THE CLASSROOM AND THE COMPUTER SCREEN Online Education | Page 2

communication technology, a history local school, where the pool of teaching
that began with clay tablets, then talent is far more limited. Even better,
papyrus scrolls, and continued through they promise you an education that is
the printing press, telegraph, more closely tailored to your beliefs
telephone, radio, television, and now and values.
the internet. Each historical
These folks have a point. Baseball—
development, in its own way, helped that great cultural bellwether—
users to overcome the constraints of illustrated this principle back in the
time and distance, and educators have 1950s. As television came of age, fans
taken advantage at every stage. began watching big-league ballgames
Proponents of online learning boast from the comfort of their living rooms
that, if your local teacher is an instead of the hard bleachers at their
uninspiring half-wit, a master teacher town ballparks. This trend struck a
could be as near as your laptop. Do you blow to ticket sales in minor league
want to read the Aeneid in Latin, but ballparks across the nation. 3 Why buy a
nobody in your community has the ticket to watch what’s-his-name of the
chops to teach you how? No problem; hometown Joplin Miners, when you
you can find a Latin guru online. Some can sit at home in your comfy chair and
purveyors of online education will tell tune in to Joe DiMaggio of the New
you that, because they can connect you York Yankees? Today’s online
to expert teachers just about anywhere educators apply this principle to
on the planet, they deliver a better learning: if great literature were a
product than what you can find in your fastball, wouldn’t you rather learn
3 See pertinent findings from
congressional inquiries in the 1950s: United
States Congress, Senate Committee on
Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
Broadcasting and Televising Baseball Games:
Hearings, Eighty-Third Congress, First
Session, On S. 1396. May 6, 7, 8, 11, and 12,
1953 (Washington, DC: U.S. Govt. Printing
Office, 1953); and United States Congress,
House Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee No. 5, Organized Professional
Team Sports: Hearings Before the Antitrust Subcommittee, (Subcommittee No. 5), of the
Committee On the Judiciary, House of
Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, First
Session On H.R. 5307, H.R. 5319, H.R. 5383,
H.R. 6876, H.R. 6877, H.R. 8023, H.R. 8124,
Bills to Amend the Antitrust Laws to Protect
Trade And Commerce Against Unlawful
Restraints and Monopolies. June 17, 19, 20,
24, 25, 26, July 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 31, August 1,
7, and 8, 1957 (Washington, DC: U.S. Govt.
Printing Office, 1957).
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