In historic breakthrough, Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren offers bill to force the Federal Reserve to finance student loans at 0.75% with no cost to taxpayers; measure embodies principles needed for US economic recovery from current depression. I urge a major all points mobilization in support of Sen Elizabeth Warren's Bank on Students bill mandating that the Federal Reserve provide...
I entered engineering school at Columbia University in September of last year intent on pursuing my interest in the development of alternative energy technology. Throughout this past year, my classmates and I have been often reminded of how engineers are really public servants whose ideas, inventions, and discoveries can be powerful agents of change if the engineer is committed to them. The...
(1)Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind - driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm...
Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? The Matrix Just imagine having no choice but to undergo a mental and spiritual reconfiguration process, having to update your internal belief and operational faculties due to being privy to new...
Seeing gurneys of babies trundled through the chiaroscuro of old black-and-white footage at the start of Scott Noble’s Human Resources, the gurneys in the tunnels of God only knows what kind of institution, the viewer does well to brace herself for the coming onslaught. The piano accompaniment is not so much music as it is the hammering of wires in the industrial mode, a harbinger...
When it comes to competition, we Americans typically recognize only two legitimate positions: enthusiastic support and qualified support. The first view holds that the more we immerse our children (and ourselves) in rivalry, the better. Competition builds character and produces excellence. The second stance admits that our society has gotten carried away with the need to be Number One, that...
From elephant to estuary: does the 2013 European Green Capital have something to teach US cities?
Beach Cleanup in Petitenget Beach Cleanup in Petitenget For those of you that have been to Bali, you know it's a beautiful island with a dirty little secret. Lots of trash. When I arrived in Bali in Novembe
Israeli abattoir abuse questions Australia's live export system Video of Australian cattle being abused at an Israeli abattoir has prompted questions of our live export system given the abattoir was given the all clear in an audit for an Australian exporter two months before the video was taken. Transcript CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Shocking new video of cattle being abused at an...
Davis Guggenheim's 2010 film Waiting for Superman is a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions. The film suggests the problems in education are the fault of teachers and teacher unions alone, and it asserts that the solution to those problems is a greater focus on top-down instruction driven by test scores. It rejects the inconvenient truth that our schools are being...
At a protest last year at New York University, students called attention to their mounting debt by wearing T-shirts with the amount they owed scribbled across the front — $90,000, $75,000, $20,000. On the sidelines was a business consultant for the debt collection industry with a different take. "I couldn't believe the accumulated wealth they represent — for our industry," the...
"I remember the first time that a grading rubric was attached to a piece of my writing….Suddenly all the joy was taken away. I was writing for a grade -- I was no longer exploring for me. I want to get that back. Will I ever get that back?" -- Claire, a student (in Olson, 2006)
Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas—are shouted down by the drunken chants of fans in huge stadiums, the pathetic demands...
As students, we are told that we are being made into an “informed citizenry” capable of maintaining a vibrant democracy. Indeed, we are told that we must give up most of our constitutional rights in the name of achieving this goal. We are compelled to attend an institution where our every action, from speaking, to moving, to going to the bathroom is strictly controlled by an...
One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority. While all cultures are different, in many non-modernized societies children enjoy wide latitude to learn by free...
Over the last six months of researching for my work-in-progress documentary about the pitfalls of American higher education, The Elephant on Campus , there have been many problems I have come across. One of the biggest and least talked about problems is that public universities are totally opaque when it comes to the way they receive and spend money, especially tuition money. No one outside...
Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination. Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that...
In response to Arne Duncan's Open Letter to America's Teachers , Kansas high school teacher, David Reber wrote an open letter of his own that criticized the Secretary of Education's "corporate-style education reform". The following is the beginning paragraphs of Reber's response. For the full letter, click the link at the bottom of the page. Mr. Duncan, I read your
I think now is a good time to be talking about Bucky’s vision of a World Game. We have the technology to do this and a new administration could easily provide the funding. I don’t think any of this material is Utopian or far out, but if you do, let me know why. From the introduction to a World Game activity book: “Now, for the first time in the history of man, all...
Reaching out to young people is especially critical at this time. With mounting psycho-social stress attributed to an increasingly uncertain future, young people are going to need support grappling with the social effects of so many convergent crises. The world is rife with uncertainty about our fate on the planet. Declining ecosystems and biodiversity, a quickly destabilizing climate and an...
“Every child,” wrote pioneer botanist Luther Burbank, “should have mud pies, grasshoppers, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pinecones, rocks to roll, snakes, huckleberries and hornets. And any child who has been deprived of...
A dangerous thing can occur when you start learning about what's really going on in the world. The problems start to seem so complex, and you're just one person, doubts begin to creep in. You sincerely want to help change the world, but from all this knowledge you start to believe that the world is too out of control and too big to change, so you end up not doing anything. What aspiring...
When we try to engage people politically we never know who will respond, or when someone will shift from reveling in their apathy to taking powerful public stands. Here's a striking example of one such transformation. Virginia Tech freshman Angie De Soto didn't vote in the 2004 election. The president, she thought, had nothing to do with her life. She didn't care who won. Instead, she and...
WARNING!!!! THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS HEAVY SARCASM!!! Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! I feel we need to put things in perspective and pay them for what they currently do - babysit. And I am sure we can get that for less than minimum wage. For starters, let's give a general high school teacher $3.00 an hour/student and only...
I want you to consider the frightening possibility that we are spending far too much money on schooling, not too little. I want you to consider that we have too many people employed in interfering with the way children grow up — and that all this money and all these people, all the time we take out of children's lives and away from their homes and families and neighborhoods and...
Another revolution is brewing, but in an unlikely place: Wisconsin. Teachers are on strike , classes canceled, in protest of a state government plan to cut their benefits and weaken their unions. The governor says the cuts are necessary to balance the state budget. Given the bankrupt state of government finances across the country, I don’t doubt him. The teachers have a valid complaint...
A new study says 3-year-olds who mostly eat processed foods have lower IQs five years later. (So Pop-Tarts and Sunny-D are why we're " falling behind " China in math and science?) The study, cited in The Guardian , examined the diets of 14,000 wee Britlets, based on what their parents reported feeding them. Three is the magic number: Your brain grows the fastest from birth to age 3...
Lawrence, KS -- After 12 months in development, Films For Action has launched its new website - a head-to-toe redesign that lays the foundation for a vibrant community-powered news site dedicated to inspiring positive social change. At the heart of the new site is a constantly growing learning library of over 200 documentaries and 500 short films that can be watched free online, daily...
What happens when you fail to invest in education (and no, I don't mean investment in excessive layers of school administration), the most important single item in our nation's success or failure? You end up with this result : An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn't learn the critical thinking...
While London has been rocked by student protests over proposed tuition hikes, United States college campuses have been largely quiet. Tens of thousands of students in the UK have taken to the streets -- confronting police, storming the Conservative Party headquarters, even halting the motorcade of the British monarch Prince Charles. In fact, all across Europe students are revolting. For...
Wireless Generation, a US education technology company, will become a subsidiary of News Corporation for about $360 million in cash as Rupert Murdoch seeks to expand his company into academia. The company provides technology solutions for an audience of over 3 million students nation-wide. On Monday, News Corporation, the parent company of the Fox News Channel, announced it signed an...
Let me speak to you about dumbness because that is what schools teach best. Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance: you didn't know something, but there were ways to find out if you wanted to. Government-controlled schooling didn't eliminate dumbness - in fact, we now know that people read more fluently before we had forced schooling - but dumbness was transformed. Now dumb...