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RE: [xmca] Education: Reaching the poorest



Mike,
 
I think there is a strong, non-universal relationship between what are the goals and motivations of education and the local community.  An Apalachian community which has been together for generations may want an educational system that focuses on feeling safe, maintaining ties, while at the same time building necessary bridges to other communities.  In Andre Pradesh the community may want individuals who are able to serve as members of the Pancheyet in ways that bring clean water and roads to the community, or that break the class system.  Or there may be local communities that want to break some of the larger, institutional traditions that hold them back.  An upper middle class community in the United States wants the students to be able to perform on the types of standardized tests that will get them in to a top college.  These are all very different goals and very different motivations.
 
If I ran for the school board in my community, Dublin Ohio, on the idea that we should be creating Community Based Organizations that allow us to better take care of our weak, challenge institutions, change life trajectories people would look at me like I am crazy.  If I went in to an one of those communities in Andre Pradesh or even an Appalachian community here and said I want to really work on raising test scores people would look at me like I am crazy.  
 
Now of course there are some skills that help across a range of issues, but here is the big question I have been thinking about a lot,
 
Do we learn to read because we believe it is a skill that will help us meet our goals.
 
Or is it that in trying to reach our goals we learn skills such as reading.
 
Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole
Sent: Sat 1/23/2010 12:59 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Education: Reaching the poorest



OK, Michael, so lets adopt your narrative. What is the impact?
Improved number of years remaining in school? Range of activities that
graduates are capable of engaging in? Increased unemployment of the
educated? Decreased birth rate?  Etc.

It is precisely the implications underlying terms such as impact that are on
my alleged mind.
mike

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 7:32 AM, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>wrote:

> What's interesting is that the article mentions the World Bank research but
> only a small portion of it that agrees with current narratives.  Much of the
> World Bank research on education suggests that organizing communities at a
> local level, giving them responsibility and creating working relationships
> between larger national school institutions and local CBOs has the greatest
> impact.  But that doesn't fit our current narrative so of course nobody is
> going to mention this.
>
> Michael
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Sat 1/23/2010 9:24 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [xmca] Education: Reaching the poorest
>
>
>
> Education: Reaching the poorest
> Enrolling the world's poorest children in school needs new
> thinking, not just more money from taxpayers
>
>
> http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15330592
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Hegel Summer School
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/hss10.htm
> Hegel, Goethe and the Planet: 13 February 2010.
>
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