Play with Learning

Social Justice articles

Upwards social mobility reduces stress – Journal of Epidemiology & Community Heath http://j.mp/nJfdO9

UC Research Points to Best Practices to Reduce Recidivism http://j.mp/pQCNVc

Socioeconomic status as child dictates response to stress as adult according to University of Minnesota http://j.mp/qDZRZ8

High technology, not low taxes, may drive states’ economic growth. Penn State research. http://j.mp/iqX536

Death by Poverty? The effect of wealth and education on mortality. Study by Mailman School http://j.mp/jiAGoT

Prisoners give their time back to community in pioneering project #timebanking http://tiny.cc/hu2d3

More evidence that the tax & benefit changes are hitting the poor hardest. From the Institute For Fiscal Studies http://j.mp/iDaUat

Youth cybercrime linked to friends’ influence from Michigan State University http://j.mp/iBAKm3

Social justice articles

Some of the articles about social justice that I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks:

Not quite one person, one vote. Stanford paper on democratic discrepancies http://j.mp/kNIRg6

So much for digital democracy: New Berkeley study finds elite viewpoints dominate online contenthttp://j.mp/jaw6vm

Prisoners give their time back to community in pioneering project http://tiny.cc/hu2d3

Death by Poverty? The effect of wealth and education on mortality. Study by Mailman School http://j.mp/jiAGoT

UK pupils ‘held back by poverty’ tiny.ly/U4v6

Income Disparity Makes People Unhappy – Association for Psychological Science http://j.mp/mTEDxF

Lifelong gap in health between rich and poor set by age 20 according to study by McGill Uni http://j.mp/kMymHF

Knowledge is power to do more…

history

A few months ago I wrote of the growing belief among young people that Google removes the need to know anything.  However, it seems that the pursuit of knowledge seems to be on the rise in two very different quarters.

Micheal Gove, the UK Education Secretary, in his recently announced review of the National Curriculum, has reiterated his long-standing commitment to “essential knowledge,” that is names, facts and figures that create a “connected narrative” in traditional subjects such as History.

In the technology world, two high profile recent initiatives make access to contextualised knowledge even easier.  Qwiki is still in alpha but already it is a remarkable new way of presenting content.  It describes itself as “working to deliver information in a format that’s quintessentially human – via storytelling instead of search” – it turns information into an experience.  Of course it is something that good teachers have always done but what makes Qwiki so interesting and exciting is that it integrates and packages disparate web content on fly.  Look up “Sheffield” as I did for example and it returns a narrated slideshow that outlines the history and culture of the city.  Every scene offers more depth and related material.  It is pretty impressive stuff.

Quora is a social network for questions rather than an aggregator.  It creates an organic conversation between community members in response to posted queries.  It is a great way to gather opinion (although credibility and trustworthiness are entirely dependent on community votes).  It is fascinating to see the expertise the dialogue draws in and the access it offers to contemporary thinkers and personalities (I saw interesting response by Dustin Moskovitz to the film Social Network).  Both of these sites make information more accessible.

simply knowing stuff doesn’t make us better thinkers

However, simply knowing stuff doesn’t make us better thinkers, more creative or able to solve new problems.  But I am intrigued by the possibilities offered by the unparalleled access to information we now enjoy.  I sympathise with idea that we should be armed with core knowledge because I believe it makes it easier to progress to and develop the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.  Without an initimate grasp of the Fundamentals, it is harder to make unlooked for connections. At the same time, it would be a real mistake if we confused knowledge of facts and figures with creativity or initative.

I hope we don’t see this renewed interest in information as the Be All and End All – it could be the start of something much much more interesting.

A degree of value?

student demo

Today the UK parliament votes to triple fees to study for a higher education degree. Given the composition of the House of Commons, the outcome of the vote is largely predictable. The effect on future generations is less clear.

When student tuition fees were introduced in 2006, Universities UK (UUK), the representative organisation for the UK’s universities, commissioned PwC to assess the economic value of higher education. They calculated that over a lifetime graduates would earn £160,000 more than holders of A-levels without degrees. This extra income was assumed by many to mitigate the £9000 debt (not including living expenses) that young adults have when they leave university.

Of course, that’s not the whole picture. If we assume students can live off £80-100/week during term time (to pay rent, bills, food, clothes, etc) and enjoy the cost-free luxury of parents at other times, it adds another £9000 over the course of a typical three year degree. Even before this proposed increase in fees, that would leave the average 21 year old graduate with an £18,000 millstone of debt around their neck. {i’, being wildly optimistic with these figures, too. In 2004, before fees were introduced at all, the NatWest bank estimated the average cost of a degree was £26,000]

Graduates will pay that off over time. There’s no question of it but it means years of payments and the virtual impossibility of saving for any other cause, the deposit for a house, for example.

Before the government of the 80s taught us that living beyond our means was a good thing, ordinary folk avoided debt like the plague. Many working class families simply could conceive of borrowing that amount of money for something apparently intangible. It’s an entirely different proposition if one has the Bank of Mum and Dad to pay off any outstanding loans.

Now the coalition government wants to triple those fees. £9000/ year for the best universities. £27,000 for the typical degree, not including living expenses. Put another way, that’s £100/ month for 22.5 years with the students living on free air. If you’re a parent and don’t want your child saddled with crippling debt, you’ll need to start saving before your child is born. If you want a degree yourself, you’ll be university-debt free by the time you are 44. 44.

How many poor kids or parents do you know able to make that sacrifice? Would you in these economically uncertain times?

There’s a misconception that only the student benefits from a degree, it’s the reason many resent paying their taxes to support the university system. But, it is a flawed argument. We all benefit from having the most educated society possible. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that everyone should have or needs a degree (although I passionately believe everyone should have the right to the best possible education to whatever level they choose). Every single one of our lives is improved by talented, educated people in all walks of life whether they are doctors, engineers, teachers, dare I say, even artists and musicians.

I oppose the rise in tuition fees because I believe they will stop poor but gifted young people from being stretched at university, exacerbating the already shameful inequalities on our education system. And I oppose the rise in fees because I believe our society will be impoverished economically, culturally and intellectually by fewer graduates.

The cost of education is high but the cost of ignorance is much much higher.

The financial crisis – a triumph for capitalism

Profitable Crisis

After much speculation, tomorrow we find out the results of the government comprehensive spending review. It’ll be interesting to see the level of cuts that the government unveils and whether the frenzied talk of 25 to 40% cuts is merely a psychological trick to distort our perspective.  If the government announces a mere 20% reduction in key services, even if those cuts cause permenant structural damage, everyone will breathe a sigh of relief.

Perhaps what is more significant is the rationale and motivation behind the cuts. All the economic data indicates that a recovery is well established – corporations are reporting healthy profits again.  An improved economy will generate increased tax revenue and boost government coffers providing extra income with which to address the debt accumlated through years of financial mismanagement.  Conversely, a reduction in public spending will raise unemployment, reduce the devastate the associated private industries, reduce the tax base and risk plunging us into a double-dip recession.

If the recovery figures are correct then it increasingly  looks as though the government cuts are ideologically driven rather than economic:  the UK government is using the budget deficit as a pretense for a level of public service cuts that even Thatcher could not achieve.

At the depth of last year’s financial crisis some commentators suggested that we were seeing death of capitalism. As it turns out  those same financial institutions that brought the world economy to its knees are now posting record profits on the back of tax-payers bailouts.

The economic crisis initiated by greedy and reckless markets will be the justification for cutting audited, democratically accountable social spending.   Far from being the end of capitalism, the economic crisis may well prove its greatest triumph.