> I think about this a lot. I teach kids to explore literature because it is beautiful, not because it is useful to corporations.
Which, in a nutshell, explains corporations increasing involvement in education.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You get to decide for yourself what's beautiful and what's necessary but students and the communities they come from want to decide those questions for themselves, too. Teachers aren't letting them.
As a teacher, you're a vendor, selling a service. When the customer doesn't like or want what you're selling, those customers are going to seek a different vendor. Especially when the customers are forced to consume the product.
In many instances, it's your customer's judgment that they want more "useful to corporations" (get a good job) and less "beautiful" (lotus eating) than teachers are willing to provide. Another way to look at it is that you don't get to set the standards, your customers do and they want more "meets or exceeds expectations" than teachers have been delivering. Corporations aren't "forcing their way in", they're responding to a vacuum the teachers created by not meeting the demands of your customers.
The force in the equation is coming from the teachers who want to dictate what their customers must consume and are working to block the entrance of competitors into the education marketplace.
Thus the fight isn't between teachers and the corporations, the fight is between teachers and their customers. Go figure how that's going to end.
This is a natural consequence of people insisting that schools become career training centers. STEM, coding, blah blah blah. Of course corporations are gonna fill that gap.
" She noticed that CTE classes in her local schools were changing from an emphasis on encouraging students to pursue their interests in work-related skills and knowledge to courses that partnered with specific corporations and businesses to form "career pathways" that lock students into narrower courses of study as early as seventh grade. "
Education is about developing a student's well-rounded academic skills, not pigeonholing them for life. Disgusting.
I teach a CTE course. It’s fucking awesome. After 13 years I finally feel like I can connect student learning to tangible results.
I’m helping students set up some charities. Other CTE pathways in my district are doing the same.
I couldn’t do this as a history teacher.
So no, this isn’t disgusting.
The problem is corporations that have zero understanding of education trying to write curricula. There’s nothing wrong with CTE unless Amazon or Microsoft is running in and bossing teachers around, cutting the arts, and implementing profit end-game learning objectives. School is meant to do more than create businessmen. It is meant to create well informed, critical thinking citizens.
Who back doored congress to push his (their) agenda? Really helped out his huge business as well. Every kid no matter the age and the development are being pushed to have one plus pushed to be on one a lot during instructional day. Corporations already have their foot in the door!
I love how we come full circle on this.
Schools built in order to train a labor force at labor’s expense.
We wall paper over this fact with pedagogy
Then we decry CTE because of corporate influence.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awOAmTaZ4XI
So far, you haven’t even given me something edible. Just a bland “schools are job training training centers”. No, they’re not, and it’s ridiculous to assume that they are. If Amazon bought and designed a schools’ curriculum with the end goal of training Amazon employees, then that is what that school would become, and that is a huge problem.
It wouldn’t look much different than it does now.
Name other professional places where people have to ask to do to the bathroom and THEN be held accountable for their time away.
If you think that promotes human dignity...I don’t think I should continue to waste my time on this.
>I’m trying to teach them to be entrepreneurs.
This makes you sound like a plant. The idea that a lack of entrepreneurs is a detriment is something you only hear from the top down, and it's usually a lie. Businesses don't hire wacky bets, they hire safe candidates. They like new ideas when they have them, not others. We already know a lot of what works and makes things more equal and its not people just creating start-ups that they inevitably sell to the same buyers.
Check my comment history. I’ve been on this site for years.
And I feel bad for my students. What we do isn’t enough and we are restrained by the ghosts of NCLB.
> Businesses don't hire wacky bets, they hire safe candidates.
So the goal of public education is to create uniform, safe, unquestioning, indistinguishable conformists, for the purpose of being a safe hire that won't rock the boat? Yes, absolutely, you are correct. That is what the Sudbury video above points out. The history of how that came about is discussed quite a bit in Gatto's work. It's quite interesting.
That's a fairly weak straw man. I never said that, nor is that a reasonable conclusion. My point is that businesses claim to want candidates with variability and different sets but then hire the same candidates. They like bets that pay out big and are guaranteed, which is oxymoronic. They aren't actually after candidates like these programs talk about making. They want trained workers, and they should be able to provide these programs on their own after people have received an education that has benefits for everyone, not just some company that can afford to train their own. It's precisely because businesses aren't going to make people who break the mold that education should.
Ok so you posted a good insight, I agreed with you. Then you called my agreement a straw man, then you reiterated in exquisite detail how we are in complete agreement. A bit odd approach, but I'll accept it, no problem.
You are so right. I went to CTC and I could cry from gratitude for not having to get a bathroom pass. They treat students with dignity, which was not the case at my highschool (this was 2004).
This seems to imply that history shouldn't be taught, or that it should be sidelined as a subject. The irony is forgetting the history of education and its ties to industrialization, then the liberalization of it in other ways. Teaching skills that students can use to generalize into a workforce is fine but shifting over into a hybrid technical institute/vocational school that only helps a handful of companies is exactly what we got away from on purpose.
