Colleges are worried about the Digital Age

 　Heidelberg Castle rises sharply above the valley, looked upon from below by the Neckar river. Heidelberg University, located along its banks, was established in 1386 and is Germany’s oldest University. The old sanctuary, with its tightly packed rows of chairs, is a dim and austere space, though good for one’s posture.
There were certainly a few rowdy fellows who broke the rules. The school prison from years past still remains. In accordance with respecting the self-governance and autonomy of the school, which existed outside of local jurisdiction, students who broke the rules were locked up here. Those students covered every inch of the walls with graffiti. Their pride and spirit of defiance has been carved onto the pages of history.
　Though, not ceding punishment to society outside of the halls of the school, keeping the process between those closest to you, making them break bread together and settle the dispute by paying compensation, is a very warmhearted sort of punishment indeed. Doing this, even though it would have been far more economical to toss the offending parties out into the river as punishment. Perhaps we can say that this is the cost of autonomy for a university.

　Looking at another university, I come to realize the distance that exists between college and myself.
　When I was in elementary school, the nearby Kyoto University was always in an uproar. Groups of young men with helmets and clubs clashed with riot police and people covered in flame from Molotov cocktails were a common sight. Drunken spectators would gather, shouting encouragement at the students.
　Ten years passed before I made my own way past the school gates. They say the student movement had died, but really, the boys in helmets and masks had just taken to loitering. I spent my time in an autonomous territory, the punk-rock palace known as Kyoto University’s Western Auditorium, so the mood wasn’t quite the same as it was typically. This, even though nowadays I must humbly apologize for the transgression of standing on this side of the teacher’s podium.
　I have no intention of “teaching” students. My role is not to transmit knowledge. Nor is that within my ability. Above all else, graduate school is not a place where students are taught by teachers, but a place where students come to study, and the advent of digitalization has expanded the possibilities for self-study to an extraordinary extent. What I can do for them is offer hints as to what they ought to study, and an environment in which they can do so. I try to provide those opportunities as I move between industry-university projects.
　The common knowledge about how secondary education is something that has come down over decades and even centuries, gradually accumulating until it arrived at its present form. In contrast to this, the number of famous universities offering classes online for free is growing, and the relationships between knowledge and society are changing rapidly. The universities are worried. I may start worrying, myself.