I noticed that someone had left me a message on my
cell phone. I recognized the name. He was one of my favorite kids from my days
in the youth department of my church, now no longer a kid but a fully functioning,
employed citizen making his way quite successfully in the world. He was very
agitated, practically shouted his message at me, demanding that I…write a blog
at once about something that had just happened at our church. So, I suppose
from here on out I shall refer to him as my source.
Apparently, on Friday February the 7th at
Grove Avenue Baptist church there was an all day event sponsored by the Words
of Victory Television ministry, Liberty Online University and something called
the King Is Coming College. It was an Old Testament survey course which
featured 8 thirty minute lectures by a Dr. Ed Hindson who was described as one
of America’s leading Bible scholars. I didn’t attend the event. In fact, in
doing research for this blog I had to rely upon the church’s website. So
far, nothing was amiss. This type of event is what church’s do, you know,
teaching about scripture and such.
But then I saw the one sentence in the course
description that had my source positively apoplectic with rage. This $98, 8
hour lecture is advertised thusly:
This
is a diploma course, or you can earn up to 6 college credits.
My source’s best friend attended the event, sat through
all 8 lectures and found them to be quite informative. At the end of the day he
was given a diploma and told he had earned 3 college credits. The only trouble
was, he had taken no test, and wasn’t required to demonstrate that he had
mastered any of the material. In other words it was, “Here’s your certificate
and your 3 credit hours. Thanks for coming.” My source could hardly contain his outrage.
Each 3 hour course he took over 4 years at Virginia Tech were both expensive
and demanding, requiring him hours of mostly late night cramming, one test
after another, and hours and hours of study. When he recently looked into
taking a night class at VCU to brush up on his Spanish he was told that the 3
hour credit class would set him back $1800 and require an entire semester’s
worth of work. But at our church, one only has to cough up a hundred bucks, listen
to some guy lecture for 8 hours and BAMM, 3 college credits, plus they throw in a
boxed lunch!
“This is embarrassing,” my source intoned. “Don’t
they see how this sort of thing plays in to the stereotype of Christians being
anti-intellectual? It’s a slap in the face to anyone who has ever had to work
their butts off to get an education when our church is throwing around college
credit hours like candy.”
My wife pointed out that the two courses she has to
take every five years to validate her teaching license cost her over $800 and
although they are online classes, they require weeks of work, testing and study
to pass. “What about the Liberty University students who took an Old Testament
survey course on the campus in Lynchburg,” she asked. “Were they charged $98 and not required to
pass an exam?”
So, there you have it. My opinion? There’s nothing
wrong with this event that eliminating the granting of college credits wouldn’t
solve. Absolutely nothing wrong with listening to one of America’s leading
Bible scholars talk about the Old Testament all day. But college credits are a
valuable and hard fought commodity, and this sort of thing cheapens them.
This reporter was able to discover that next month's video travelogue presentation about the Holy Land trip would not include an honorary doctorate for all attendees.
Unfortunately, classes at Liberty with Hindson (and other religion professors) were not all that different from what is taking place at your church. I took two classes with him and each class involved lectures, a paper, and two tests. Both of these classes were upper level classes (Isaiah and Daniel/Revelation). In both classes he cancelled the final exams. The two tests I did take required me to recall information but never never challenged me to move beyond this basic and lowest level of learning. In addition, this low-level learning structure of his tests reflected the pedagogical arrangement of his classes. That is, instead of challenging us (or perhaps teaching us how) to think critically in these upper level courses, we were simply taught what to think. Stock answers were given for difficult questions, counter-arguments were dismissed, and presuppositions were reinforced. This is all the more disappointing knowing that the class I took on Isaiah was labeled as a seminar. Far from being a seminar––which includes lessons to be prepared and presented by students, lots of time for discussion with peers, and requires each student to come to class being intimately familiar with the reading for the day––Hindson led the course with lectures and allotted no time for discussions, which in turn meant that there was no need to come to class prepared.
ReplyDeleteIf this is the way upper-level courses taught by Hindson are handled, then generally speaking, there does not seem to be that much difference between taking a class with Hindson at Liberty than taking a survey class with him at a church. Because his tests were either cancelled or did not demonstrate anything other than the students ability to memorize and regurgitate, I do not think the church members are really that far removed from having legitimate Liberty course credits. Taking a test to validate these credits is more of an institutional process than a means of demonstrating learning.
While I agree with you that this event reflects badly about the value of college credits, I also believe that it speaks more directly to the pedagogical value of such courses taught at Liberty.