Facilitate Wonder

This post perhaps foreshadows what I thought I’d be writing after the last post. In recognition of Dina’s comment on the last post about the double-edged sword of radical reform in the edusphere, I’m trying to make the case that it’s inevitable that change is forthcoming. We can help to inform that change or not. (And again, I don’t sense she’d disagree with me there).

Last night in thinking more about the end of school, it occurred to me that it’s in certain ways akin to current bursting of the real estate bubble and the earlier bursting of the dotcom bubble. Things generally don’t inflate forever.

Of course the U.S. military budget (and the overall U.S. budget and debt) are unlikely to expand forever. We know the same kinds of expansions came to a close for both Great Britain in the early 20th century and the Soviet Union at the end of that same century.

What are the things I’m talking about inflating related to the end of school?

Well, college tuition is one. These costs simply cannot rise forever. A second is the overall inflation of academic credentials. And grade inflation. At some point there will be corrections in all of these areas. A tuition correction will come when a better way to learn becomes obvious to the masses. (Or when we have complete economic collapse). I think the popping of the tuition bubble will be simultaneous with a burst in the inflating bubble of credential inflation. Of course, not all inflating things burst. Some may stabilize instead of explode. I think that’s more likely if people foresee the coming change.

Other examples? Some things inflate for an incredibly long time – like the human population. The population bubble will either burst catastrophically or gradually stabilize. That clearly depends on whether we’re smart as a population or not so smart (or if our leaders are smart and effective). Our track record isn’t so encouraging here, but last night I started reading Common Wealth, Jeffery Sachs’ new book. It appears to offer some hope for us.

One more: the healthcare bubble will either burst catastrophically or stabilize.

I think the analogy has legs. I invite you to either strengthen those legs or break them. Are there things that inflate forever? Are any of them human constructs? Are the things that seem to be forever inflating really endless or is it just that we can’t yet understand what will make them stabilize or pop?  Is the edusphere like the stock market — in the long term it grows and grows and grows, but are there periods where it shrinks in the shorter term?  I don’t know.

Again I ask, what do you think?