More to learning than lesson plans
Commonwealth Court has ruled that school districts lack standing to question whether cyber schools are legal. Cyber schools are a relatively newcomer to public education. Students, at home, log onto lesson plans over the Internet.
Cyber schools claim they are charter schools without the buildings. School districts claim they are more on the lines of supplemental lesson plans for parents who decide to home-school their children.
The court’s ruling basically told the schools and the Department of Education that school districts can question the tuition bills but they can’t question the validity of a cyber charter school. It seems a sensible ruling, and one that means very little for most folks who aren’t seated on a school board or who don’t own stock in the cyber school.
But this ruling is important. Currently there are seven cyber schools in Pennsylvania; that number might explode with these questions resolved. And if cyber schools begin to catch on more parents might begin to consider whether their children would receive a better education at home in front of a computer rather than behind a desk in a traditional classroom.
Having attended a cyber class last week, I will weigh in that I’m not convinced that any but the most motivated and diligent student would gain from this brand of education. And even then, it lacks the give and take, sharing of ideas that are so necessary to promote development of the cognitive processes.
Let me offer a little background. My class in headline writing was offered through the American Press Institute. Anyone remotely connected to newspapers knows that API is top-notch in offering continuing education and career development programs. Those of us fortunate to have spent a week in Reston, Va., know how intensive and informative API can be.
I attended a course for editorial page editors and editorial writers a couple years ago. From Sunday night until Friday afternoon the group was immersed in instruction, exchanges and critiques. The best in the business are brought in to teach the classes. And the students come from papers smaller than this one to the largest metros. As an example, one fellow in my class came from a 7,000 daily in Iowa, in which he had absolutely no backup and was required to write 10 editorials in advance to cover his absence. On the other end was the second in command, and now top dog, for the Chicago Tribune’s editorial page, as well as editorial writers from the Arizona Republic and Los Angles Times. Most of us fit somewhere in between.
In addition to the classes, we spent many hours talking about our craft, discussing problems, solutions. I had a notebook crammed with ideas and some of the changes that you readers have seen during the past couple years were a direct result of this API course.
So when my boss said we were asked to sign up a couple people to try the new online courses, I didn’t object that he raised my hand, especially since the topic was headlines. I struggle with these. I can knock out a column and a full-blown editorial with ease and then work all day on a headline that I still can’t stand. (This is one of the reasons I came up with Wows and Scowls on Fridays and World of Opinion on Mondays. I don’t have to write a headline.)
It’s hard to find examples of great headline writing. I read at least five newspapers each day and at least that many online papers. Rarely does a headline jump out and say this is great writing.
Most are boring. Those that try to be cute or clever turn out to be plain stupid and some don’t match the story or are totally wrong.
After my weeklong cyber class in headlines, I can’t say that I’ve gotten even a tiny bit better at this. The lessons were informative, the instructor knowledgeable. But there was something missing. None of the students attended class at the same time. We could have spent the two hours required daily first thing in the morning, afternoon, midnight or 3 a.m. It didn’t matter as long as the lesson was completed by the deadline.
Through this process, the interaction that is often needed to stimulate thoughts, the bouncing of ideas back and forth failed to develop. Although there was an opportunity to do so, few classmates communicated.
After the class was over, I hit the print button on the lesson plans. I’m sure that I will at some point read them again, attempting to absorb what I had wanted to learn. But I’m left with this nagging suspicion that class discussions in bricks and mortar schools do as much to develop young minds as do textbooks. Unless cyber schools develop this interaction something valuable will be missing from a cyber student’s education.
Luanne Traud is the Herald-Standard’s editorial page editor. E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.