I started out in the IT industry 27 years ago and in that time I watched it evolve from a field where only super geniuses could survive, to a fast paced but multi-level playing field where many should have been able to count on their future for generations to come. We moved from the hard-core programming that required that you be able to read a phonebook-thick dump of ones and zeros to one where programming can be accomplished by picking icons from a menu and dropping them into a flow.

We all felt that we were simplifying the industry to make it more inclusive for our children, but that is not what has occurred. By making it simple, companies can now import “talent” from overseas with minimal skills or education.

IT will still be the industry of the future, but it will not be our children’s future. Our children are being groomed for a different future.

I live on the outskirts of Jacksonville, Arkansas, a poor town, notorious for being featured in a PM Magazine episode discussing gang activity in rural America. Our town and a few other poor towns in Arkansas, like Pine Bluff, are pilots for a new program in the public schools. The program stresses that the one quality that our children are lacking in to be successful is discipline.

It began with school uniforms and lately it has evolved into separate schools for boys and girls. The kids are subjected to a constant mantra of you are all the same and you need to do whatever you are told. The military only subjects recruits to 6 to 12 weeks of boot camp. What kind of an adult will we have who goes through twelve years of “boot camp” type doctrinarian?

Our children are not being groomed to be thinkers and inventors. They are being groomed to be soldiers and servants. My daughter started a discussion on uniforms in one of her classes one day. The teacher immediately buzzed for the principal who, when she showed up, told the kids to “shut up and get used to it as you’re probably going to be wearing a uniform for the rest of your life anyway.” This then is the vision of the future for the children of the working poor.

I had the means to pull my daughter out of the schools after five years of battling the schools, but most of the parents here have no choice. The parents that I talked to hated the changes and didn’t want their children treated like criminals, but felt helpless to make a change. We were able to open a case with the ACLU when they went overboard with one homosexual boy, but the policy has powerful backers. The program is strongly backed by local business leaders and religious groups.

Oddly enough, some of the businessmen and teachers came up to me after a few meetings to let me know that they secretly agreed with me, but they were afraid to speak out. There is definitely something rotten going on here.

i agree utah. at the present time, i tinker with some old (and i mean old) programming like Qbasic, Applesoft, interger basic, and visual basic.

none of these programs are compatable with todays operating systems and i have to jump through alot of hoops just to make them run. its also like a lost art, like reading ancient heiroglyphics. not many people nowadays can program these old emulators. i dont do it for a living or anything, only for fun. but i was offered to get paid to teach individuals online.

anywho, my point is that the older programming was more complicated and harder to do. this meant that anyone who spent the time and effort to learn the programming was set for life. at least until technology started to advance at such a rapid rate that manufactures were forced to 'dumb down' their programming to make it easier for people to use and write. that made it easier for companies to outsource programmers outside the country. now just about anyone who takes a short 2 weeks course can do programming.

right now im in the midst of creating a text based game with Qbasic where the player is george bush (after the 2000 elections). you have to protect the country, balance the budget, send fema to disaster sites, and win elections. when im finished with it ill be glad to give it to anyone whos interested lol.

What r the children going to do when they grow up? Repay trillions and trillions and trillions and trillons of dollars of the National Debt. Then there is all the local Govt debt. Somebody has to break the news to these young kids. Sorry.

Boni,

quote:

The parents that I talked to hated the changes and didn’t want their children treated like criminals, but felt helpless to make a change. We were able to open a case with the ACLU when they went overboard with one homosexual boy, but the policy has powerful backers. The program is strongly backed by local business leaders and religious groups.

I'm glad you posted your thoughts on the change in your area. We have had a concerted effort in Texas for many years to dumb down the schools with testing--the goal of which was to eliminate public schools all togather.

But recently I got this article in my e-mail from an organizer/friend.

quote:

The Quorum Report
Editor: Harvey Kronberg
P.O. Box 8 Austin, Texas 78767
Voice: 512-292-8191
Fax: 512-292-0099
Email: kronberg@quorumreport.com
February 13, 2007 7:05 PM
ã Copyright February 13, 2007 by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved

NEW BUSINESS GROUP RALLIES AROUND MORE MONEY FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION
Constant criticism undermines teacher morale; reduced class size is critical they say
A group of business leaders that includes the CEOs of HEB groceries, Continental Airlines, Temple-Inland and AT&T is advocating greater state investment in pre-K programs and in lowering teacher to student ratios.