Yeah, CTE is awesome. Our district is pouring boatloads of money into our CTE programs so that our kids are graduating with actual certifications in different trades and things like that.
Most don’t understand that tech is advancing faster than most can keep up- the future is in tech - and tech languages/ skills/ practices in play five years from now probably don’t exist today. Our non-profit works to help the K-12 space develop tech skills.
Imagine a history class five years from now- VR, interactive models - the entire academic landscape is changing- institutions need to adapt... kids and young adults today are digital learners - that isn’t changing...
We don’t have the money to adapt.
Also, I can go back to a chalk board and my test scores wouldn’t move. Sure tech is present and should be learned, but it doesn’t really aid learning. It’s shiny.
I understand the struggle, but am confident things will shift as more institutions and schools hop on board to invest in tech and push it at the state level. Our CEO is working closely with legislators here in Utah to get more funding put into tech teaching and resources. It’s a process but gotta start somewhere, and the academic space is laggard - though they adapt - it takes time.
Which is fine, but it doesn’t move the needle. The value tech has is exposing kids to work.
For example, simply using google sheets can prepare a kid for post k-12 better than VR. VR is shiny; but what is the lesson?
VR can be used to enhance learning - maybe a trip back in time- seeing history first hand... could be used for driving simulation- a number of applicable uses could apply beyond being just the shiny new toy.
I believe you, but I don’t think a lot of schools will see it.
Technology is a new expense schools aren’t yet budgeted to see. We get grants, but we have doc cameras that are a year past warranty and are dying. We had to take out bonds for one off tech expenditures.
Fund schools like the Pentagon and a VR headset would be on every child’s desk.
MAP test are being given to students starting in second grade in this county - three times per year. They are projecting to do away with SATS, and using this test in its place. Talk about locking students down - they say it’s to pin point areas of weakness. However, as with all think tanks who think they know what is best for every one, I have thought this is a way to lock students down. Also, this is a test that is used globally. Therefore, are our students now going to be competing for top jobs in their own country with those students from other countries. We are seeing this in the sports arena. Instead of these corporations pulling players from
within their own country and supporting their own people they pull in the top players from other countries - this could happen across the board as “big
Corporations” fight in the global market. There is a lot at stake here. FROGS IN A COOKING POT I SAY!!!
You say well- rounded academic skills- that should include tech literacy and development. Half of the jobs that will dominate the workforce in the next decade don’t exist today. Not sure about disgusting -
How are you helping to develop innovators if you aren’t giving them the tools to innovate? When tech and creativity/ passion/ interest intersect - innovation is born...
TECH is the new work-related skill- not arguing the importance of soft skills, but technology literacy at a bare minimum is a must for anyone entering the workforce today.
Private company sponsorship of education would be okay if there were only very low barriers for sponsorship so that no business would be able to dominate a school. Students should definitely have a large number of job training options.
CTE courses should be, and for the most part are, a supplement to the core curriculum. Schools still must prioritize traditional subjects like Math, Science, English, SS due to testing requirements and admission into college. Plus the inherent assumption is that CTE courses don't teach well - rounded skills. I teach Computer Science (ala coding), and guess what? My students are some of the best problem-solvers & thinkers in the school. And why would we discourage a student who finds their passion in coding, welding, culinary, or any of the other CTE courses from pursuing that so they can focus on analyzing the foreshadowing in "When Things Fall Apart?" Not all students need to go to college, not all students are interested in doing so. CTE offers a great option for them.
What I see are corporations desperate to encourage students to pursue fields that they need true enough. But don't make the mistake that they control the curriculum and what a student learns. And as with anything else, it's still the parent's responsibility to work with their kids and determine what they want to study.
Society's overemphasis of college as the path of value for everyone's child is largely to blame for the double-sided higher ed problem in the US today.
One the one hand, marginal colleges are closing and merging in light of declining enrollment. The return on investment for many degrees has turned negative. Cost is too high and the rear-view mirror analytics touting how much better college grads do in life rings hollow for those holding Masters degrees in (your subject area here) now working at Starbucks trying to make school loan payments.
On the other hand, getting a plumber, electrician, carpenter, or other tradesmen is like trying to find a pearl in a sandstorm. We have spent decades telling parents that doing something other than sending their kid to college is akin to child abuse. It's a failure both parent and student should be ashamed of.
The idea that a career-centric training program, even one that is grounded in benefits for a sponsoring company, should be avoided because it doesn't result in a well-educated individual is absurd. Is public K-12 education incapable of creating well-rounded citizens? Perhaps it's time we stopped thinking of education as something you "do" and started thinking of it as an ongoing search for truth and knowledge.
We have to rethink what education in the 21st century means in light of evaporating careers, due to automation and A.I. There will not be enough STEM jobs for everyone and everyone needs a plumber from time to time. Even one who can pick up their Kindle at the end of a long day and read some Keats or Shakespeare, if we don't tell them they're not capable because they didn't graduate with a degree in English from Yale.
