Mark writes:
It maybe a part of the technical knowledge required of a photo student, but
I have a question. Why???
It's one thing colleges seem to forget. Yes it might win you a beer on a
bar bet, but how does that knowledge make one better in any function of
photography? How does knowing the math make one better at their craft?
College is expensive and college time is precious. So to quote Thomas
Jefferson, we should "question with boldness" why something is in the
coursework, and if it can't be justified it should be eliminated.
My take: there's education, and there's training. We're moving more and
more toward training here even at the University level on the grounds of
cost and efficiency. 'Training' works well for the Universities and
colleges - when a process changes, everyone troops back to the training
grounds, re enrolls, pays the fees and gets their edumacation and heads back
to work - over and over and over. Very profitable. heck, the students can
even print their own certificates online now!
I feel education sets a foundation of knowledge such that when something new
comes along or a stumbling block is encountered, people can backtrack and
discover workarounds by themselves. They also tend to be more aware of
errors creeping into systems - much as people who were taught multiplication
tables and such know when the numbers are wrong, something calculator users
are less likely to do.
Sure, simplification is a good thing when you *know* things are truly
simplified, but when you're required to have faith propping it up, i'm not
so sure. An example that comes to mind for me is with sphygmomanometers. A
column of mercury obeys the laws of physics rather nicely and aside from the
bulkiness of the device and the fear of mercury we've been trained to have,
they are almost impossible to use incorrectly. Digital sphygmomanometers
rely on a very sophisticated set of electronic circuits. Much more
portable, much easier to use, never calibrated - and much more prone to
innacuracies. Scary that.. 'acceptable margin or error' and all.
Is that obscure use that might never come to the vast majority of the
students,
worth the time when only maybe one or two students will ever find
themselves
needing the information? Is there other information that would better suit
a students needs?
I always felt the students picked the courses on the basis of what they felt
their need was and what the course offered. Many *wanted* to learn about
wet darkroom practice and theory.. but the college determined this was
redundant in the modern world and moved toward dropping it. So the students
went elsewhere. Also these days with digital, why go to college at all?
The whole thing is oriented about the computer and that infernal machine
brings the whole world to one's doorstep! (I argued this in vain). Short
courses, instruction manuals, youtube demonstrations, online tutorials,
software - all you need to learn to use a digicam is right there for the
taking.
For students to really learn all the subtleties of the wet film process, a
practical course within a college was where the most could be learned.
but that is deviating from the point. Popularism can get out of hand -
Our leading National first aid training institute put their courses online
some time back, you could click your way through the 'training' course,
follow through to do the multiple choice questionaire at the end (going back
to change answers if you hit the wrong checkbox) and at the end, print off a
certificate! Very user friendly, very neat, very much in demand - the
customers were happy with it, businesses had their legal butts covered by
staff being certificate holders - everyone was happy! What's not to love?
Very popular it was!
I've worked for a few government departments where they run fast-track
training courses on their intranets.. when you were bored you just
clickety-clicked your way through a few such training courses and there you
were - now qualified to head up the entire records management department or
process cotrol system, all conveniently 'learned' during a lunch break. Go
from manual arts teacher to a director in the department of education (true
story!). Me? I was intimately aware of how little knowledge such courses
conveyed to me, so I never rose through the ranks. The clueless did awfully
well though.
Do I sound resentful? I don't mean to, I'm more scared than resentful.
You may or may not feel such math is justified. I knew a lot of college
professors
that taught material because that's what they had to teach. It was part of
the
system and if you got them away from school they would admit better things
could have been done with the time. If they wanted tenure, they better
teach
the expected material.
I'd agree with that !
Frankly Id rather see photo students learn about
enlargers and light meters, but then again its just my view and everyone is
entitled to their own.
and that ;)
Andy:
But who wrote the chart? Where did the numbers come from? It will be the
mark of an educated person the one who is not dependent on charts push
come to shove and is able to figure out answers on their own if needed.
AT college I confess to being the scribbler of charts, stuck on all the
walls to make life a tiny bit easier for people. This was a time when film
and digi were being taught side by side, 6Mp as the ultimate on the pro digi
side and 120's and 5x4's for the filmies. However - peek over the shoulder
of a film shooter as they peered at their chromes on the light table after a
studio shoot and you'd find they would be trying to find the best shot of
the model from a collection of rolls, all well exposed, all in focus.
Head to the digital lab and shake my head at the students going through
hundreds of frames from a similar studio shoot trying to find the one that
was *both* well exposed and in focus. I'm not joking.. how so many of them
managed to get so many blurry, oof and badly lit shots in a controlled shoot
was amazing.
Mark :
In my college days we spent hours and hours listening to baroque music.
Professors played drop the needle on records and we had to identify piece,
composer and where in the piece it happened to fall. Now understanding
the impact of baroque music on music development is definitely important
I laughed at this. I too studied and played music (french horn) and endured
many a lecture on music history.. failed it utterly, but my love was playing
the instrument and I felt I gained little if anything from being able to
pick who composed a piece. I still don't. I was however a decent player
and had the pleasure and the privilege of playing in some rather lovely
cathedrals and concert halls.
In time I learned the names of the composers, still never saw the need to
know who dined with whom though on a particular date and such. ;)
Regarding photography courses specifically though, we had the argument
presented that the bulk of photographers didn't need to know how to adjust
chemical processes, manufacture developers, collimate lenses, understand
sensitometry, troubleshoot shutters, calibrate light meters, build slave
triggers, recover corrupt data or many other things that the course did or
could have taught. So instead it was simplified to make sure people knew
good poses for weddings, how to set up a portrait booth in a mall, what
brands were the best to buy..
Thing was, photographers generally rely on a lot of supporting undustries
that DID need to know some of that other stuff - and these courses were the
place people learnt it. The reason the lab could take that badly exposed
neg and make an exquisite print was because the printer, who learned as a
photographer what a photographer wants, needs and expects went through that
course and specialized into one of the support industries.
Sure a chemical engineer could cobble together a developer for you, once
they took the time to learn what the heck it was you wanted, how it was
supposed to work and such forth - but by gosh you'd better believe it would
become an expensive task! Someone who learned chemistry from within the
photograpy craft could do this a lot easier and cheaper!
A lot of similarly in-depth courses are gone from our education system in
Australia.
Apparently our country is suffering a 'skills shortage' these days too. We
have to import a lot of labour to overcome this.
I wonder if it's related?
k
