CURMUDGUCATION: Gates Odd Good News

CURMUDGUCATION: Gates Odd Good News:

Gates Odd Good News

Back in mid-December, Bill Gates blogged about the top six good news stories of 2015. It's a fair enough list except for one notable and head-scratching inclusion.

Items on the list include:

* Africa went a year without a single polio case.
* Neil deGrasse Tyson won an award and made a bad-ass short speech in support of science
* The Nobel Prize went to developers of a cure for a widespread disease for the poor
* Mobile banking did really well in Kenya
* Rubella appears to have been wiped out in the Americas

And those are all pretty good news stories, even if they aren't particularly sexy or mainstream media-ready. But the list also includes this item (at spot #4)

* Khan Academy offers free SAT prep

First of all, unless you have access to a free computer with free internet connections, the Khan Academy materials are not "free."

Second, I have even better news-- nobody needs to take the damn SAT in the first place! The SAT test is a product produced by a for-profit corporation; why Gates wants to include a advertisement for that company in the midst of his "good news" is a puzzler. Not only that, but it is the number two product of its type, in the midst of a redesign to claw back some market share from the ACT.

There are so many odd assumptions buried here, not the least of which is the idea that everyone should go to college and everyone needs to take the SAT to get there.

But more significant is the repeat of the notion that the only reason that socio-economic status CURMUDGUCATION: Gates Odd Good News:


 Simple Sabotage (h/t CIA)

In the 1940's the Office of Strategic Services was the US precursor to the CIA, collecting information and taking covert action in support of US interests overseas.

Well, now you, too, can enjoy the secrets of subterfuge by perusing the 1944 OSS classic, Simple Sabotage Field Manual. I am not making this up. Last year the CIA de-classified the manual, and you can now give it a read. It's actually a brief thirty-four pamphlet-sized pages, and while I've read it, you may well want to take a look. Does it have applications in the education world? Oh, my. Yes.

First, what audience was such a manual designed for?

Sabotage varies from highly technical coup de main acts that require detailed planning and the use of specially-trained operatives, to innumerable simple acts which the ordinary individual citizen-saboteur can perform. This paper is primarily concerned with the latter type.

No special equipment is involved; no high risk is faced. Just simple things you can do to screw up an enterprise with ordinary tools you'll find lying around the house.

The manual contains some words about motivating the civilian saboteur-- making him feel he's part of a larger cause, fighting destructive foes. But then we get to the fun-- the specific techniques.

The most simple principle is reversing thinking-- you can screw up an enterprise just by being lazy and careless. Let your tools get dull. Make dumb mistakes at work.  "Frequently you can 'get away' with such acts under the cover of pretending stupidity, ignorance, over-caution, fear of being  Simple Sabotage (h/t CIA)


ICYMI: Big List for the New Year!

Must be the holidays-- either I was reading more or people were writing more. But the list of must-reads this week is long.

In America, Only the Rich Can Afford To Write about Poverty

This came out back in August, but this Guardian piece by Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickled and Dimed) reflecting on how most writing about poverty is done by people who are anything but poor-- this is well worth the read.

The Inside Story on What Really Caused the Occupy Wall Streer Movement To Collapse

Another non-education piece, but in the process of talking about the meltdown of the Occupy movement by an insider, this has much to say about how movements can lose their way,

The Martian Allegory of Whose Lives Matter

Paul Thomas's brain lives at he intersection of deep thinking and pop culture, and consequently he produces pieces that nobody else can. Here he takes a look at The Martian and what it tells us about just who is worth time, effort and expense to save.

Staring Down Goliath

Super profile of Justin Oakley, the Just Let Me Teach wristbands, and his new message to teachers-- Vote. Or. Die.


Gross National Happiness

From the Teacher Tom blog-- a look at other ways of measuring the success of children.

Students, Not Standards in 2016

Yes, Paul Thomas again, this time remembering an influential teacher in his own life, and reminding us where the focus should be in a classroom.

Look Out 2016 

At educarenow, Bill Boyle takes a look at the language of deficit and how a few simple word choices signal a serious problem in approaching the "problems" of schools.

Um-- There Are These Kids We Call Students

Ah, a rant after my own heart. Blue Cereal Education rips reformers about the use of students as passive props in their reformy melodrama.

 Of course, the end of the year is always a time for listicles. Consider this top post list from the always-essential Jose Luis Vilson or this list of book recommendations from Russ Walsh or check out Nancy Bailey's list of good news from 2015 and even Rick Hess's tongue-in-cheek list of 2016 news stories.

And finally, here's Valerie Strauss and Carol Burris's primer on why nobody is exactly excited about having John King as Acting Pretend Secretary of Education.