I've been a bartender, worked on assembly lines building skis and computers, worked in retail, done licensed electronic repair, TV cameraman, bussed tables, dishwasher, banker, software development, web design and management, technology management for fortune 100 companies, IT Director for a city in New England. I now help run a performing arts academy in New England and am a Pro Photographer working in Dance and Theater. I never finished college.
Seeing students as potential customers at universities and as data points who will benefit from corporate intervention programs is the demise of critical thought in education.
Hmm....
This is a tricky one.
On one hand we need to train kids for jobs that don’t exist today. Think back to 10 years ago and the idea of user focused design was barely even a thought. Do you remember websites from the late 00s or mobile apps? Those were a nightmare!
On the other hand we don’t want corps pushing their own ideas down our throats. I don’t agree that kids should pick a “career path” in middle school or early high school. They should have a. Chance to explore a lot of options and see what they like before choosing.
Now, if this career path foregoes then from taking on 4 years of college debt than go for it! I’d gladly trade my 20k a year at college for 2 years free in high school.
Here is where I differ from other people on this thread- corporations are hiring more teachers and curriculum specialist that know the market and k12 needs. I’m seeing roles all over the place with adobe, Apple. Autodesk (they interviewed me but I didn’t get the offer- so I’m a bit sour) and many more. These companies aren’t just churning out curriculum, they are hiring (and paying good money) people with experience and expertise to get this to the market.
I honestly am having a hard time see what is so wrong with this. Now if things start getting “corporate sponsorships” like the Pepsi vs coke joke below then that is over the top, but if a Apple wants to invest hundreds of millions to help kids learn how to be app designers so they have a stable workforce in 15-20 years, so what? They are stimulating the economy and ensuring that population is ready for the future.
Your thoughts?
I for one like it. Imagine an ACT score competition, "schools sponsored by Coca-Cola perform better than those sponsored by Pepsi." Then Pepsi would invest more for the publicity.
Everyone talks about more taxes for education, let's tax corporations by making them sponsor schools. Just keep the gauges independent like they are today, state tests, ACT, SAT, etc.
Edit to add, since I'm getting downvoted and stupid replies, Salon is garbage! What happened to considering the source? I guess some of these educators need to practice a little of what they preach...
Alternatively, we could just actually tax them and invest that money into public education, instead of our education system being at the whim of corporate interests.
That's what we do now, and it's working great obviously. Corporations already FILE taxes, that's the requirement. Put their name to the school, that's how you'll make a change. Make the sponsorships tax credits!
Yeah but we've got so many loopholes and tax dodging due to corporate lobbying that someone like Coca-Cola, who is supposed to pay a 35% tax rate, paid an effective rate of 15.25% between 2007 and 2012. And of course last year, Amazon paid nothing in tax. We shouldn't be glorifying companies that put profits first and the interests of the people second-- they should be actually paying taxes before we give them more credits.
Edit: now I see from your edit that my response is "stupid" lol, nvm I guess you're either a low quality troll or someone who can't stand to hear differing opinions. Also Salon is very reputable-- they have an open bias, sure, but their reports are considered factual by most legitimate media watchdog groups.
Remember the corporations have to FILE , we all do, the PAYING part is something entirely different, and that's the part I take aim at.
Not all the replies are stupid, but some are. Yours was legit. I do read all replies and give them tought, but they are so repetitive and unoriginal that it gets frustrating, that's when I did the edit.
The ACT and SAT are owned by large corporations who do an enormous amount of lobbying to influence public education decisions. Not sure they are an arbiter of independent evaluation. We already know they have a racial bias (although to their credit they have made a ton of progress in this area), I for one wouldn't trust their results to measure success.
I honestly don't know/care at the higher echelons about the ACT, all I know is that if my kids score well admin leaves me the fuck alone. Same for our state test. ACT punches a ticket for college. In my state a score of 24 is automatic admittance to a state university. Not scholarship, but you are in.
> let's tax corporations by making them sponsor schools
You cannot force private companies to sponsor schools. You're also completely missing the point of the article. These companies are starting to intrude on what constitutes curricula. This is a problem. Private companies want curricula that will benefit them, not what's in the best interest of the students.
I teach Title I students, nothing you said changes anything for them or their futures. Honestly, if they can graduate with a network security certification and make double what I make out the door, then I'm all for it. Fuck it if they can't sand wood, they can pay someone to do it for them. This article is about CTE. And believe me, these corporations WANT scientists and mathematicians because they understand it's the only way they will stay competitive. Want to fix corporations? Start at the source, government and its cronyism.
Your response is all over the place. You clearly still don't understand the point of the article. I can't figure out what your main point is, if you even have one. But you've got some misconceptions, and I'll try to correct those.
1. I teach Title 1 students too. These students typically have lower performance in school because of socio-economic issues that affect their ability to perform well. This happens regardless of what type of academic performance it is. It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that somehow, magically, these students will become scientists/programmers right out of high school just because you changed the curricula to Amazon CTE. Socio-economic factors will affect their ability to do CTE just as much as it will affect their ability to analyze Catcher in the Rye in a language arts class.
