Why Online Education Will Never Replace the Classroom Experience

Bert, you've been huffing mainstream news again. All those things you mentioned probably happen about one percent of the time - tops. The latest generation already sucks at negotiating with others and being intertained by human interaction, just like the last generation [boomers] suck at sharing, caring about future generations and curbing appetites. Let's further the emotional disenfranchisement of humanity a little more by putting teachers on the street. What a crock.

So? In 1986 Larry Eyler was convicted of slaying and dismembering 15-year-old Danny Bridges. Eyler would confess to murdering 20 homosexual boys and men and claimed his Sugar Daddy and sometimes housemate, Larry David Little, who had been visiting Eyler the weekend Danny Bridges was murdered, participated in some of the murders, or "little scenes" as Eyler termed them.

Who was Larry David Little? He was Professor and Chair of the Department of Library Science at Indiana State University. He met Larry Eyeler when Eyeler was a student at ISU and Little moved him in and started paying Eyler to be his "companion."

Little was arrested and tried in 1991 for the 1985 murder of 23-year-old Steven Agan but was acquitted. No other charges have ever been filed against Professor Little.

While under suspicion of being a serial murderer and throughout his trial Professor Little kept his position at ISU. This, of course, threw ISU and its students into something of a tizzy. The University responded by closing the department and transferring all the employees except for Professor Little who helmed a one man ship until he retired.

Larry Eyler received a death sentence for the murder of Danny Bridges but died in prison of AIDS in 1991. Professor Little, as far as I know, is enjoying an anonymous life supported by the generous pension he received from ISU.

An extreme case, yes, but in 2003 Indiana University experienced controversy when one of its business school professor's, Eric Rasmusen, wrote in his university sponsored weblog that homosexuals were more likely to molest children and therefore do not make responsible teachers, doctors, and elected officials. IU briefly removed the page before reinstating under the umbrella of free speech. Dr. Rasmusen, a tenured professor, is still shaping impressionable young minds at IU.

All in all, I think I'd rather one of my kids be taught be one of these creeps over the safety of the Web than to actually have to go to class and interact with these kinds of creeps in the flesh.