something fairly simple like fixing a leaky faucet or more involved like diving into a whole new course of study, where do you generally start these days? I personally don’t tend to think about getting enrolled in a university program first. That would be way to cumbersome and slow. I want to get started NOW! So I go to a web search engine and see what I can find. It might turn up news articles, a blog, videos, podcasts, books on the subject, workshops, webinars, or perhaps even university programs on the subject. This is how I, of all people, go about it, and I’m a self described technological Luddite! I have to imagine most other people are even more inclined to find their information and learning on-line, outside the traditional ivory towers of the university system.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate universities. Heck, I happily spent 12 years getting my BFA degree. One could say I wasn’t in a hurry to leave that system. It was, and is, very comfortable for me. The problem seems to be the costs for such an education system are getting ever higher, to the point where it out weighs the benefits. Some areas of study are being harder hit than others naturally. These being mostly the ones that never really had great prospects for high income employment after graduation to begin with. My fine art degree is an excellent case in point. If you want to be a studio artist as I did, why is an expensive degree needed? In my experience it isn’t, only the knowledge behind it.

It used to be said that if you wanted to go on to teach though, you certainly needed the degree. It was required for that. As far as I know it still is… but only if you want to teach within the formal education systems such as universities. This revolution in education has opened up new opportunities to those who want to teach, but don’t have a degree. Again, what is going to count for your long term success here is your actual ability.

In the past couple decades, in the art jewelry/metalsmithing world at least, I’ve noticed an ever growing trend in the rise of what I’ll call community studios. These are small schools, academies, or even personal home studios where people can take classes focused on metalworking techniques. Some places also rent out “bench time”, essentially access to the equipment of the facility. I’ve been away from the blog for a bit because I was off at one of these places teaching a couple intensely focused workshops. This sort of thing is very common too, where a master in the field comes in for a few days to teach a small group their techniques.

These sorts of venues were once rare. Now it feels like just about every major city has at least one nearby. If there isn’t one near you and you are looking for a business opportunity, you might want to take note! A new network of brick and mortar training facilities is being developed. Once each region has good established venues the ability to get one started will be much harder.

Not into metalsmithing? I’d be surprised if this was only happening in that field. I know there has been a rise in what are known as maker spaces that offer access to training and equipment in much broader realms. Is this happening in fields less craft oriented? Honestly I don’t know, but I don’t see why it’s not possible unless you are dealing with a highly regulated field like medicine, law, and other such things. Even there though I can envision people being interested in learning about such subjects for their own personal edification or use.

What these sorts of facilities seem to offer is a physical place for community to develop in addition to education at a much lower cost than traditional colleges and universities. Hence, I think they have a bright future even with all the free education available via the web and books.

I don’t have children so I have little first hand knowledge of the current state of our secondary school system, public or private. Yet, I often read about ways it’s struggling. Usually those struggles are in terms of funding or in student performance. A rather cynical comment I recall is that most children learn at an absolutely incredible rate early in life. Then we send them to school and put a stop to that! Is it possible to develop a better system? Again, I can’t knock my secondary education. It happened to be a structure I excelled in, at least academically, but I think I was one of the rare ones, part of what made me that social misfit I wrote about earlier.

One solution more and more parents are turning to with regards to educating their children seems to be home schooling. From what I understand, its growing popularity has a good deal to do with the fact that the home schooled students more often than not tend to excel. So something in that system seems to work well. The growing body of educational resources available out there, and the networks of parents forming would also be making this route easier and more viable to a wider group.

Thinking again about those who wish to teach, esp. those who wish to get into teaching art I would speculate there is some serious potential with home school families. One could set up some sort of weekly classes parents could pay a small fee for their child to attend. Of course there is no reason it would only be of interest to home school parents, but I can imagine it being stronger here.

In my day we had Bob Ross and his “happy little clouds” as a television program that offered art lessons for children on a mass scale. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t someone on You Tube already working to be the next Bob Ross, but I doubt if that area is fully saturated yet if you want to get in on it.

