"Education Is Dead": A Requiem, of Sorts

Overview & Synopsis

In this article Dennis Attick explores how a reliance on communication technologies, and the technorationality this has wrought, contributes to the "education spectacle today." Attick discusses how the spectacle of education, with its reliance on communication technologies, has come to define what is widely accepted as reality for education today, and how these technologies are used to promulgate the notion that education is dead. While technology allows students and teachers to access an inordinate amount of interesting information and allows them to work more efficiently and more quickly, what is lacking in many conversations about education today is a discussion of purpose. What is the purpose of education? What is a good education? Why is a good education important? Those questions are not an argument against technology in education in sum; but help to question what this democratization of education via technology might look like within the constraints of the age of spectacle in which we live. Does an education that develops critical consciousness actually benefit from the use of communication technology? K-12 teachers, university professors, philosophers, and scholars alike must continue to question the role of technology in their own lives, in their teaching and scholarship, and the degree to which the spectacular world today continually mediates understanding and inquiry.