Information Technologies, Reading, and the Future of Higher Education

Abstract

The article addresses the challenge for universities and colleges to prepare students for the world they inhabit through relevant course offerings and new approaches to teaching. Unfortunately, these structures of higher education still resemble chapels, where the professor is ‘priest,’ and with a pedagogy that is informed by monologue, methodological nationalism, and a general lack of awareness of the rapidly changing social and physical world around us. Starting with the Gutenberg revolution, and following the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, Sven Birkerts and Joseph Brodsky, the article approaches the consequences of the new information technologies that are profoundly rewiring our minds and replacing our ability to think critically. The author asks: what might education look like today? How might we challenge young people to learn how to think? The first task appears to critique and transform the political architecture of classrooms and the teacher centeredness of pedagogical activity, replacing monologue with dialogue. Students need to be shown how to critically distance themselves from the seductions of information technologies, and educational institutions should return to requiring deep reading and discussion of extended narratives.