Wednesday 19 August 2015

Thoughts...

I spend most of my days right now thinking, writing, talking and musing on many issues surrounding education and development. Many of my thoughts are discussed in my book, but I also enjoy challenging my own thoughts by sharing and discussing with others. Thus here are a few blog-posts of my current thoughts on a few topics to share with you all. Comments, ideas, questions back are greatly encouraged :) 


…On Augmented Reality

Here is a podcast I listened to recently. Although it is over a year old now, it touches on concepts that are creeping further and further into our world today: wearable technologies, in particular those which are bringing with them the magical world of an augmented reality.
Looking in particular at Googleglass (the glasses/portable computer/wearable brain) and computerised ski-googles, the discussion in the podcast is on the future of wearable technology and augmented technology, and how we are using /evolving /submitting to technology within our lives and our future habits.

Here are a few thoughts and snippets relating to particular comments made throughout the discussion:

6mins  
Many new technologies being created and put out in the market place have the purpose of "trying to get us more active" within natural human interfaces (the argument for Googleglass being that we can be using the computer without having to look at a screen, instead we can look out to the world through our computer glasses!)  In other words, these technologies are encouraging us to interact more as humans by using technology. This strikes me as a little crazy. After all, surely we could all interact with humans and be more human without using technology? (This seems a bit of a logical point to me, unless I'm missing something).
What is the actual need for these technologies? Technology originated with the purpose of being a tool to support us in our daily lives, yet how much do we honestly feel we still use technology as a tool to support a need as opposed to replacing ourselves or part of ourselves simply for the hell of it?

There seems to be a given presumption that we, as consumers, will simply embrace everything new that comes our way: “New things must mean better things.” But why? Why is the iPhone 6 better than the iPhone 3,2,1 (or even, for that matter, my little mobile phone bought in 1995 that I still use and that works wonderfully well)?

15mins
The world of technological revolution has created “Augmented ski goggles” - the merits of which are apparently that you don't need to think/remember where things are as you're skiing along; your goggles can do that for you. You don’t need to worry about which direction you are heading in, where the boulders, trees or obstacles are, where the café is – the goggles will work that all out for you. You can also read your text messages and emails whilst slipping down the slopes. Brilliant. You can "know" (for the brief second you're whizzing down the hill) information about what's around you so you don't have to find out any other way, and can forget it once it's passed you by. And you can know lots of fascinating facts about yourself and your skiiing prowess to brag to other skiiers about when you get to the bottom.
My fundamental question here (as ever) is Why? Why do we need something (a pair of glasses) to think for us? Are we really becoming that lazy?

23 mins
One of my greatest concerns about the rapid development of technologies across the world is their impact upon children. Beyond psychological and neurological influence, for many, (especially children) new technologies are encouraging and developing a disconnect from the world around us. I worry about this a lot as a teacher when I see the negative ripple effects of consumptive technology upon the children I teach. As the discussion says, if children are growing up not knowing what they have around them (as they are disconnected from the natural world when plugged in to other realities), then how can we ever expect them to care about its erosion or to miss it when it goes? 

26 mins
How much do modern technologies distract us from actually living in the present? When we are creating alternative realities/augmented realities, what are we saying about the merits of the real world? And, as stated in the discussion, when corporate greed puts aside ethics for the sake of profit, who then actually cares about the loss of our abilities to live in the here and now? When people are having to go to camp or on holiday to experience reality (to spend time in the real world to escape their world of consumptive technology), should we not perhaps worry that our dependence upon technology has already impeded our ability to fully interact in the real world? 

I know this "brave new world" is a dystopia for some whilst a utopia for others, as there will always be a spectrum on the merits and application of technological use. Listening to this podcast, I came back to points I often make when I think and talk about the world's use of growing technologies: it seems that the more we gain materially, the more we become disconnected from the world and from ourselves. And try as I might, I just do not see anything good in this.

I worry in particular about our children, as they look to adults for advice on how to live in the world and, if they are being born into a fully wired world and a movement away from strong interpersonal relationships and communities, they often have no ability to think outside of this if they are not given that opportunity.


Just because something is new, shiny and can do exciting things, does this automatically mean that we need it?



Sunday 2 August 2015

The Curse of the Voltourists

No, I am not writing today about a new breed of dazzlingly attractive vampires about to rampage across the Italian countryside...



