We’re publish a guest post today by Dr David McGrogan, a Professor at Northumbria Law School, making an impassioned plea to higher education providers not to switch to ‘remote learning’ next term in response to the Omicron panic. In his view, this will send a series of terrible messages to students, including that the world is a dangerous place and you had best avoid it by living your life online. You can link to Professor McGrogan’s Substack newsletter here.
It’s “déjà vu all over again” as Covid restrictions are reimposed. The sense that more is coming is almost palpable – a repeating pattern that it increasingly feels we will never escape.
Here in higher education, the mood is a strange mixture of resigned and febrile. On the one hand, staff and students plod gamely on towards the end of the semester while trying not to think about the news. On the other, there is a drumbeat of anxiety underpinning everything: will we be here in January, or will it be back to the dreaded ‘remote learning’, which we performed for almost the entirety of last year?
‘Dreaded’ is not too strong a term. The experiment of 2020-21, if it can be called that, was a disaster. It is no slur against either academic staff or students to confess this. We all did our best, but it was made painfully evident during the last academic year that human beings simply can’t learn from sitting in front of a screen. Teaching is a relationship that has to be performed in person, where teacher and student can read each other’s gestures and facial cues, gauge each other’s reactions, and – more importantly – build the foundations of trust on which education rest. Students need to be enthused about what they are studying by being in a room with a lecturer who really appreciates the importance of their subject. They sometimes also need to be told to concentrate, to listen, to stop looking at their phones. None of this works when mediated through a digital device.
Those are just the educational reasons why the shift to remote learning was so harmful, though. Far more serious, in my view, were the messages that it sent to students.
The first of these messages was: although your money is important, you as an individual are not. You may have had a bad experience, but that doesn’t particularly matter in the grand scheme of things; universities stayed afloat, halls of residence were full, the number of NEETS did not explode and embarrass the Government, and the game went on. You were worth sacrificing in the name of those imperatives.
It was hardly deliberate that this message was sent to undergraduates, but it is the one which many of them, consciously or unconsciously, will have taken from the way they were treated during 2020-21. It is unfortunate enough that this will have created a lot of bad blood between students and universities (despite the fact that it cannot really be said to be the fault of universities themselves). More seriously, it will have created a lot of resentment in the younger generation toward society as a whole: when push came to shove, they now will feel they were really just an afterthought.
The second message was: the reason why you go to university is to get a degree. Why does it matter if you didn’t really learn much all year and had a rubbish experience? You’ll get a 2:1 at the end anyway. Higher education was already being instrumentalised at speed thanks to the introduction of the requirement for students to pay tuition fees. The shift to remote learning put this on rocket boosters.
However, it will hardly need emphasising to anybody who went to university before, say, 2010, that the experience is about much, much more than just getting a degree. The philosopher Michael Oakeshott memorably described university as an “interval” – a “reprieve for three years from the rat race”; a kind of pause between childhood and the “long littleness of life”. It was sheer “good fortune” to be able to go, and it was there to be enjoyed “as Pope Pius II on his election said he intended to enjoy the Papacy”. It was “magic”, and if missed once would never come back again.
It is fashionable nowadays to look snootily down one’s nose at university students and their supposedly pampered, frivolous lives. There is something deeply mean-spirited in that outlook. Shouldn’t we want our young people to have the sheer pleasure and freedom that Oakeshott described, especially if we were lucky enough to have been students once ourselves? Shouldn’t we consider it one of the most wonderful blessings of living in a developed economy to be able to spend three or four years of young adulthood simply in the exercise of exploring, and doesn’t it diminish the younger generation to demand that they leap into the “littleness of life” without even a brief pause for breath beforehand?
The third message sent – perhaps the worst of all – is that the thing to do in this world, when adversity strikes, is to hide. We already face what can fairly be called an epidemic of anxiety and other mental health disorders among the young. That problem will not go away if we continually transmit to teenagers and young adults the message that the world is dangerous and, since it is, you had best avoid it by living your life online. The truth, as we all know in our hearts of hearts, is that, yes, the world is dangerous, but that’s no reason not to live as full and rich a life as one can. We do our young a terrible disservice when we encourage in them a fear of normality. Yet this is precisely what we will be doing if we insist, once again, that it is simply too risky for a normal university education to take place.
It was perhaps excusable that nobody paused to consider all of this in the pell-mell sprint towards remote learning in the autumn of last year. It will be well remembered that there was simply a general sense of panic; universities were by no means alone in being swept along in the flood. This time around, there can be no excuse: enough is enough – we have to get university life back to normal.
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Too late, Loughborough University is switching to online learning from Wednesday, others likely to follow.
It’s all part of the rolling demolition of legacy systems John….
