Dale Stephens leads the movement known as the UnCollege movement. Throughout the article he published on August 17th in The Washington Post, The Case Against College, he describes this movement and why it is extreme that we should be putting it to work even further. The idea is based on the role that college has on somebody’s overall success. And due to Stephens, college doesn’t have a role in success, rather it has a role in deteriorating one’s creativity and putting millions of students into thousands of dollars in debt. According to an article in The New York Times called “The Dwindling Power of a College Degree,” the average debt a student faces following graduation is $25,250. This is a 5% increase from last year, showing that we need to find a solution, and fast.
To fix these problems, Dale Stephens highly emphasizes an act of “unschooling.” Rather than going to college, or if you are currently a college student, it would be best to drop out and start educating yourself outside of the classroom with natural life experiences. Some ways he suggests how to enhance knowledge outside of school include: finding a mentor, taking classes only when you desire to, starting up a businesses and learning collaboratively. Although these are good alternatives to prevent debt, I do not believe that you have to be out of school to do so. If you were brought up believing it is best to go to college, and you want to, then put matters into your own hand. There are many ways to go to college and not be in such horrid debt afterwards. It’s called: cheaper colleges, scholarships, and financial aid.
Another known way of enhancing knowledge outside of the classroom is simply getting a lot of experience. Bell Hooks is a feminist writer who wrote Essentialism and Experience. She believes it is best to be taught by somebody with a privileged standpoint. A person with experience is a person with wisdom in her eyes. But in order to be taught by somebody with a privileged standpoint, you’d have to be in a classroom in school, therefore, not dropped out. What contradicts this though, is that the teacher with a privileged standpoint has spent some UnCollege time, but then went to college to be the teacher that they are now.
Dale Stephens also spoke about college killing creativity. He says that our education system cultivates a mind-set where students are rewarded for following directions. Stephens encourages people to follow their passion instead of merely just memorizing facts in a classroom. But to me, it is not college that kills creativity, it’s the society and environment we are surrounded by and the lower-educational systems we were brought up into before college life that does. I also think that if a person uses the opportunity of college correctly, they will only become more creative.
I believe that some courses in schools can enhance a person’s creativity, depending on what that person is interested in. For example, along with the mandatory classes you have to take to get a degree, you are aloud to take multiple elective classes of your choice. I would think that because of this attachment of various courses, the creative skills of the students that chose to be in that class would increase intensely. Electives narrow down the education to people who want to follow the footsteps towards that type of work specifically. Thus, creating special skills that an employer in that field would be looking for. So, it is not necessary to drop out of college, you just need to take advantage of what college offers you, which can help advance one’s creativity immensley. For examples, students who take electives like autoshop and culinary arts will receive useful knowledge that they can use later on in life. Electives like sculpting, drama, music and art, which are considered a universal language and are usually degraded from regular language classes, allow students to express themselves further than if they weren’t in school. Resulting in an increase of creativity.
College also creates an opportunity for the use of many extra resources, and they should be taken advantage of if you are paying the money to go. They have libraries filled with books, and tutors to help if you need it. Not only this, but colleges have many extra-curricular activities and clubs that students can participate in. Some include studying abroad, which comes with new life experiences, leading to learning.
Home-schoolers are good examples of the “unschooling” process that Stephen’s has talked about being put to work. According to The National Home Education Research Institute, home school students perform at the 87th percentile while formal school students only present at the 50th percentile. Although this is a good argument towards the positives of the spread of unschooling practices, Dale Stephens has said himself that there haven’t been any studies conducted about informal learning at the college level yet. So there still is no evidence that formal schooling has a negative impact on college students. The solution to home-schoolers doing better could just be because of the extra individual attention that they get from their educator. But college has the option to get one-on-one help also if needed.
Another approach to take other than dropping out of school due to the abomination of creativity in college is to try and help change the education systems completely. Michael Glassman, a professor at the Ohio State University believes that education is due for a paradigm shift. His argument is that currently, there is a neo-liberal, utilitarian approach to education, which tells how “well-off” a person is based on a generalized, universal assessment score. Glassman believes in the paradigm of the Sen’s Capability Approach (CA). This approach argues that you can’t merely just base some one’s well-being on a number only. They want to fight for the development of education policies that are more concerned with the needs and life trajectories of each individual separately, considering everybody is different. Speaking of individuals, it is also seen as unfair if a person get’s a job just because of a degree. It seems more fair if the people were evaluated and whoever really seemed to best fit the expectations of the job would receive it.
Stephens says that people pursue scientific knowledge only because it looks good on practical applications and resumes. He also says that people assume that the subjects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are the most important of all the other subjects. In fact, hiring innovations for creative and technical professions are happening because “the product of one’s labor is tangible and easy to evaluate” and it is easy to now demonstrate your knowledge in a digital format. The hiring of employees seems to make more sense if it was based on one’s creativity rather than on a piece of paper stating one’s degree. Although this seems like the best idea, it is not how it goes today.
Going back to the article “The Dwindling Power of a College Degree,” the author states that until the early 1970’s, less that 11% of the adult population graduated from college, and most of them found decent jobs. Minimum wage then was almost 50% higher than it is now. This is due to the strong unions they had and the government support trying to make life more equal, more stable, and for some, less rewarding. But today these unions and the government support isn’t as great, and a Bachelor’s Degree no longer conveys intelligence and capability of a person. Now to get a job, you have to have a special skill that the employer values. The only thing employees should watch out for is that there is a good chance in the next few years that your employer will replace you with technology or oversea workers who will work for less pay. Therefore, if a student decides to undergo the college experience, the goal of the student should be to pursue a career path with stability, and one that will always be in need.
Dale Stephens and his UnCollege movement might work for some, but I do not believe that it is the proper action to take. I think that it is just as possible to gain extra knowledge and experiences outside of the classroom, while taking courses inside of the classroom as well. All it takes is taking advantage of the resources you are given. I also don’t believe that it is college killing people’s creativity, rather it is the society around us, and it should be reformed. If you use your tools properly, then you will most likely be rewarded with a positive effect. Choosing certain courses at school can increase a person’s creativity, so it would be wrong to make a generalized statement such that college as a whole kills creativity.
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