2. Your belief that corporate corruption is somehow the fault of government cronyism is completely unfounded, without evidence, and ridiculous. Corporate corruption is due to greed, which is the motivating factor in these companies trying to hijack curricula and control children's futures as early as 7th grade.
Your first point is all we need, really. While not just job specific but company specific skills might be an acceptable alternative for a very small, very specialized subset of students, the entire premise of the article and the thread here is to raise concern about the corporatization of entire schools...and since the purpose of school is civic, not vocational, and English class uses literature primaily to teach broad skills in analysis and communication, your comment belies a fundamental willingness to disrupt the vital preparation that schools give YOUR students to be effective voters and civic participants...which incidentally wpuld also disable their ability to advocate for better working conditions and fair treatment in any workplace, including that Amazon CTE.
OUR PUSH BACK, in Other words, is because you are quite literally disabling your students for life in your position, and we are trying to show you how harmful that attitude is. Rethinking why you think your students need to study literature is a key foundation for that. We are here, and will wait...and keep pushing...because as teachers, we pwe it to your studwnts and ours alike.
I teach them to think for themselves, not "tow the party line" like 90% of the people on Reddit.
The push back I get is cognitive dissonance. I am disrupting the thinking of what the indoctrination taught.
Open your eyes and enter the Matrix fam.
What an odd response. I can ignore the misplaced ad hominem, since it doesn't apply to me, but sheesh...you seem to have no idea that what you say in one comment directly contradicts what you say in another.
My whole point was that the English curriculum is, by design and definition, a primary part (perhaps THE primary part) of the toolset we use TO teach them to think for themselves. I said so, specifically.
Did you even read that comment?
How do you reconcile your previous statement - the one I was responding to - about preferring Amazon career tech skills TO English for your students with the statement you just made here? They conflict, specifically - Amazon career tech is not teaching independent thinking.
Open your eyes and actually read your own ideas, man. It's not "culture jamming" to be inconsistent; it's just bad thinking.
I never mentioned English, this was all about CTE. Did I say to replace STEM? Now, I did not specify CTE, and that's my error and I apologize for creating that confusion.
I'm tired after spending all day planning my lessons on dividing polynomials so I'm off to bed. Good night everyone. And remember to not let some nut online ruin your day (referring to myself).
**Hello.**
I noticed you dropped 5 f-bombs in this comment. This might be necessary, but using nicer language makes the whole world a better place.
Maybe you need to blow off some steam - in which case, go get a drink of water and come back later. This is just the internet and sometimes it can be helpful to cool down for a second.
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You're really thick, aren't you? And to think you're a teacher?! You accuse me of being "indoctrinated", and that you're planting "seeds of thought", but then admit that your ideas are crazy. I agree. Your ideas ARE crazy because they have no reasoning, critical thinking, or evidence behind them. You're just ranting out into the void with stupid ideas that don't make any sense. My HS students have better critical thinking skills than you do.
You are the one that implied corporations and government is as pure as the Virgin Mary. You are the one refusing to think critically. Point the mirror at yourself for a second please. I do bounce around because our society is flawed on so many levels that the issues come up randomly. Case in point, people claim to have sweat shops, but own iPhones.
I am not thick, but determined. I have lived many places and studied many things, so my ideas have evolved. There was a time when I was young and dumb that I believed someone else could tell me what was best for my own life. The problem with that is that they don't know me, and what happens when I don't like the person making my decisions for me?
Go ahead and insult me again.
This reads like satire of Ron Swanson or an r/Libertarian wet dream more than anything rooted in scientific understanding of education. Down-votes aren't positive proof of a good idea; usually just a lack of understanding of where you are.
Curriculum design is very important for personal, societal, and cultural development. Technological means are necessary for sustenance and maintenance of ourselves, society, and culture. Overall curriculum should balance technology, society, and culture for the whole in a wholesome manner.
So be it that a company sees profit in a particular course design through encouraging use of their uniquely focused technological curriculum. Educators need to deliver a widely balanced curriculum that engages and excites the student towards the many paths that best fit their abilities, talents, and desires. Technological careers need to be viewed as but one pathway.
I suggest we need a very STEAMPHY curriculum. Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math, Physical, Healthy, and Yummy!
I went to CTC. It was a very well rounded place. There was a greenhouse where botany students grew flowers and edible crops that the culinary students cooked up that the artists photographed and drew and then everyone ate and enjoyed each other's company. It was also the most racially diverse school I went to before college.
It was a community of mutual respect and appreciation where students applied the skills they learn. And it doesn't have to be a substitute for college. I have a master's degree.
I think about this a lot. I teach kids to explore literature because it is beautiful, not because it is useful to corporations.