Also involved in the effort are former state Sen. Bill Ratliff and former Education Commissioner Mike Moses. In a press avail this morning to announce the formation of the new group, Raise Your Hand, Ratliff argued that the current accountability-based reform program could actually worsen schools’ performance.

He argued that businesses could not be expected to perform if the workforce was being constantly criticized. He wondered why teachers would respond any differently. He said pushing accountability measures year after year reminded him of the office joke that the "beatings will continue until morale improves."

"It’s not enough to just critique (teachers) for marginal performance," Ratliff said. "Accountability only goes so far. Weighing a cow does not make it heavier, you have to feed it."....

It goes on to say that these businesses are noticing a reduction in the quality of education their workers have received. They call for more money into education, an end to vouchers, lower student to teacher ratio and an emphasis on bringing lower economic status students up to the same level as middle and higher income students.

I have felt like schools around here were really getting on the 1984 bandwagon, with thinking discouraged and rote memory emphasized. I recently learned that education decisions in the state of Texas had been taken out of the hands of educators and put into the governor's office (there's another one)where, uhmmm, decisions "would be more market oriented." One of the things I've learned is that that means that average 10th graders will no longer be required to learn proofs in their Geometry class--that's just too hard for them. Don't want 'em to be able to solve problems, do we...

So anyway, is there any possibilty of organizing parents, teachers and business people in your local community to confront the school board and other decision makers with your anger about the situation. If you can get enough people involved, your voting power can be used as a threat, and politicians held accountable when they agree to your agenda of requiring schools to teach a varied corriculum that is responsive to individual student needs, and develops personal responsibility in each unique child or whatever your community wants their agenda to be.

Also, letter writing campaigns to newspapers, demanding quality education, respecting children's unique qualities and gifts, etc. Well written isnt necessary as long as it communicates effectively passionately (from the heart--individual letters not a form letter) and on a large scale base, this can be powerful too.

Most importantly, don't think you can't fight city hall, because that is city hall propaganda, or in this case it might be state capital propaganda. But, it sounds like to me that there are lots of angry parents that at this point feel defeated. I just wonder if you all were to voice your anger constructively, if you wouldn't actually be listened too. There's power in numbers.

Glad you've posted here and nice to meet you!

eley

Another paragraph from the article e-mailed to me:

quote:

The underlying theme is that business leaders are realizing that an educated work force is in their long-term best interest and that they need to provide leadership on the issue independent of the entrenched interests in the debate.

eley

quote:

Our children are not being groomed to be thinkers and inventors. They are being groomed to be soldiers and servants.

There is all this talk about the new knowledge economy. I can see the shift from manufacturing to service jobs. The shift towards knowledge work seems to be in areas of data collection and data mining rather than original thinking and inventing things. It's all premised on the notion that the knowledge to be managed already exists and simply needs to be collected and organized to obtain the promised benefits.

Engineers really don't get rewarded for their work (original thiking and inventing) in this economy. Instead, it's still management that earns the big salaries in corporate America. They seem to get away with "great idea ... glad I thought of it" Many managers believe they can do without scientists or engineers.

We are all impressed as to how our kids can "program" a myspace page by cutting and pasting codes into various spaces. Little do many people realize that the number of kids that really understand what exactly the codes mean and why they are used are far and few between. Myspace needs thousands of kids to create their marketing machine and not kids that actually think about the why's of their creation. They may invent something to surpass myspace.

Building networks is stressed by many schools. So we believe that getting them to take a CCNA course will get them set for the future. Little do they realize is that most anyone can build networks nowadays. The whys have for the most part been forgotten in favor for cookie-cutter solutions. Cisco just needs servants to configure the networks, not people to invent things that will compete with Cisco.

Someday educators will wakeup and understand that the most important knowledge needs to be created before it can be collected and organized. It's the understanding of context and the whys behind the whats. Wisdom invokes questions of judgement, ethics, experience and intuition, all of which are necessary for the best application of knowledge.