The term, Voltourists or voluntourists is a fairly new idiom coined to reference the new breed of travellers, keen to link sightseeing with doing-good. I’ve written about this before but will write again as it seems that this issue is a growing trend across the world; the negative impact of volunteer-tourists upon communities across the globe.

The concept in itself is bred from a worthy and virtuous consciousness, and it is a concept that should be credited with the charity which inspires it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of wonderful projects at work across the world; linking skilled volunteers with communities to work together. However, there is such a great deal of negativity that comes with this growth and I find myself facing it day in, day out here in Tanzania.



The basic concept, as mentioned, is worthy. Many people wish to share their wealth, their time, their care and support and (in many cases) their skill with others, and allow positives to come out of both sides of the equation. And for many of these projects, these positives bloom brightly. On the flip side, however, there are huge rumblings of negativity surrounding the growing population of companies and projects supporting voluntourism with, in my opinion, three main areas of concern arising from this growing trend:

  1.     In-country corruption
  2.    The merit and sustainability of projects
  3.    The negative ripple effects nourishing the telling of The Single Story and encouraging a    dependency syndrome.

1. IN COUNTRY CORRUPTION
Finally appearing in the national press this week was the unearthing of the darker side of Nepal’s emerging orphanages. Fuelled by a growing trend in tourism, many of the orphanages developing in popular tourist destinations have become highly successful business models extracting money from well-meaning tourists to go, not towards the welfare and livelihoods of the children but (more often than not) into the pocket of a fat-cat. 



How does this work? Well, for a start, many of the children residing in the growing number of orphanages are not technically orphans; having one, or in some cases both, parents alive. In many instances parents are being duped into sending their children to these centres with the promise of an education; an education that they perhaps cannot afford or provide due to their family circumstances. Thus, on the outset, the orphanage centre seems a positive move for the family. On the other end of the corruption spectrum, well-meaning tourists are coming to visit these orphanages, seeing the large numbers of children requiring support to fund their housing, food and education and thus provide the funds to source these needs. But, in so many cases, the funds go no-where near the children, instead falling straight into the pockets of the manager, owner or fat cat running the orphanage. In the report from orphanages across Kathmandu and Pokhara (two of Nepal’s tourist hot-spots) the findings are that tourists and voluntourism may be unwittingly complicit in child trafficking. Read more here:


This is not an issue isolated to Nepal. It is happening across the world. It is, for example, happening about five minutes from where I am currently living, here in Tanzania.



One of the reasons I have come out here to work on my books is because of the high levels of negativity surrounding aid and development in this area of the world and the orphanage business is just one of the groaning problems emerging.

The growth of orphanages here in Arusha, one small town within the vast country of Tanzania, is immense. Ten, fifteen years ago there were perhaps a smattering of orphanages across the region; namely because of the strong sense of community that exists here. If a family tragedy strikes and a child finds themselves orphaned, more often than not they will simply be taken in by the wider family community. Most people here that I know would call all children in their immediate family “their child” – not their niece or nephew; no discerning of the fact that the child belongs to their sister or their brother. There is no literal translatable word for niece or nephew in Swahili; simply a phrase meaning “The child of my brother or child of my sister” or, what is most frequently used, “my child”, as community here is strong. Thus a child moving to live in an institute outside of the family is a rarity.

The landscape today, in 2014, in this small region in Arusha is littered with orphanages. Literally. You cannot go more than five minutes along the main tourist route without seeing a sign for an orphanage or a children’s centre.



Do I think it is because, all of a sudden, community values and the strong teachings of ujamaa have left the people of Tanzania void of the ability to take in these youth? No. I think it is because of the growing trend of voluntourism. In fact, I know it is.
Do I think that many of these orphanages are legitimate? No. In fact I know that they are not.  
Do I think that many of these orphanages are running in the same negative way as the ones mentioned in the press this week? Yes I do.

One I know well: Good Hope Children’s Centre, an orphanage that I spent a bit of time with last year. Knowing that there were over sixty children living together in a very dark, damp and decrepit building; many of them out of school, it was obvious from the outset that this was not a happy place for children to be living. Many of the children were out of school, as the orphanage did not have sufficient funds to pay for their schooling; there were holes in the roof, a lack of sufficient food to go around and little in the way of Hope to be found.  I originally went with the intention of trying to work with Mr Elisante, the owner, on finding more sustainable ways to bring income into the centre beyond his reliance on tourists driving past and giving them money. However, when I spent time with him, spent time looking at his accounting books, spent time talking with people in the local area, I unearthed a much darker picture; one completely void of Goodness.  