More smart, erudite and honest medics spell it out re the dangers of these micro clotting genocidal lethal jabs:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/aAqQKA8WFxiF
https://rumble.com/vogxan-scientist-shows-vaccine-effects-in-autopsies.-dont-believe-it-see-for-yours.html
This is not a fiction:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.03.21256520v1.full
Meanwhile this new mutant scariant is a non-event in South Africa apart from devastating its tourism and travel industry:
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-stunning-data-from-south-africa/comments
Yet your caring, and your very best interests at heart UK Govt tomorrow is going to push through for mandating these toxic immune suppressing experimental products for the greater good…kids babies and all.
Why so? Because it no longer feels tied down in any way by the old normal rules of law Assange’s ongoing treatment confirms that.
The reality is among hospitals worldwide the majority in them with Covid have been jabbed at least once with many having all three doses, and this Omicron scariant though mild and benign throughout Europe, the UK and USA new special measures are deemed necessary to combat it. Go figure?
Three weeks to flatten the curve… Two years to flatten the economy… and by 2030 you’ll own nothing and be happy.
We need to stop this insanity now!
Loughborough was always a tech led institution, nothing traditional about it at all so it will be no surprise to see them ditch much of their physical infrastructure. Only problem is that there will be nothing else for Loughborough, as a town, to do.
Many students throughout the UK were pre Covid avoiding live lectures as they could easily catch up online through their university’s intraweb or indeed find better courses from the hundreds of institutions worldwide that offer their services on YouTube.
Going online was a work in progress that lockdown simply stepped up a few gears.
Soon only bespoke courses at Oxbridge, Durham and a few others will be available to the wealthy, much like the late 19th century in fact.
The university I work for (not Loughborough) is about to annouce they’re switching too.
Because 100 students have got a cold.
The senior managers are certain we’ll be in lockdown by January, and if we’re not, they’ll enact one themselves.
At the sixth form where I work I was teaching a 2 hour catch up session for students who had fallen behind during lockdown, last week. The students were full of what the PM’s latest announcement would be. One said, if there was another lockdown, she would quit college.
I expect the one I work for to do the same. I’m just waiting until they demand so-called vaccination in order for faculty to be able to do their jobs. That is a line I won’t cross. Ever.
Students need to get decent sized refunds on any course/institution that switches – after all, the Open University offers on line courses for a fraction of the price.
The Student’s Unions ought to be really making an issue of this (after opposing the whole concept of ‘remote learning’). Wokery seems to be more of a priority though, particularly at some universities.
Since the 1970s it’s been an extremely exceptional thing in Britain for a students’ union to try to exert any influence at all over the main service that the students are supposed to be buying from the university – to wit, education. They mainly concern themselves with entertainment (“ents”), a bit of junior common room management, some occasional ironing things out between students as tenants and the institution as landlord, and giving future politicians some training in public speaking, how to make and use “contacts”, and backstabbing.
Growing up in the era of ‘Revolting Students’ it came as surprise to find, thirty years ago, that they had become completely self absorbed be that, as you say, Ents, or the provision of certain social services like disability access, taxis to hospital and the likes.
The only time I have known local students to be interested in politics came with the introduction of enhance student loans.
At the time I asked some post grads why they were not in London joining the protests, one responded
“Why should we? They will be getting a better deal than we had”.
I never did understand how the Libdems let themselves come a cropper over that issue.
Everything at Loughborough university is aimed at the “student experience”. It isn’t the lack of face to face lectures they’re concerned about but a poor “experience”.
Some? I should think all of them. There are very few, if any, universities that aren’t insufferably woke
It’s not just university SUs that are inert. I got a dusty response when I suggested to someone rather younger than me, that we were sleepwalking into slavery or bondage. People of all ages now seem unable to think for themselves, with everything precooked, predigested and pap-fed to them by computer, and “smartphones”. Just keep on with the social media, the indoctrination with others’ ideas, leavened with computer games.
Trying to get a refund for any reason will be like seeking to get blood from a stone.
The Open University was a great idea, and there is nothing wrong with watching lectures on a screen if a student has good motivation, which most “mature” students do. This is assuming they are good lectures.
The Open University got whacked a few years ago – I think it was under Tony Blair but don’t recall exactly – when in one fell swoop
That was a f***ing outrage, but needless to say there was hardly any opposition.
Incidentally, London University’s provision for external students was also cut MASSIVELY in the 20th century.
Imagine an alternative history in which lecture courses by top professors could be downloaded for free or for a very small charge, and good tutoring was available too. (There are quite a few people capable of giving good tutoring if it was worth their while.)
The reason it didn’t happen was to do with the real functions of most undergraduate “provision” by most British universities – namely so that money can be made out of rent and especially debt.
Last I heard, from staff, the OU were thriving pre-covid as some students realised that the lectures/Hall of Residence lifestyle was completely unnecessary and that what used to be called Tutorials are a thing of the past.
Getting a one-to-one with ‘your tutor’ is probably as unlikely as getting to see ‘your GP’.