So I’ve been rambling on here for a bit, tossing out somewhat disjointed thoughts, opportunities, and ideas I see happening in the realm of education right now. What I see missing, and which I suspect is on the cusp of happening, are two things. With these in place I think we will see that tectonic shift forward. The first missing element is some sort of curation, a way for people to quickly weed out the questionable content from quality educational resources. This might exist already through reviews and search engine rankings, but I suspect it could be better. For example, if someone wanted to take on a course of study in metalsmithing I can imagine they would find it useful if some trusted expert in the field had a list of suggested videos, projects, or books to work through, along with a recommended order to progress through the media.

The biggest thing missing yet though, which could bring everything together into a truly vibrant educational system, is a shift in how we do accreditation. Currently it is the schools and universities that are accredited, meaning their programs have met the approval of standards set by a wider accreditation committee. The theory is that when students go through the program and earn a degree it means they have gained a certain level of skill/knowledge. I suspect we can all think of examples where this hasn’t been the case.

I’d propose that what needs to happen is a shift to individual accreditation, where students need to be able to demonstrate that they’ve actually gained the knowledge and skills. I’m not exactly sure how this should be done though I suspect with digital cameras being so ubiquitous, in some fields, such as art, students being able to show progress images of pieces being made could play a role. In some areas of study simply taking written tests might suffice.

It should probably be set-up in such a way that the reputation of the accrediting agency matters in terms of the value of the “degree”. By this I mean that an agency that becomes known for just passing anyone who pays their fees shouldn’t be recognized as being of much worth, where as a place known for being very stringent in testing would represent a higher badge of honor, offering more assurance to a potential employer that the individual has the skills they claim to have.

I think there could be whole new businesses established to provide individual accreditation, though if universities were smart they would get in on this early, shifting their business models to remain relevant. After all they already have the bulk of the infrastructure in place. It might simply be a matter that students could get their education where ever they wish, on-line, through books, workshops, or even classes at the colleges. Then for a much lower cost, they pay the universities for the accreditation testing to verify they have the skills they chose to test for. If a student should fail they can always retake the tests, though they would need to pay for the testing services again. It could be sort of like getting merit badges. There might be need based scholarships to cover the costs of accreditation tests for those unable to afford it, or maybe even straight out publicly funded accreditation centers.

Obviously these are not fully worked out ideas for revamping our education systems. As I said, it’s just me sharing some thoughts, ideas, and observations I’ve had on where things seem to be heading. If any of this seems intriguing to you, the good part is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to start doing it. It’s happening already! This is an organic remaking of our culture, much the way the internet and cell phones have naturally shifted our lives without any authority specifically deciding what would happen. The businesses that move first into this might be the next Apple, Amazon, or Facebook. It may also completely defy the attempts of business monetize it if reliable ways to prove competence can be developed via some sort of informal or non-profit networks.

Also realize, if you don’t need a degree, or other sort of accreditation. If you just need the knowledge and skills, to work for example as an independent studio artist, then education can pretty much be free right now! Opportunities abound if you can recognize them!

Studio Snippet

After being away for the past week or so teaching a couple workshops I’ve been slow to get back into the swing of my studio work. Mostly it seems like I’ve been catching up on the business side of things, emails, paperwork, and so on. For some reason I always want to discount this type of activity, thinking I’m not really getting any work done when I’m doing it. However, the truth of it is that such work is critical to making a living as a studio artist! So I have been working a lot since I’ve been back, just not so much in the studio.

That said, here is an image of a small group of vessels I’m working on raising. Half of them were started here in my studio before I left for the workshops, and half were started as demonstrations in the vessel raising workshop I did. I’ve been getting a course of hammering done on them each day. Over the next few days I should be able to finish the basic raising of them. Usually I do this work for only a couple hours in the morning. It’s a more intense sort of hammering, harder on the body, so I like to limit the time spent on it each day. I’ve found this practice has allowed me to still produce a large amount of work, while eliminating the arm/wrist injuries used to occasionally get.

I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my main website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.