It appears that Mr Elisante had duped the assistance of a well-meaning German lady seven years ago, who set up a fundraising website for him to gain funds to build a school. The school – built and furnished by wonderfully generous friends of this German woman – is now Mr Elisante’s house.



It appears also, when angered Germans stopped helping the orphanage, that Mr Elisante then duped the assistance of a well-meaning American family, who (again) started a fundraising website for him to provide money for food, for better housing and for education for the children. Lots of money was raised through the website (now shut down, but records standing) but none of this money was in the accounts; none of this money was visible in the shoddy housing; all of this money was in Mr Elisante’s pocket.
One of the first things Mr Elisante asked me to help with on the day we first met was starting up a fundraising website…!


And yet, for many of the tourists driving past and stopping on the way up to the Arusha National Park for their day’s safari, it seems a desperately needy place; a place that encourages them to give their money to help. Because, like it or not, corrupt foundations or not, it remains that there are sixty kids living there who are suffering every single day. Not, however, because they are orphans in need of a family, but because they are a product of a very corrupt yet highly successful business-model.

This is just one example of one “orphanage” in one small street in one small town in one country of the world and I do not for a second think it is in any way unique in its corrupt practices.

2    SUSTAINABILITY AND MERIT
Come back to the world of voluntourism. The second issue I feel that forms negative ripple effects is the un-sustainability of so many projects that are at work across the world. It is so very frequent to find projects where students are flying in to “dig a well” or “build a school”, “lay a water pipe”, “build some toilets” or “teach”. Volunteers spend one week, two, sometimes four weeks hard at work, doing their best to “help” and then, when the time comes to continue their journey, go on their safari, or head back home, the work stops. And then what? In so many cases, nothing.



Nothing, that is, until the next load of volunteers flies in. Often there are weeks, months, sometimes years between groups, meaning that in many cases the work has to be started again from scratch.  There are hundreds upon hundreds of half-built schools, crumbling wells, rusty water pipes, broken toilets and empty classrooms across the world; so many of them products of non-sustainable projects made for the sake of pleasing tourists and making them feel that they are doing something good.

Beyond that, I have seen so many cases of people being put out of a job in order for a well-meaning tourist to come in and do the job instead. In many countries that I have spent time in, I have known teachers who have been “temporarily relieved of their duties” by young eighteen year olds who have come to “teach”. The teachers are sent home for one week, two weeks etc, and are often not paid during their absence. Meanwhile, the unskilled youth is left in charge of their class for the duration; with no knowledge of the local education system, no training in pedagogy and frequently no understanding of the local language or curriculum. How can we be selling this to anyone as a good thing?

Add to this the influx of young people entering voluntourism projects to “build” or “design” houses, schools, wells, water pipes, irrigation systems etc. How many of these people have any skill, training or expertise in engineering, architecture, water-systems or agriculture, never mind any relevant knowledge of the problems of the local area? And, more to the point, why are local people, local skilled people, not being employed to do this work? Because we cannot for a second be naïve enough to think that there are not hundreds of builders, carpenters, architects, engineers, agriculturalists living out here in these communities. Surely providing local employment to solve a local problem is much more helpful in the longer term than flying unskilled youth across the world to do a half hearted, half finished job?
Here in Arusha, there are hundreds of volunteers  - they are “teaching” or “building” or “skill sharing” in some shape or form, and so many of them have paid an extortionate amount of money to come out here. But the merit of so many of the projects that they are involved in is so weak.

Here is an interesting article about the negative ripple effects of voluntourism in Cambodia:


3    RIPPLE EFFECTS OF SUSTAINING A SINGLE STORY AND DEPENDENCY SYNDROME
As I keep saying, I do not for a second doubt the good intentions behind this industry. There are so many good people in the world who want to help others, and this is seemingly a great way to do that; giving back and gaining at the same time. And yet, the ripple effects of what is happening on both sides of the fence are so very disturbing.

On the one hand, young people across the world are being told that communities in non-industrialised countries need help. They need help with their schools, their orphans, their water supplies and their farms. And companies across the world (a growing market: there are now over one hundred companies operating in the UK alone who offer volunteer opportunities just in Tanzania, never mind across the rest of the world) offer students a comprehensive package of How To Help. It often involves paying a HUGE amount of money (where does the money go? Not very often to the people on the ground); often involves a month-long trip with time for lots of recreational activities in country too; often involves a project in one of the above fields and often involves no requirement of skill, language proficiency or in-country knowledge.