I find “it’s all about the rent” to be a good way to examine most state policies of the last 50 years.
Well, yes, they do need decent refunds – chances of which are probably even less than the chance of seeing ‘our’ cabinet flying past our windows.
p.s. Apologies to pigs for using that comparison!
Surprise surprise the first omicron death has been reported on the news. Cue much hysteria and threats of more restrictions unless we be good citizens and get more jabs. Fuckin knew as night follows day this country would record the first omicron death.
A 90yo with prior heart disease?
“At least one”. Well was it one or 10? He thinks there may have been some “confirmation” that he doesn’t know about? Remind me where the buck is supposed to stop again.
Everything’s public relations for whoever’s doing his job.
If something harmless accelerates through the population, that’s not something to worry about. If something extremely harmful does, it is.
But no, everyone should be an obedient little moron, unwilling to form their own opinion, and rush to get their mRNA spiking, even if they managed to get Astrazenecaed before. Pfizer loves you. And he’s the prime minister – he approves Pfizer’s message.
Maybe they did everything to save the moronic victim by administering a lethal dose of HCQ, again. Or maybe it was a DNR for autism, again. Or maybe it was a midazolam/morphine cocktail, again. Who knows what our brave souls at the NHS did to provide the narrative this time.
Confirmation then that omicron is lethal in the highly vaccinated UK, but harmless in largely unvaccinated South Africa.
Johnson said someone died with omicron. He hasn’t yet said that anybody has died of or because of omicron, although that’s what many will hear him as saying.
Was watching TV news in my neighbours place just now as they reported Omnicon reaching India.
I’m sure they used old footage to demonstrate a ‘shortage of oxygen’ and it was obvious that they had speeded up the film of nurses rushing around the theatre to create a worse vision of panic.
I salute you for being able to watch the news without putting your foot through the television screen. Although I’m doubting your neighbour would have been very impressed.
Apparently Savij Jabbid is due to make an “urgent” announcement today at 3.30pm. The only urgency is for them to get as much bullshit in place before Christmas. Sounds like he’s coming in for the schools again. The Christmas party scandal already seems many moons ago and nothing seems to have stuck. One resignation, then back to business in destroying the UK society.
I hope the 60 Tory MPs and their colleagues in the “opposition” parties turn up tomorrow to vote against the government without minding that the press have stopped talking about them. Just do it.
Those who attend University from 2021 onwards are paying to quarantine themselves. Enjoy your free wifi and student debt. So stunning and brave.
Remote “learning” is much safer for the students, less chance of been exposed to danderous and racist opinions from the likes of Rod Liddle.
An unintended consequence of covid and moving to remote learning is that a lot of parents are waking up to the fact that they’re really just sending their kids to be indoctrinated
I note the Scottish government has adverts out saying Act like you’ve got it
So stay at home in bed then?
Sounds like a plan…wake me up in 2 years time, something might have changed by then
Norman Fenton, Professor of risk analysis says the data shows vaccines don’t work
The government and their pharma-background advisers say they do
They can’t both be right so it comes down to a question of trust.
Or, more accurately, to a question of ACTUALLY LOOKING at the data; passe though that may be!
Really it comes down to whether you need the drugs or not, regardless of their efficacy.
As a 60-year-old who’s survived two years of this virus without a hint of illness, it’s a question of whether or not I should submit to a pharmaceutical I clearly don’t need. As taking a pharmaceutical you don’t need is one of the most stupidly dangerous things a person can do, the answer to the question is clearly no, for me..
Other people’s circumstances may be different, but that’s precisely why compulsory injections of these drugs is so wrong.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-09-common-asthma-treatment-reduces-need-hospitalisation-covid-19-patients-study
This works better than the jabs and has a longer history of use and safety profile…
Odd hey?
That is a TV debate I’d love to see!!
Wow, students sure make themselves up with lashings of make-up nowadays!
You’ll find once they have your money they will go to online teaching.
A few years back whilst at work (UK university) I overheard a managerial meeting where the course managers were saying how student numbers had fell and they were struggling. The head of school then says, ” I don’t care what you have to fucking do or say but get those Vickers signed up!”
I’ve also sat in meetings where lecturers openly laugh at students and how little they can allocate for 3rd year evidence projects. A 3rdyear students final year project as of 4 years ago would be allocated £30 and this is in biology.
TBH if I were a student I would rather look at lectures online than sit in a room full of panty-faced zombies. I imagine most campuses already have mask fascism in place, probably many never actually got rid of it.
Good point Julian but I think, for some students anyway, the lectures are an opportunity to become acquainted with other students in their cohort who they would not meet in their own small group setting.
Yes, my daughter actually liked lectures, partly for this reason.
So they will do just that. Because online learning ends covid, just like it did last time.
You very much CAN learn everything by sitting in front of the screen. The question to ask is whether you HAVE TO.