proceed now to find solutions to the problems of curriculum, instructional delivery, and specialized student ser-
vices that currently prevent the needed customizing. Ben Bloom, Jerome Bruner, and John Roueche, some of
our most respected researchers, are convinced that almost any person can learn the basic curriculum, given
enough time and appropriate help. If my, and their, diagnosis is correct, then it seems that educational reform
should start questioning the ancient structures of education.

To use Alvin Toffler’s phrase, it is time to de-massify education. In his Third Wave, he suggests that pro-
ducts and services in general will be customized. In education we seem generally oblivious to the potential
power of much of the new technology to custom-design education. Despite these technological changes, most
educational reform recommendations of the 1980s propose Second Wave solutions in a Third Wave world. They
suggest re-massifying rather than de-massifying education.

Keys to Lifelong Learning

An adult’s greatest handicaps are poor basic skills and a dislike of formal learning. On a recent Firing Line
TV program, William Buckley and Mortimer Adler were arriving at their separate conclusions about the ability of
the average student to deal with a core curriculum. Buckley asked if Adler had any proof that they could.
“No,” said Adler, “I do not have absolute proof, but I do have strong hopes. On the other hand, neither do you
have absolute proof that they cannot learn. In our democratic society, I would rather we have an educational
system designed around my hopes than around your doubts.”

Those who dislike learning are doomed to be stuck in dead-end and even disappearing jobs, and those
who like learning can use it to make their lives richer. As Pat Cross observes, “One thing that we know for sure
from all the research on adult learning is that the already well-educated rush to take advantage of the new op-
portunities that are appearing; the poorly educated stay away in droves.”

| believe that some of the new knowledge now being introduced into education offers us the opportunity to
de-massify education--to customize it so that Adler’s reason for hoping is greatly increased and Buckley's reason
for doubting is greatly decreased. Bud Hodgkinson reminds us that most of higher education now have access
to computers, but instructional programs within those institutions appear generally oblivious to the potential
power of the computer to custom-design education. The computer, when operating interactively with the stu-
dent and an instructor, offers a breakthrough toward individualizing and customizing that simply can no longer
be neglected by those interested in academic excellence. And the computer is only one, though perhaps the
most important, of the new technologies that we should be developing to aid in instructional delivery. I agree
with John Roueche who says that the heart of every delivery system has to be a live instructor “to provide struc-
ture, set standards, and provide support.” When instructors put the new technologies to work as additional
teaching tools, the teacher's role will be enhanced--not diminished or eliminated.

At Stake: Survival of the Democratic Ideal in the Information Age

The most important challenge facing community colleges is to prepare students for their futures as lifelong
learners. Doing this, however, will not be an easy task, given the condition of education. Simply put, we must:
(1) demonstrate to all students that they are capable of learning and that it is a useful, satisfying skill that will
serve them well throughout their lives; (2) help them to develop the cognitive skills that serve as the basic tools
for lifelong learning; (3) instill positive attitudes toward learning and put them in charge of their own learning;
and (4) continue to provide the multiple options that a learning society can expect in its community colleges.
The new technology isn’t the answer to it all, but I do believe it is a key that will help to unlock the individual
talents of those students who have not responded to time-bound group instruction. Sometime in the future
when we finally have realized a highly individualized and customized delivery system, there will probably still
be an irreducible number of students that we will not be able to turn into winners because of personal problems
beyond our, and their, control. As educators, however, I know we do not want it to be the system we operate
that causes losers. As community colleges continue their search for excellence, I think they will find it in their
ability to deal with ordinary people, in turning losers into winners, in being hopeful rather than doubtful. We
are the only segment of higher education capable and interested in serving all of our citizens, and we simply
must find the ways and means of doing it if the democratic ideal is to an aye the information age.

 
  
 

A. Robert DeHart, President “SCLAS COLLEGE

DeAnza College ARCHIVES

 
    

For further information, contact the author at 21250 Stevens Creek Boulevard, 4.

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
September 7, 1984, VOL. VI, NO. 22

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') The University of Texas at Austin, 1984
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