Archive for Education

California – Failure of a State

// October 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Education

Nativists blame it on ‘dirty illegal immigrants.’ Economists are quick to point out the crash as part of a larger recessionary period that the global economy is undergoing. Politicians groan that California’s budget crisis is really Prop 13, an anti-tax measure that not only put a cap on property taxes but also requires 66% of the legislature approval to pass a budget.

It’s a little bit more complicated than that when Mark Yudof, the President of the failing University of California system, is compensated over $800K per year while students are forced to pay 33% in fee increases and thousands of teachers lose their jobs. It is a smart play: make a good public education almost unaffordable for the majority of people so when things go from bad to worse, only a few labeled as ‘Marxists’ can really explain why things are so terrible.

Supply-side economics–a neo-liberal experiment now extending to three decades–only works for the supply-side of the equation. Deregulation and privatization of public goods while making deep cuts into the social sector has led us down this path. Corporate tax loopholes are increasing while cuts to the public sector are deepening. Not everyone is suffering equally.

The state of California is not a failure–it is failing to take care of its ‘plebs.’ The rich are still getting richer.

I don’t know how this story ends. Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost.

Book Review – Beyond Walls: Reinventing the Canada-United States Borderlands

// August 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Education, Political Theory

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I just finished a book review for the Journal of Landscape Research. The book is aptly titled ‘Beyond Walls: Reinventing the Canada-United States Borderlands‘ because the entire book is a complete reinvention, devoid of much historical understanding or exploration of how the Canada-U.S. border is so ‘benign.’ Of course, I was nicer in my book review parts of which I can share:

Konrad and Nicol claim that their purpose is “not to attempt a comprehensive history in a book devoted largely to contemporary border issues…[but to] entice readers to search beyond the national narratives…” (64). While the last chapter on transnationalism provides some narratives of people living in the borderlands, it leaves out much of the complications from the new security border. For example, the border fence between Canada and the United States in Derby Line, Vermont is spreading hatred and discontent among residents as they can no longer see long-time neighbors.

Additionally, while recognizing that it is futile to talk about the border without talking about immigration issues (210), the authors shy away from delving into this homeland security imperative, which has completely transformed the cultural landscape. The fact that Canada and the United States do not dub each other as ‘foreign’ is worth further historical examination than the book provides.

Since the evolving borderlands are not cloaked by violence and anguish of power struggle and the changes are aligned in the interests if both countries, Konrad and Nicol conclude that the Canada-United States border offers a model of future borderlands.

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New Media – SOS_Slaves – Game for Sands of Silence

// June 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Education, Human Rights, Immigration, Videos

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This week I had the opportunity to give what little insight I had on a gaming project for the documentary Sands of Silence, produced by activist film-maker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle.

It is a first-person role-playing game where the gamer assumes the character of a girl from either Africa, Nepal or Mexico and is taken through the whole experience of trafficking. The point is to engage the gamer beyond just empathy and encourage action from a community—high school and university students—that may otherwise not know much about the issue.

Going into the project, my primary concern was with trivializing the experiences of sexual trafficking victims. There is absolutely no way to ever simulate the lived experiences of these young adolescents so I am quite ambivalent about the prospects of building genuine empathy through ‘gaming.’

There’s Fashion Wars and then there is Fashion the movie. Fashion Wars is all about seeing whose pose has more style, getting the biatches to gain more cash, and expanding a fashion empire. Fashion the movie takes one behind the camera to see the ugliness of glitz and glamour, into a world that demarcates women as cheap objects for show and sale. They were certainly not meant to be complimentary but how can we bridge the gap between the two platforms in a manner that is both sensitive and engaging?

The concern was somewhat alleviated with knowledge that the producer was an activist film-maker and that the stories in the gameplay were based on real life experiences. And then there was the voice in the back of my head saying if I could excuse and actually appreciate BreakThrough for ICED that simulated the experiences of undocumented immigrants in this country, I had no right to place objections over something I had not experienced or undergone.