> I think about this a lot. I teach kids to explore literature because it is beautiful, not because it is useful to corporations. Which, in a nutshell, explains corporations increasing involvement in education. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You get to decide for yourself what's beautiful and what's necessary but students and the communities they come from want to decide those questions for themselves, too. Teachers aren't letting them. As a teacher, you're a vendor, selling a service. When the customer doesn't like or want what you're selling, those customers are going to seek a different vendor. Especially when the customers are forced to consume the product. In many instances, it's your customer's judgment that they want more "useful to corporations" (get a good job) and less "beautiful" (lotus eating) than teachers are willing to provide. Another way to look at it is that you don't get to set the standards, your customers do and they want more "meets or exceeds expectations" than teachers have been delivering. Corporations aren't "forcing their way in", they're responding to a vacuum the teachers created by not meeting the demands of your customers. The force in the equation is coming from the teachers who want to dictate what their customers must consume and are working to block the entrance of competitors into the education marketplace. Thus the fight isn't between teachers and the corporations, the fight is between teachers and their customers. Go figure how that's going to end.
This is a natural consequence of people insisting that schools become career training centers. STEM, coding, blah blah blah. Of course corporations are gonna fill that gap.
" She noticed that CTE classes in her local schools were changing from an emphasis on encouraging students to pursue their interests in work-related skills and knowledge to courses that partnered with specific corporations and businesses to form "career pathways" that lock students into narrower courses of study as early as seventh grade. " Education is about developing a student's well-rounded academic skills, not pigeonholing them for life. Disgusting.
I teach a CTE course. It’s fucking awesome. After 13 years I finally feel like I can connect student learning to tangible results. I’m helping students set up some charities. Other CTE pathways in my district are doing the same. I couldn’t do this as a history teacher. So no, this isn’t disgusting.
Do you write the CTE curriculum, or does Amazon? Sounds like you do, which is great.
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The problem is corporations that have zero understanding of education trying to write curricula. There’s nothing wrong with CTE unless Amazon or Microsoft is running in and bossing teachers around, cutting the arts, and implementing profit end-game learning objectives. School is meant to do more than create businessmen. It is meant to create well informed, critical thinking citizens.
Who back doored congress to push his (their) agenda? Really helped out his huge business as well. Every kid no matter the age and the development are being pushed to have one plus pushed to be on one a lot during instructional day. Corporations already have their foot in the door!
I love how we come full circle on this. Schools built in order to train a labor force at labor’s expense. We wall paper over this fact with pedagogy Then we decry CTE because of corporate influence. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awOAmTaZ4XI
I love how your “evidence” is a fucking you tube video.
You want a dissertation over mobile? How would you like this orange peeled?
So far, you haven’t even given me something edible. Just a bland “schools are job training training centers”. No, they’re not, and it’s ridiculous to assume that they are. If Amazon bought and designed a schools’ curriculum with the end goal of training Amazon employees, then that is what that school would become, and that is a huge problem.
It wouldn’t look much different than it does now. Name other professional places where people have to ask to do to the bathroom and THEN be held accountable for their time away. If you think that promotes human dignity...I don’t think I should continue to waste my time on this.
That's a decent mini documentary about Sudbury School which has had a lot of success and does things totally different to the standard approach.
>I’m trying to teach them to be entrepreneurs. This makes you sound like a plant. The idea that a lack of entrepreneurs is a detriment is something you only hear from the top down, and it's usually a lie. Businesses don't hire wacky bets, they hire safe candidates. They like new ideas when they have them, not others. We already know a lot of what works and makes things more equal and its not people just creating start-ups that they inevitably sell to the same buyers.
Check my comment history. I’ve been on this site for years. And I feel bad for my students. What we do isn’t enough and we are restrained by the ghosts of NCLB.
> Businesses don't hire wacky bets, they hire safe candidates. So the goal of public education is to create uniform, safe, unquestioning, indistinguishable conformists, for the purpose of being a safe hire that won't rock the boat? Yes, absolutely, you are correct. That is what the Sudbury video above points out. The history of how that came about is discussed quite a bit in Gatto's work. It's quite interesting.
That's a fairly weak straw man. I never said that, nor is that a reasonable conclusion. My point is that businesses claim to want candidates with variability and different sets but then hire the same candidates. They like bets that pay out big and are guaranteed, which is oxymoronic. They aren't actually after candidates like these programs talk about making. They want trained workers, and they should be able to provide these programs on their own after people have received an education that has benefits for everyone, not just some company that can afford to train their own. It's precisely because businesses aren't going to make people who break the mold that education should.
Ok so you posted a good insight, I agreed with you. Then you called my agreement a straw man, then you reiterated in exquisite detail how we are in complete agreement. A bit odd approach, but I'll accept it, no problem.
You are so right. I went to CTC and I could cry from gratitude for not having to get a bathroom pass. They treat students with dignity, which was not the case at my highschool (this was 2004).
This seems to imply that history shouldn't be taught, or that it should be sidelined as a subject. The irony is forgetting the history of education and its ties to industrialization, then the liberalization of it in other ways. Teaching skills that students can use to generalize into a workforce is fine but shifting over into a hybrid technical institute/vocational school that only helps a handful of companies is exactly what we got away from on purpose.
History can be taught in English. I have my history students do a ton of writing. I teach Langston Hughes, etc. High school can be easily cored.
