Dumbing down

For some years a change has been going on in education at all levels. Universities, traditionally centres of learning and intrepid scholarship, fiercely independent, are at the forefront of this change. The change involves emphasising process of learning over substance. It involves different pedagogies and learning styles. E-learning, portfolios, student-centred learning, problem-based learning, collaborative learning: these are just some of the words in the vast lexicon of learning processes. A recent addition is ‘sustainability literacy’, which looks at how concern about the environment can be incorporated into your discipline.

What is the driving force behind this obsession with teaching process over substance? There are several reasons, but I think the main force is the wish to be inclusive. Sitting in a library studying bulky tomes and writing essays is considered elitist and old fashioned. So in an attempt to open up, new learning processes are introduced that are less taxing, like e-learning, with its drag and drop and copy paste exercises; or portfolio-based learning, with its emphasis on crediting prior experience and knowledge. By thus opening up with bite-sized learning, all can have prizes. But it comes at the expense of intellectual rigour.