Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Education Week reports that Similar to the United States' creation of public schools, such as charter schools or alternative schools, that operate outside the regular public school system, the Mexican government has established an informal set of schools intended to improve education for two groups of Mexicans[~]children in rural communities and youths who can't afford the living expenses and fees required to attend even a public high school or university. Classes are taught by Mexican youths who have completed at least 9th grade themselves. Teachers live with community leaders in the small villages in which they teach. In exchange for two years of teaching they get a stipend to attend a university for six years. Sounds great in that kids who might not otherwise get an education can now do so, not to mention the benefits for the teachers to go on to even higher education. On the other hand, it seems like this might create (or perpetuate) a sort of under-educated (but not completely ignorant, in the sense of having zero education) under-class with only the minimal skills required to become productive cogs in a capitalist machine. In other words, these schools seem better than nothing, but they also seem unlikely to seriously change the massive poverty and unequal distribution of resources from which they spring. 4:27:14 PM

Education Week reports that Similar to the United States' creation of public schools, such as charter schools or alternative schools, that operate outside the regular public school system, the Mexican government has established an informal set of schools intended to improve education for two groups of Mexicans[~]children in rural communities and youths who can't afford the living expenses and fees required to attend even a public high school or university. Classes are taught by Mexican youths who have completed at least 9th grade themselves. Teachers live with community leaders in the small villages in which they teach. In exchange for two years of teaching they get a stipend to attend a university for six years. Sounds great in that kids who might not otherwise get an education can now do so, not to mention the benefits for the teachers to go on to even higher education. On the other hand, it seems like this might create (or perpetuate) a sort of under-educated (but not completely ignorant, in the sense of having zero education) under-class with only the minimal skills required to become productive cogs in a capitalist machine. In other words, these schools seem better than nothing, but they also seem unlikely to seriously change the massive poverty and unequal distribution of resources from which they spring. 9:38:48 AM

Dive into Mark recently discussed an article at Kuro5hin about misleading emoticons. Mark included the "Waka Waka" poem, which I had never seen but which I think would be great for teaching poetry to poetry-shy contemporary students (for many of whom poetry is like Latin -- a "dead" language). From Dive into Mark: First, the poem itself (there are many versions, this is just one): <> ! * ' ' # ^ " ` $ $ - ! * = @ $ _ % * <> ~ # 4 & [ ] . . / | { , , system halted In English, this reads: waka waka bang splat tick tick hash caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash bang splat equal at dollar under-score percent splat waka waka tilda number four ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma crash In a related vein, more and more people are posting their creative writing (short stories and novels, as well as poetry) online. This is nothing new -- vanity pages devoted to poetry were among the first (and often worst). But there's some great stuff out there. The best (and most experimental) I know of is Douglas Rushkoff's Exit Strategy. Today markpasc.blog links to a new novel (in progress) for our enjoyment (this one posted via Radio: American Invisible. If you read this and know of other online novels/short stories -- especially those posted or developed with blogging software, please let me know. 8:09:10 AM