The next problem I had was with the complete absence of boys from the gameplay. All the major characters were women. For the first time, I was irked by the absence of men and that awareness came from a queer perspective. We cannot ignore that boys are also sexually trafficked and that there is yet another community that we can reach by including that particular narrative. In our efforts to make women’s experiences more mainstream, let us not marginalize a population that is already afraid to speak out about abuse. De-stigmatize. Make relevant to as many people as possible.

My third concern dealt with how to draw attention to this game. Why would a teenager or university student play this game? I was told that inner-city youth in New York could relate to the project and could react with empathy that these horrendous things happened with their peers. Yet, it simply is not enough of a selling point for me as a gamer. We mostly play games to escape reality; not relive our pains and misfortunes. There has to be a ‘oh cool!’ factor to attract youth to this game and I hope whoever is given charge to market it can come up with the right catchphrase.

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English Proficiency Test? Stop this Insanity.

// March 18th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Education, Racism

“Someone told me I should have put English as my first language when I registered for school,” Phanachone said. “But I refused. I will not deny who I am. And I will not disrespect my culture or my mother.”

An Iowa high school student who speaks and understands English perfectly has been declared ‘illiterate’ as she refuses to take the English proficiency test at her school. The Sioux City Journal reports:

Lori Phanachone is a member of the National Honor Society, has a 3.9 grade point average and ranks seventh in the senior class of about 119 at Storm Lake High School.

But school officials have told her she is considered to be illiterate based on her refusal to satisfactorily complete the English Language Development Assessment, a test she says is demeaning and racist.

Well, of course it is demeaning and racist. Phanachone was born and bred in the United States. She is being targeted to sit the ELDA because she indicated on a form that English was not the first language spoken in her household and her parents spoke very little English.

Obviously, English is not the first language spoken in most immigrant households but that does not correlate with an inability to speak English. There are white American kids who can barely spell, let alone speak English. Maybe the wrong person is being asked to sit an ELDA.

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Donate-a-book – Children in Fiji Need Our Help

// November 29th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Education

Ok, this is my little way of helping the underprivileged children in Fiji — I am sort of limited in what I can do for now but hopefully that changes in 3-5 years.

I went to the best schools while I grew up in Fiji so the fact that some students did not have access to books was not something that I spent time thinking about (It’s generally not what children spend time thinking about either unless they are in that situation).

From Dec 1 to Dec 15, the Fiji Children’s Trust is holding a book drive for Daku Village school. The facebook event is here.

Donate a book for xmas and help a school build their new library!

Please contact us if you are in Fiji or post your books to the school.
Daku Village School
P.O.Box 400
Nausori
Fiji

I am sure a lot of us (especially the college students) have books to spare that would be of good use to these children. Think age group 4-10.

Join Books for Fiji on facebook to keep up to date with these and other similar efforts.

Casting Your Answer Sheet as a ‘Ballot’ for Rejection doesn’t Work

// September 30th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Education

What am I talking about?

This question propped up during one of my torturous LSAT review sessions:

Q: In order to avoid causing inadvertent harm to their neighbors, householders ought to evade politely or refuse to answer a stranger’s questions unless the stranger provides some proof of being a government official pursuing official inquiries, in which the questions should be answered truthfully.


In which one of the following situations does Mary act in accordance with the principle above?

An INCORRECT Answer Choice -
(D) Immigration officers, showing valid identification and asserting that they were on official business, asked Mary whether a neighbor who belonged to a local church that offered sanctuary to refugees lacking visas had sheltered any such refugees. Mary gave an evasive answer and warned her neighbor.

I wonder how a student who has undergone the experience of la migra showing up at her or his doorstep, or taking and deporting her/his family or friends would react to this answer choice and even question. Not positively for sure. It’s an answer choice that should have been avoided given the current climate — The LSAT is smart about these things at most times; heck, they even use gender neutral names (of course there have been times I have had to cringe and just assume that Sheila is a biological woman), but there are an overwhelming number of pro-environment, pro-diversity, even anti-government passages so this one came as a shocker. Anyway, mad props to Mary!

