POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Yes Back in the 1800s, people had to get along with each other due to geographic isolation. If you were in the United States at that time, you were likely to live in a small town or community and be hours or days of travel away from the next city or town. Travel was expensive and time consuming. Social skills to “get along” with everyone were important then, but I would argue that they are far less important now, especially in schooling.

I believe that face time with teachers and stu-
dents is unnecessary. Students do and always will
have face-to-face (F2F) interactions with family,

friends, and the general public. I know of rural
schools today where students
know everyone in town but
have never traveled 50 miles
from their homes. Having ac-
cess to an online network can
be even more important to
their education and personal
development than F2F inter-
action with those physically
in front of them. Here are a
few things to consider:

Don W. Brown

I do not doubt that online learning has
a value in the educational community. The avail-
ability of content to students who cannot attend
school or who don’t have access to some courses in
their conventional classrooms is a sound reason for
online learning. But allowing them to opt out of F2F
learning simply because they want to begs far more
forensic questions, including: What do we mean
by an “education”? If it is simply the dispensing of
information from one centralized location, then
computers can easily replace teachers. If we consider
education to be the development of knowledge (not
to be confused with information), however, then we
have to consider what skills and knowledge we want
our students to develop.

The future might include people who never work in F2F situations, in which case the skills of reading other people’s body language and facial expressions could well become evolutionary relics. If this is our future, then online learning for everyone is certainly a good option.