I know a lot of educators are offended by takes like these because they’re working hard—but I’d like to encourage folk to really consider how this situation is highlighting gatekeeing in higher education.

You can learn the same things online—We are doing exactly that right now. https://twitter.com/workingoncrying/status/1300672156154638336

It’s not that the things you learn online appear magically—those resources were assembled by educators

It’s just the idea that that label of “educator” is one that can only be granted by educational institutions. That they are the only ones with this power.

The fact that we only respect/acknowledge ONE form of education as “legitimate” (like university online classes vs open access online classes) is problematic.

Universities are uniquely granted the power to validate that you “legitimately” know the things that you know.

There have always been different ways of learning. I think it might just be cool to use this time to look at some of those other ways of learning that higher education tends to look down upon, and maybe realize that many of these divides are just... bullshit.

I took a class in educational psychology that was so out of date, it still actively referred to segregating students.

Universities do not guarantee a higher quality education. They just have the power to give you a degree.