Flip this around – we in the UK need help with our schools, with our youth, with our unemployed, with our flooding and with our farms. Imagine for a second that we were inundated with plane-loads full of eighteen year olds from unknown lands, none of them with any skill, training, qualification in any of the fields of help; none of them speaking English or knowing more than few vague facts about our country. We’d be appalled, we’d laugh, we’d turn them on their heels and send them home. And yet, somehow we have allowed this to become a growing model to dish out to the rest of the world.

On my journey out here in April, there was a large crowd of volunteers (all wearing big t-shirts that said “Project Africa”) at the check-in area at Heathrow airport. They took the same plane as I did and, sitting in a row in front of some of them, I listened in to a conversation they were having with a fellow passenger.

PASSENGER: So, what are you guys doing?
VOLUNTEER: We’re going to volunteer in Africa for a month.
PASSENGER: Wow, so where in Africa are you going?
VOLUNTEER: Well, we were going to Kenya, but it is now far too dangerous for us so we’re now going to work in Tanzania instead.
PASSENGER: Oh, ok, so what are you doing there?
VOLUNTEER: (laughing) We don’t actually know! In Kenya, we were going to be digging a well, but now that the project has changed, it’s not been sorted out for us yet. It will either be teaching, or building I think but I’m not too sure. But something helpful anyway.

I know this is just one little instance, but the idea of 30 sixteen year old school children (none of whom, I’d bet my life on it, are either teachers or builders or have any discernible qualifications in either field) flying out to a country they know nothing about, to do god knows what, but still thinking that this is a great and helpful thing just really pains me.




What these projects do is serve to fuel The Single Story that exists about non-industrialised countries; that they are all in desperate need of help in so many areas, and even a little unskilled sixteen year old can do good there. This is a lie. I know it because I was once involved with an unsustainable project and have seen the very real side of this farce. I know because I have seen the negative results of these projects in so many countries that I have been to. I know because, surrounding me every day here in Tanzania, I can see this happening.

On the flip side of this, a dependency syndrome is starting to emerge from local communities; relying on tourist money, relying on an influx of donations, relying on hand outs and fuelling a “dollar signs in flashing in the eyes” view of anyone from the west. Young kids here frequently walk past me in the streets and say “Give me Money”. This has not come from nowhere and saddens me to the very core every time I hear it; for so many reasons.

So why do I care so much? Partly because of all of the above reasons; partly because of the huge ripple effects that this model of business is having, on both sides of the ocean. And partly because it is only going to grow. Aside from the growing trend of “Gap Years” that has hit countries across recent years, it is now a common occurrence to find these projects being advertised and frequently implemented in secondary schools across the UK and (I am sure) countries across the world. There are, after all, volunteers roaming the streets here in Arusha, whose accents stem from all far-flung corners of the world.

Being on the ground in this area, I can see first-hand the negative impact of bad voluntourism. Listening to the volunteers speak about their work, I can hear first-hand the negative impact of bad voluntourism. Listening to the local community speak about these projects, I can hear first-hand the negative impact of bad voluntourism.

Knowing how young people back in the UK alone are being encouraged to take up these volunteer projects, being seen as “good for the CV”, I feel impelled to do something. Part of the work I was doing with Bright Green Enterprise was working on a new programme, teaching sixth form students about some of these issues. Part of the lecture I worked on for schools was surrounding the ripple effects of this system. Part of the book I am working on is focused on the scars of this model. I am not for a second wanting to take away from the good intentions surrounding volunteering, or for a second blight the wonderful models of sustainable and positive opportunities and projects that exist across the world. But I am not able to sit back and ignore the negatives; especially as they are growing as I speak.

For those of you who’ve come across the Twilight Saga, you’ll know that the Volturi are a powerful coven of Vampires who enforce the laws of the vampire world (yes, I know!) They are not supposed to be villains; they are supposed to be the foundations of peace and civilisation, people (well, vampires) who work to help and support communities around the world. And yet, the ripple effects of their self-serving methods are quite worrying; making them more of a curse than a cure.



Volturi…voltourist…. sound rather similar to me... 

