March 24-
Last night I watched the movie Gone Baby Gone. I won't ruin the ending but I was so mad when it was over. It really made me think about today's society.
Example 1- this week at school one of my SED students had a mental break in class. He was taken away by an ambulance and police. He is in 2nd grade. Why did he have a mental break? His mom lost her job and no longer had insurance to keep up his meds.
Example 2- Again this week called social services twice for child abuse. One for a girl that is getting beat up by her 10 yr old brother. And the other for a student I have been calling on since kindergarten. He is now in 3rd grade. This time he came to school with carpet burns all over from being dragged around by his step father.
My point being. We do nothing. Social services comes in and creates a "plan." Seldom is it followed through and another one is made. These children live in horrid conditions, the schools, notify, and nothing is done! It is maddening and it is becoming more frequent at my school.
So what does all of this have to do with technology. Well as we move into this knowledge based area, our children of today will require highly advanced skills to make it in the work force of the future. This is not being done for the majority of the low middle class and the poor children of our country. I actually see our advance into this new economy as a splitter. We will begin to have more poor. The divide between poor and middle class will become extreme. The website below shows how we are failing to provide all people of our country access to technology.
http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/Soumitra2.htm
Finland has ranked #1 and the United States #7 for networked readiness. (The following website provides a more detailed explaination of how it is measured http://www.idc.com/groups/isi/main.html
We need to allow the economic transgenerational movement to decrease. In the United States it currently takes 8 generations to get out of an economic class. This is not the American Dream!
In relation to economic equality-The four key factors to intergenerational movement between economic classes are: education, race, health, and the state of residence (Hertz, 2006, pg. 4). Technology is not one of the key factors. "France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Demark," continue to beat the United States in intergenerational movement amongst economic classes. France did not even make it in the top 20 for technology but continues to be allow family members to move between economic levels.This then brings up an interesting point. I am sure that many of us believe that technology in the classroom will help children become better prepared for the 21st century. However, according to these stats we may consider investing more money into the child's residence, health, and promoting not degrading their race. What if the factors that are occuring outside the classroom have more of an impact on a student's educational attainment, than what is happening in the classroom?
Hertz, T. (2006). Understanding Mobility in America. Retrieved on March 12, 2008 from the website: http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/hertz_mobility_analysis.pdfSutta, D. Retrieved on March 12, 2008 from the website: http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/Soumitra2.htm
OK - I will stop now- I can go on forever. I should have never watched the movie. Another mind bending movie that has changed my life forever- Sicko- by Michael Moore.
4 comments:
Now, I will yet again neglect other work for something Sarah is talking about that seems more interesting than what I am doing. It is a good thing this is an online class or I think we would get in trouble for talking. Sarah, are you by any chance coming to the Liverpool residency so we can test that theory? Is anyone else?
I initially checked out the Hertz paper hoping to look at stats for all of Europe and compare that to some of my experiences here. Belgium didn't make the list :(
Then, I was caught by Table 3.
The first thing I thought was that they seemed wrong until I figured out everything was in terms of 2004 dollars. The amount of money the upper quintiles get certainly increased by a lot more than the lower quintiles (actually or percentage wise). I also noticed that at the 4th tier people are more likely to move up that down but at the 3rd they are more likely to move down than up. So, there is a ceiling somewhere in there.
Then, I thought about Sarah's comments with regard to how these correlated to educational system. The UK had real issues with education during the 70's and early 80' with class disparity kind of taking home the prize there; so, I can definitely see that correlating to their high index. I wonder how it would look after some of the school reforms in place there now. I checked out the TIMSS results by country though (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/timss03/tables.asp) and Norway was lower than the US (not many listed in TIMSS and Hertz); so, maybe I am making too much of the educational side. Or perhaps it would be more interesting if those scores for each country were shown broken out by income.
Anyway, I really do have other work to do, but grad food for thought Sarah. I will probably be revisiting it.
Lisa, You know it is my dream to go overseas. But you see- it take $$$$$ as of yet I do not have- But thanks to you I have started my own business today! Wait until I tell you what you inspired me to do!
I agree with what you are saying so much that I posted an "addition" my my blog. I feel your frustration. In my last district, it was very much the same thing. In my current district the frustrations are different.
My goodness, now I am curious. What business venture are you approaching?
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