My hands were TWITCHING to pick this answer choice just to record my objection. Of course, on the real test, that means missing a point. Is it worth it? Have you ever picked a wrong answer knowingly as a conscientious objector?

Yeah, alright, I am going back to studying.

“In a mad world, only the mad are sane” – Akira Kurosawa.

Border No Boundary for Some Students

// September 21st, 2008 // No Comments » // Education, Immigration

Students from a school in the Roma Independent School District cross the Miquel Aleman Bridge from Mexico into the United States.

Students from a school in the Roma Independent School District cross the Miquel Aleman Bridge from Mexico into the United States.

The Monitor photos by Gabe Hernandez A student walks across the Miguel Aleman Bridge from Mexico to the United States with her guardian to attend a school in the Roma Independent School District.

The Monitor photos by Gabe Hernandez A student walks across the Miguel Aleman Bridge from Mexico to the United States with her guardian to attend a school in the Roma Independent School District.

A quick glance at all the border-binary related news for the week brought this amazing story to my attention.

“In so many families, the community is not divided by a border like the land,” said Elaine Hampton, a University of Texas-El Paso professor who has studied educational systems on both sides of the border. “It makes it hard to peg exactly where you live. What constitutes a permanent address?”

I think that is a critical question. There is no permanent and stable ‘identity’ and moreover, life in itself is not ‘permanent’ so how can anyone have a ‘permanent address?’ More people than ever before work, study and live outside countries where they were born and the numbers are likely to go up.

Coming back to the story, I am often amazed at the lengths that some parents go for their children, to provide them with a better future (or what they deem a better future). The presence of these students in schools across the border most probably enriches the classroom and provides for a greater cultural experience for everyone.

Of course, the nativists–devoid of any sense of history and borderlands culture–are going to express another round of outrage i.e. “Look they are sending their illegal kids to our schools, committing crimes by lying on public documents, overcrowding them, and decreasing standardized scores all at our expense!”

Look beyond the imaginary lines on a map. These kids know how to do that and challenge those arbitrary boundaries every school day. Why can’t everyone else?

Church of England Owes Apologize to Dead Darwin

// September 16th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Education

We all know he is dead now. But nonetheless, one clergyman thinks the Church of England shall apologize to the dead man. Maybe if we were to buy into the Hindu theory of Transmigration, Darwin might be a phytoplankton, an oak tree or bird right now, hence undergoing the processes of evolution himself. Alas, he might not make it back to his human form this time to report his findings due to global warming or nuclear war … From The Guardian:

The Church of England owes Charles Darwin an apology for misunderstanding his theory of evolution and making errors over its reaction to it, a senior clergyman said today.

In a bid to recognise its faults in the run up to next year’s 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, the church has launched a series of articles on its website.

An essay by the Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, the church’s head of public affairs, called Good Religion Needs Good Science directly addresses Darwin. It concludes: “We try to practise the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.

Next year also marks 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, in which Darwin outlined the theory of natural selection. This anniversary, the church says, presents an opportunity “to look back on the relationship between Darwin, his supporters and the Christian church”.

He writes: “People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges which changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights.

“The church made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy, and has since realised its error. Some church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. So it is important to think again about Darwin’s impact on religious thinking, then and now – and the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth in 1809 is a good time to do so.

A Church of England spokesman said Brown’s piece was a “personal view” of Darwin’s contribution to science and did not amount to an official apology by the church.

On this note, I came across a rather noteworthy point made in my Powerscore LSAT Logical Reading Bible (no seriously, that is the name of the review book). This was in the ‘Flaw in Reasoning Questions’ section, page 387:

Errors in use of evidence

Lack of evidence against a position is taken to prove that position is true.

Just because no evidence disproving a position has been introduced does not mean that the position is true. Here is a famous example:

“There has been no evidence given against the existence of God, so God must exist.”

I am sure my mother won’t be too amused with this one. I wonder how the rabidly religious students sit through the increasingly liberal, anti-imperial, gender-neutral, politically-correct LSAT.

Of course the trend nowadays is to formulate or conjure up hypotheses such as “intelligent design” to offer as ‘evidence’ for the existence of god.

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