Today in our Faculty Enhancement Program, we talked about 21st century education and massive open online courses. It reminded me of the many lectures and inputs provided in the ITP- AVLM, conducted by KU Leuven, most of which inspired me to further my learning on instructional design and technology. Today i affirm the same conviction that the highly complex and technology-based world is inevitable. I am settled in the fact that this is the way things are. At the rate things are going — teachers cannot lag behind, and if the university is to survive the feat, it must consider motivating teachers to retool themselves.
While i am so personally against the seeming dehumanization of education, it doesn’t change the fact that the world’s direction is towards that. Apparently, the imperative is to provide students the needed skills – cognitive, functional, personal, ethical — in whatever mode educators profess to be best. It is not so much a question of modality, anymore. It is about outcomes,; not what is taught, but what is learned and ultimately, what becomes of learners when immersed in the bigger university called life.
As an educator, i still dream of molding the total man — not a specialist, but a generalist– a liberally-trained individual, steep in social sciences, humanities, culture, literature; developed in all facets — physical, intellectual emotional, spiritual; and in possession of either a naturally endowed or a learned gift of compassion for others. I still dream of turning out 50 men & women by the hour whose minds and hearts are in harmony with each other, whose capacity to feel embolden their spirits to reach out for others, for humanity and the world; whose empowerment comes from the recognition of their emotions both as a strength and as a gift –thus, they must think, as they also bleed. (June 5, 2014)
