As a professor at one of the many schools that have responded to the new coronavirus threat by canceling in-person classes, I find myself wondering whether our students will discover what many of us secretly fear: that the classroom isn't really necessary for learning.
Observers have been pointing to all sorts of ways in which the current moment might change the world forever. From the serious — the twilight of the handshake or the permanence of the face mask — to the trivial — the end of locker-room access after sporting events — life is expected to be different even after the virus burns itself out. The same may be true of traditional classroom instruction.
As critics have pointed out for years, the technology of learning has scarcely budged in two centuries. Students still congregate in a space run by a teacher, an authority figure whose knowledge they seek and whose rules they must follow in order to get it.