Re: [xmca] Education: Reaching the poorest

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Michael-- Yep, there will be lots of local goals. There is an interesting
review of a book on Appalachia higher ed for women and its pathway-forming
influences on their lives, in the most recent issue of MCA (the one with all
the play articles). The pathways of the women who returned from higher ed
were indeed complex. Check it out.

I am guessing here, but I am guessing that in both locations you mention,
failure rates are quite high. In Liberia in the late 1960's and 1970's local
people in small
villages hoped that through the massive waste of time and their kids labor
and costs, one family member might make it through to some role in the
central government both to protect them and siphon off money for them, such
siphoning being one of the perks of such positions.

With respect to the reading/goal achieving cart/horse problem. My guess is
that it cuts both directions in the big picture, but that learning to decode
language into writing systems with no clearer goal than avoiding trouble
from adults is the major arrangements world wide, with some patches of
Deweyian inversion so that acquiring literacy is a means to a goal. But,
whichever way it works, eventually
a lot, in a lot of places, experience failure to reach whatever level of
schooling counts as economic/socioculural success for them. Reduced family
sizes of women with some education appears one of the few generalizable
consequences, with a variety of sequalia.

What about the students in the greater Chicago school system? It was the
failure of the reform effort there that spurred this particular threadlet.
mike

On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>wrote:

> 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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