Fewer, Richer, Greener

12Education: The Third Democratization

We could be on the cusp of a worldwide golden age of education.

Not schooling. We’ve pretty much ruined that. Bueller? Bueller?

But education is much more than schooling. It’s learning by doing. Learning by reading and listening and talking and writing. Learning by having to face real problems and come up with potential solutions that are empirically testable with regard to whether they work, producing a feedback loop for the learner. That is what education is—not sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture and being tested on it, although that’s a legitimate part of it.

Fifty years ago Milton Friedman wrote “The Higher Schooling in America.”¹ The article was about how to pay for it, not how to structure or deliver it, but it’s telling that he called it schooling, reserving the word education for a higher calling.

But maybe Friedman protested too much. Despite the sublime silliness of some of the course offerings in US universities, the US university system is the envy of the world. It attracts full-fee-paying students from countries that can afford to send their best young people anywhere.

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”

At its best, the university system employs some truly extraordinary teachers. Although research is supremely important for scientific progress, teaching is what counts for the democratization of education. This is true whether the teaching is provided in person or via the Internet. At Caltech in the early 1960s, ...