In the media and information saturated world in which we find ourselves, it is not always obvious what to do with the bits and pieces of digital content, fragments of knowledge, or pieces of learning that filter through our network feeds. I receive hundreds of links to articles, blog posts, jokes, youtube clips, bands I must check out, photos, and 8-Bit Computer Games That Do Not Exist a day!
Drinking from the fire hose, on any given day, can be exciting, exhilarating, or down right exhausting. I have to choose which Tweet link to follow, which Facebook recommendation to actually read, or which RSS blog post to skim or save for later. Not sure when this quiet reflection time is ever going to come, but I am assuming some day I will have time. Ha!
Anyway, sorry, I know you are busy, so let me end this verbose introduction. I received the clip you are about to see from @wmchamberlin a few days ago attached to a Tweet that said, “You are going to love this.”
He was right. My immediate reaction was to RT it and post it on Facebook, because I wanted to share it with as many people as I could, but after reading @cogdog‘s blog post about Are You Liking the Like Web, I got to thinking. I tell my students that they are welcome to embed Youtube clips into their blogs as long as the content does not conflict with our AUP, which they have signed. But I tell them, never to simply post the clip.
Anyone can watch a clip on Youtube, why is watching it on your blog different or special?
Well the answer is that if you are sharing a link of any kind, it would be nice to frame a conversation around the content. So watch this clip and I will meet you in the other side in 2:06 mins.
A lot has been written about education reform. Hundreds if not thousands of teachers around the world are trying to see public education in a new light, and for your effort I applaud you, but here is my question- What if the system is not broken? What if the educational system we have in the US is exactly what the people who designed it want it to be? A system that trains and produces low level, non-critical-thinkers who will be happy non-active citizens who do not question authority and do what they are told- work hard, try to be rich and consume. It keeps minorities out of the equation all togther, by making sure they are seldom properly educated, and allows the wealthy to continue to extract the nations wealth, while the population has been “educated” to admire them for it.
What if we realize that the public education system in the US is designed for the American free market capitalistic system, and until that changes, education cannot and will not change? Why would we expect that the wealthiest 1% of the nation who control the banks, Wall Street, the major industries and corporations, who depend on the population not only for the labor we provide, but also for our spending capital as consumers, why would they want us educated?
What better way for them to stay in power than to have us running through mazes of Ed-reform and standardization, Regents Exams and yet another new scheme? Year in-and-year out, a new administration comes to Washington with the answer. But it is working?
People talk about Ed-Reform; I say we start talking about revolution. Don’t get me wrong; I am not suggestion Maoist revolt, so before you cry red take a look at the definition of the word: a fundamental change in power or organizational structures. You tell me what that looks like. Education is not working because the Free Market is. I think the kids in this video have the right idea. Who is their teacher? Let’s get connected. Thoughts?