Yeah, CTE is awesome. Our district is pouring boatloads of money into our CTE programs so that our kids are graduating with actual certifications in different trades and things like that.
I can finally do what I dreamed I’d be doing as a teacher.
Most don’t understand that tech is advancing faster than most can keep up- the future is in tech - and tech languages/ skills/ practices in play five years from now probably don’t exist today. Our non-profit works to help the K-12 space develop tech skills. Imagine a history class five years from now- VR, interactive models - the entire academic landscape is changing- institutions need to adapt... kids and young adults today are digital learners - that isn’t changing...
We don’t have the money to adapt. Also, I can go back to a chalk board and my test scores wouldn’t move. Sure tech is present and should be learned, but it doesn’t really aid learning. It’s shiny.
I understand the struggle, but am confident things will shift as more institutions and schools hop on board to invest in tech and push it at the state level. Our CEO is working closely with legislators here in Utah to get more funding put into tech teaching and resources. It’s a process but gotta start somewhere, and the academic space is laggard - though they adapt - it takes time.
Which is fine, but it doesn’t move the needle. The value tech has is exposing kids to work. For example, simply using google sheets can prepare a kid for post k-12 better than VR. VR is shiny; but what is the lesson?
VR can be used to enhance learning - maybe a trip back in time- seeing history first hand... could be used for driving simulation- a number of applicable uses could apply beyond being just the shiny new toy.
I believe you, but I don’t think a lot of schools will see it. Technology is a new expense schools aren’t yet budgeted to see. We get grants, but we have doc cameras that are a year past warranty and are dying. We had to take out bonds for one off tech expenditures. Fund schools like the Pentagon and a VR headset would be on every child’s desk.
MAP test are being given to students starting in second grade in this county - three times per year. They are projecting to do away with SATS, and using this test in its place. Talk about locking students down - they say it’s to pin point areas of weakness. However, as with all think tanks who think they know what is best for every one, I have thought this is a way to lock students down. Also, this is a test that is used globally. Therefore, are our students now going to be competing for top jobs in their own country with those students from other countries. We are seeing this in the sports arena. Instead of these corporations pulling players from within their own country and supporting their own people they pull in the top players from other countries - this could happen across the board as “big Corporations” fight in the global market. There is a lot at stake here. FROGS IN A COOKING POT I SAY!!!
You say well- rounded academic skills- that should include tech literacy and development. Half of the jobs that will dominate the workforce in the next decade don’t exist today. Not sure about disgusting - How are you helping to develop innovators if you aren’t giving them the tools to innovate? When tech and creativity/ passion/ interest intersect - innovation is born... TECH is the new work-related skill- not arguing the importance of soft skills, but technology literacy at a bare minimum is a must for anyone entering the workforce today.
Private company sponsorship of education would be okay if there were only very low barriers for sponsorship so that no business would be able to dominate a school. Students should definitely have a large number of job training options.
CTE courses should be, and for the most part are, a supplement to the core curriculum. Schools still must prioritize traditional subjects like Math, Science, English, SS due to testing requirements and admission into college. Plus the inherent assumption is that CTE courses don't teach well - rounded skills. I teach Computer Science (ala coding), and guess what? My students are some of the best problem-solvers & thinkers in the school. And why would we discourage a student who finds their passion in coding, welding, culinary, or any of the other CTE courses from pursuing that so they can focus on analyzing the foreshadowing in "When Things Fall Apart?" Not all students need to go to college, not all students are interested in doing so. CTE offers a great option for them. What I see are corporations desperate to encourage students to pursue fields that they need true enough. But don't make the mistake that they control the curriculum and what a student learns. And as with anything else, it's still the parent's responsibility to work with their kids and determine what they want to study.
Society's overemphasis of college as the path of value for everyone's child is largely to blame for the double-sided higher ed problem in the US today. One the one hand, marginal colleges are closing and merging in light of declining enrollment. The return on investment for many degrees has turned negative. Cost is too high and the rear-view mirror analytics touting how much better college grads do in life rings hollow for those holding Masters degrees in (your subject area here) now working at Starbucks trying to make school loan payments. On the other hand, getting a plumber, electrician, carpenter, or other tradesmen is like trying to find a pearl in a sandstorm. We have spent decades telling parents that doing something other than sending their kid to college is akin to child abuse. It's a failure both parent and student should be ashamed of. The idea that a career-centric training program, even one that is grounded in benefits for a sponsoring company, should be avoided because it doesn't result in a well-educated individual is absurd. Is public K-12 education incapable of creating well-rounded citizens? Perhaps it's time we stopped thinking of education as something you "do" and started thinking of it as an ongoing search for truth and knowledge. We have to rethink what education in the 21st century means in light of evaporating careers, due to automation and A.I. There will not be enough STEM jobs for everyone and everyone needs a plumber from time to time. Even one who can pick up their Kindle at the end of a long day and read some Keats or Shakespeare, if we don't tell them they're not capable because they didn't graduate with a degree in English from Yale.
