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Sunday, November 11, 2012

#mozfest: Open schools for open societies « Cooperative Catalyst

#mozfest: Open schools for open societies « Cooperative Catalyst:


#mozfest: Open schools for open societies

#mozfest began a conversation about schooling that I hope continues over the course of the next year. I hope that in our care and commitment to raising a generation of webmakers who write the world, we increase kids’ access to writable experiences inside school, as well as outside school.
While it’s mostly true that to a teacher every problem looks like a school, it’s worth noting that 81.5 million children are enrolled in schools in the United States alone. There kids are spending massive amounts of time inside a system that works to sort, punish, and colonize them through acculturation to external reward and a kind of grade- and score-based gratification that, if not instant, is largely disposable.
Paradoxically, this institution of schooling is full of people who genuinely care for our kids. These caring educators are in a precarious position: they are in a daily Catch-22 that pits their economic well-being against