Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ If universities sacrifice philosophy on the altar of profit, what’s next?

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The issue here isn't whether philosophy is valuable or even the slippery slope implied in the title, it's this: "The crude pursuit of what is 'practical', 'efficient' or 'useful' is threatening everything of value that isn't evidently profitable." To be clear, by "profitable" we usually mean "profitable to some business owner" because skills that merely profit the student, but not industry, are still deemed to be of limited value. My position is that education should benefit first and only the student in question, and that priorizing the interests of 'stakeholders' is essentially an illicit appropriation of the student's time and resources.

Today: 3 Total: 1751 [Direct link] [Share]


Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Nov 03, 2024 3:04 p.m.

Canadian Flag Creative Commons License.

Force:yes