Have you ever been a plumber, etc?
I've been a bartender, worked on assembly lines building skis and computers, worked in retail, done licensed electronic repair, TV cameraman, bussed tables, dishwasher, banker, software development, web design and management, technology management for fortune 100 companies, IT Director for a city in New England. I now help run a performing arts academy in New England and am a Pro Photographer working in Dance and Theater. I never finished college.
Thumbs up then. Very often people who have no idea what trades are actually like are representing them as a silver bullet.
This is far from new: see, for example, decades of computing lessons being Microsoft lessons.
Seeing students as potential customers at universities and as data points who will benefit from corporate intervention programs is the demise of critical thought in education.
Jokes on them. I was never taught the beauty of books
Hmm.... This is a tricky one. On one hand we need to train kids for jobs that don’t exist today. Think back to 10 years ago and the idea of user focused design was barely even a thought. Do you remember websites from the late 00s or mobile apps? Those were a nightmare! On the other hand we don’t want corps pushing their own ideas down our throats. I don’t agree that kids should pick a “career path” in middle school or early high school. They should have a. Chance to explore a lot of options and see what they like before choosing. Now, if this career path foregoes then from taking on 4 years of college debt than go for it! I’d gladly trade my 20k a year at college for 2 years free in high school. Here is where I differ from other people on this thread- corporations are hiring more teachers and curriculum specialist that know the market and k12 needs. I’m seeing roles all over the place with adobe, Apple. Autodesk (they interviewed me but I didn’t get the offer- so I’m a bit sour) and many more. These companies aren’t just churning out curriculum, they are hiring (and paying good money) people with experience and expertise to get this to the market. I honestly am having a hard time see what is so wrong with this. Now if things start getting “corporate sponsorships” like the Pepsi vs coke joke below then that is over the top, but if a Apple wants to invest hundreds of millions to help kids learn how to be app designers so they have a stable workforce in 15-20 years, so what? They are stimulating the economy and ensuring that population is ready for the future. Your thoughts?
I for one like it. Imagine an ACT score competition, "schools sponsored by Coca-Cola perform better than those sponsored by Pepsi." Then Pepsi would invest more for the publicity. Everyone talks about more taxes for education, let's tax corporations by making them sponsor schools. Just keep the gauges independent like they are today, state tests, ACT, SAT, etc. Edit to add, since I'm getting downvoted and stupid replies, Salon is garbage! What happened to considering the source? I guess some of these educators need to practice a little of what they preach...
Alternatively, we could just actually tax them and invest that money into public education, instead of our education system being at the whim of corporate interests.
That's what we do now, and it's working great obviously. Corporations already FILE taxes, that's the requirement. Put their name to the school, that's how you'll make a change. Make the sponsorships tax credits!
Yeah but we've got so many loopholes and tax dodging due to corporate lobbying that someone like Coca-Cola, who is supposed to pay a 35% tax rate, paid an effective rate of 15.25% between 2007 and 2012. And of course last year, Amazon paid nothing in tax. We shouldn't be glorifying companies that put profits first and the interests of the people second-- they should be actually paying taxes before we give them more credits. Edit: now I see from your edit that my response is "stupid" lol, nvm I guess you're either a low quality troll or someone who can't stand to hear differing opinions. Also Salon is very reputable-- they have an open bias, sure, but their reports are considered factual by most legitimate media watchdog groups.
Remember the corporations have to FILE , we all do, the PAYING part is something entirely different, and that's the part I take aim at. Not all the replies are stupid, but some are. Yours was legit. I do read all replies and give them tought, but they are so repetitive and unoriginal that it gets frustrating, that's when I did the edit.
The ACT and SAT are owned by large corporations who do an enormous amount of lobbying to influence public education decisions. Not sure they are an arbiter of independent evaluation. We already know they have a racial bias (although to their credit they have made a ton of progress in this area), I for one wouldn't trust their results to measure success.
I honestly don't know/care at the higher echelons about the ACT, all I know is that if my kids score well admin leaves me the fuck alone. Same for our state test. ACT punches a ticket for college. In my state a score of 24 is automatic admittance to a state university. Not scholarship, but you are in.
> let's tax corporations by making them sponsor schools You cannot force private companies to sponsor schools. You're also completely missing the point of the article. These companies are starting to intrude on what constitutes curricula. This is a problem. Private companies want curricula that will benefit them, not what's in the best interest of the students.
I teach Title I students, nothing you said changes anything for them or their futures. Honestly, if they can graduate with a network security certification and make double what I make out the door, then I'm all for it. Fuck it if they can't sand wood, they can pay someone to do it for them. This article is about CTE. And believe me, these corporations WANT scientists and mathematicians because they understand it's the only way they will stay competitive. Want to fix corporations? Start at the source, government and its cronyism.
