Education changes a student's life. While it is perfectly accurate to claim that years of exposure to the river of information available via the Internet probably will leave them wet, one cannot continuously swim in the river. A student seeking to improve life through the acquisition of learning should take instruction in more rigorous ways than Internet use affords.
Intellectual instruction
Following is a small part of one method of instruction which worked well. It was crafted by James Mill for his son, John Stuart Mill:
1. The student is required to read from a substantive text and then on the next day give an oral summary of what he read.
2. The teacher then comments on important ideas connected with the ideas the student has summarized. The student is then required to state in his own words these explanations and summaries.
3. The student is required to read the works of important thinkers he would himself never choose to read, but that illuminate important traits of mind. (Elder and Cosgrove, p. 3)
This method challenges the mind of the student and requires real engagement with the material rather than simple exposure. The argument on the other side, of course, is that materials gleaned from the Internet may also challenge. An important missing element, though, is teacher-student interplay, which inculcates critical thinking skills at a higher level as the instruction continues while also varying the types of exposure to the materials.
Reading and recitation may be on the agenda for one or more days. Then reading others' work gives way to writing one's own commentaries and original pieces, then offering these up for discussion and editorial development. The process is materially improved by the participation of others whose ideas will also be addressed in logical fashion.
Moral instruction
While some might question its importance initially, this instruction concerns the character of persons with regard to issues of right and wrong or, to put a finer point on it, concerning their conformance with accepted standards of conduct. In short, there are ways in which people everywhere ought to act, and while the Internet will allow us to read all about them and view video regarding the interactions of people, these moral questions require discussion with real people face to face.
For instance, we might posit that it is better for a disgraced military officer, once convicted of treason on forged evidence, to rot in a military prison than to continue fighting for his good name. This very situation developed in 1894.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the largely Roman Catholic French army, was imprisoned after his conviction for passing classified information to the Germans. When a new chief of intelligence revealed that the evidence against Dreyfus was false, the chief himself was reassigned and silenced.
Only in 1898 were the hands of two other French officers revealed in the affair, and it took until 1906 for Dreyfus to be cleared, readmitted to the army, and awarded the Legion of Honor. (Stewart, p. 204)
"Doing the right thing" is important, and education must include instruction in the means and reasons for this way of life. Internet exposure is a good source of information, but true education is life-changing.
Social instruction
The social order is what keeps most citizens civil toward one another; sees most of them obeying traffic signals; and compels many of them to offer volunteer services to the community. Social skills are best learned in the company of other members of the society, despite the fact that information concerning many nations is freely available to view via the Internet.
Education is most effective if it changes a solitary life into an interdependent life, transforming a potential problem citizen into a smoothly functioning, well adjusted member of an orderly society. We must teach social skills, right and wrong, and the proper function of our communities early in life, as Skiba and Peterson note below:
"Surveys of high school students reveal a startlingly high proportion who are unaware of effective methods for solving social conflict (Opotow, 1991). Instruction for all students in the social curriculum may thus help address widespread misconceptions among today's youth about the nature of conflict and problem-solving." (Skiba and Peterson, p. 7)
Intellectual, moral, and social instruction are key parts of effective education. Despite the ubiquity of Internet access and use among especially younger members of society, traditional colleges and universities evidently retain their edge in transmitting the knowledge and the values of society better than the Internet. Perhaps in future that will change; for now, we use what we can to learn as we must.
Works Cited
Elder, Linda, and Rush Cosgrove, John Stuart Mill: On Instruction, Intellectual Development, and Disciplined Learning (September 2007), accessed 18 June 2009 at http://www.criticalthinking.org/files/John_Stuart_Mi ll_Instruction.pdf.
Stewart, Robert, The Illustrated Almanac of Historical Facts: From the Dawn of the Christian Era to the New World Order. New York: Prentice Hall, 1992.
Skiba, Russ, and Reece Peterson, Teaching the Social Curriculum: School Discipline as Instruction, accessed 18 June 2009 at http://www.unl.edu/srs/pdfs/teachsocial.pdf.