According to a recent article in EdScoop, “some California higher education institutions plan to shift away from textbooks toward open educational resources in the coming years” (August 9th online).
Idaho is going one step further.
Beginning in Fall 2023, all courses offered in Idaho’s public colleges and universities will be content-free.
As State Board of Education Executive Director Matt Freeman put it, “going content-free will address two major problems plaguing higher education in the 21st century. The first challenge is the difficulty of course content. Have you ever seen the material that is covered in an Organic Chemistry class? That stuff is hard, man, especially for students raised in a state where science only appears on high school worksheets as an extracurricular activity.
“The second problem is bias. Now that both post-modernists AND the far right agree that the concept of objective knowledge is a non-starter, the whole notion of ‘course content’ has become moot.”
When Freeman was asked by reporters to describe what would replace course content in Idaho colleges and universities in 2023, he indicated that state institutions would rely heavily on cat videos that are inclusive of all breeds, as well as Tweets from LeBron James and Ben Affleck. Advanced courses would consist of TikTok dance routines featuring expressionless teenagers channeling Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, and Tom Brady.