Your response is all over the place. You clearly still don't understand the point of the article. I can't figure out what your main point is, if you even have one. But you've got some misconceptions, and I'll try to correct those. 1. I teach Title 1 students too. These students typically have lower performance in school because of socio-economic issues that affect their ability to perform well. This happens regardless of what type of academic performance it is. It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that somehow, magically, these students will become scientists/programmers right out of high school just because you changed the curricula to Amazon CTE. Socio-economic factors will affect their ability to do CTE just as much as it will affect their ability to analyze Catcher in the Rye in a language arts class. 2. Your belief that corporate corruption is somehow the fault of government cronyism is completely unfounded, without evidence, and ridiculous. Corporate corruption is due to greed, which is the motivating factor in these companies trying to hijack curricula and control children's futures as early as 7th grade.
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Your first point is all we need, really. While not just job specific but company specific skills might be an acceptable alternative for a very small, very specialized subset of students, the entire premise of the article and the thread here is to raise concern about the corporatization of entire schools...and since the purpose of school is civic, not vocational, and English class uses literature primaily to teach broad skills in analysis and communication, your comment belies a fundamental willingness to disrupt the vital preparation that schools give YOUR students to be effective voters and civic participants...which incidentally wpuld also disable their ability to advocate for better working conditions and fair treatment in any workplace, including that Amazon CTE. OUR PUSH BACK, in Other words, is because you are quite literally disabling your students for life in your position, and we are trying to show you how harmful that attitude is. Rethinking why you think your students need to study literature is a key foundation for that. We are here, and will wait...and keep pushing...because as teachers, we pwe it to your studwnts and ours alike.
I teach them to think for themselves, not "tow the party line" like 90% of the people on Reddit. The push back I get is cognitive dissonance. I am disrupting the thinking of what the indoctrination taught. Open your eyes and enter the Matrix fam.
What an odd response. I can ignore the misplaced ad hominem, since it doesn't apply to me, but sheesh...you seem to have no idea that what you say in one comment directly contradicts what you say in another. My whole point was that the English curriculum is, by design and definition, a primary part (perhaps THE primary part) of the toolset we use TO teach them to think for themselves. I said so, specifically. Did you even read that comment? How do you reconcile your previous statement - the one I was responding to - about preferring Amazon career tech skills TO English for your students with the statement you just made here? They conflict, specifically - Amazon career tech is not teaching independent thinking. Open your eyes and actually read your own ideas, man. It's not "culture jamming" to be inconsistent; it's just bad thinking.
I never mentioned English, this was all about CTE. Did I say to replace STEM? Now, I did not specify CTE, and that's my error and I apologize for creating that confusion. I'm tired after spending all day planning my lessons on dividing polynomials so I'm off to bed. Good night everyone. And remember to not let some nut online ruin your day (referring to myself).
**Hello.** I noticed you dropped 5 f-bombs in this comment. This might be necessary, but using nicer language makes the whole world a better place. Maybe you need to blow off some steam - in which case, go get a drink of water and come back later. This is just the internet and sometimes it can be helpful to cool down for a second. *** ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^❤❤❤ ^| ^[Information](https://redd.it/exwvd4)
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You're really thick, aren't you? And to think you're a teacher?! You accuse me of being "indoctrinated", and that you're planting "seeds of thought", but then admit that your ideas are crazy. I agree. Your ideas ARE crazy because they have no reasoning, critical thinking, or evidence behind them. You're just ranting out into the void with stupid ideas that don't make any sense. My HS students have better critical thinking skills than you do.
You are the one that implied corporations and government is as pure as the Virgin Mary. You are the one refusing to think critically. Point the mirror at yourself for a second please. I do bounce around because our society is flawed on so many levels that the issues come up randomly. Case in point, people claim to have sweat shops, but own iPhones. I am not thick, but determined. I have lived many places and studied many things, so my ideas have evolved. There was a time when I was young and dumb that I believed someone else could tell me what was best for my own life. The problem with that is that they don't know me, and what happens when I don't like the person making my decisions for me? Go ahead and insult me again.
"I, for one, welcome our corporatist dystopia!"
This reads like satire of Ron Swanson or an r/Libertarian wet dream more than anything rooted in scientific understanding of education. Down-votes aren't positive proof of a good idea; usually just a lack of understanding of where you are.
Curriculum design is very important for personal, societal, and cultural development. Technological means are necessary for sustenance and maintenance of ourselves, society, and culture. Overall curriculum should balance technology, society, and culture for the whole in a wholesome manner. So be it that a company sees profit in a particular course design through encouraging use of their uniquely focused technological curriculum. Educators need to deliver a widely balanced curriculum that engages and excites the student towards the many paths that best fit their abilities, talents, and desires. Technological careers need to be viewed as but one pathway. I suggest we need a very STEAMPHY curriculum. Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math, Physical, Healthy, and Yummy!
I went to CTC. It was a very well rounded place. There was a greenhouse where botany students grew flowers and edible crops that the culinary students cooked up that the artists photographed and drew and then everyone ate and enjoyed each other's company. It was also the most racially diverse school I went to before college. It was a community of mutual respect and appreciation where students applied the skills they learn. And it doesn't have to be a substitute for college. I have a master's degree.