Saturday 1 August 2015

School in a Box

Last night I learned about a company providing “Academies in a box”: an American corporation running a for-profit schooling system across the continent of Africa, known as Bridge International Academies.

The premise? Using a McDonald's style franchise, this company is a for-profit educational model that is rolling out schools across Kenya, Uganda and beyond. They hire unqualified teachers (basically anyone who is capable of reading and writing) to "teach" by reading out a pre-prepared script from a tablet. The day's lessons are sent to their phone every morning and the “teacher” simply reads and writes verbatim everything that is sent, following every word in order to create their lesson.

The aim? To allow access to a “quality education” for those around the world who would not normally be able to access a good education, through a small charge of just $5 per child per month. 

The "beauty" of these schools (in their eyes) is that every child or class in every Bridge school across the world is having the exact same lesson at the exact same time (a thought that terrifies me to my very soul!) How is this achieved? By every "teacher" in every single one of these schools simply reading the same prescribed lesson from their tablet at the same time, writing the same prescribed text onto the board at the same time and asking the same prescribed questions to the children at the same time. There is no deviation from the script (there is only one script per lesson/year group/company), there is no deviation from the time. 
The name of the game is Process.  




One of the merits of this approach is advocated (with glee) on their website:

“Our scripted curriculum includes step-by-step instructions explaining what teachers should do and say during any given moment of a class.”

A short podcast about the Bridge.

Here comes the debate I have a lot (in my head and in discussions): 

To what extent is any sort of formal schooling (no matter who gives it, no matter what it consists of, no matter how it is delivered) better than none? 

This is a crucial question to ask when assessing the educational models of the world and one that I question a lot due to the nature of the work I am currently doing. Sadly, seeing and exploring many of the formal educational models which exist across the world, I frequently come back to the latter (i.e. none) being better than any. I know many who would disagree with me, and I enjoy the discussions that ensue. After all, really, what right do I have to criticise any educational models, having had the privilege of an education myself?

Well, I am an opinionated soul for a start, and so I invariably do! Here are some of my criticisms…

To begin with, what exactly is education? What does it mean? In my opinion, the word “Education” means learning for life; learning to live within the world around you, a world that is constantly changing and a world that requires unique skills, creativity and independent thinking. Education does not just happen inside a classroom; it happens all day, every day. From the moment a child is born, that child is being educated as they are constantly surrounded by teachers. Parents, siblings, grandparents, neighbours or friends: the wealth of educators in any one life is vast. And yet, so frequently, these educators are somehow seen as invisible in the global definition of Education (with children being advocated as totally lacking in education unless they attend a formal school).




So what are schools actually for? What are schools like the Bridge Academy actually teaching their children that is so much better than what they could gain from all of their other teachers? In a nutshell - Information. The world is moving beyond education through wisdom, or knowledge even, as so much of curriculum substance in our modern schools promotes the acquisition of information. Facts and figures about  how stuff works – that is what school gives us.

One of my greatest concerns about the educational models rolling out across the world is that an education in Information is so often void of the need for critical thinking. If the purpose of Education in its global definition is simply to fill a child’s head with information, the relevance of a child’s questions, creativity, independence and innovation are utterly irrelevant to the practice, and a robotic nature of absorption is all that matters.




Factory systems of Education exist all across the world, not just in the margins of the “developing” world. Schools across the “west” are continually processing children within these same margins: in one end with empty heads, out the other with a golden ticket giving entrance to the next stage.



The notion that the factory-style teaching of these Bridge Academies is a positive-teaching method alarms me greatly. This system of education (scripted, robotic, prescriptive and dictatorial) would be laughed out of the classroom in schools across the world were it to be suggested, and yet somehow this is seen as a positive model to use on "poor Africans", children who are assumed to be happy with anything rather than nothing.

Children (wherever they come from) do not learn effectively by being taught in this way, being taught by a robot to think like a robot. This fact has been proven time and time again by academics, teachers and kids even, right across the world. We know this, we understand this and, in many places, educational reform is trying to address this very process that exists in so many schools. However, the Academies–in-a-Box hold no room for individuality of learning (there is no time after all). Thus, the children across all of their schools are supposed to simply "get it" at the exact same time.  

As stated in their aim, “The 1st, 100th and 1000th pupils receive the same education as the 100,000th and the 1000000th”. But how are they all supposed to think in the same way, at the same rate, at the same time? Humans don’t work like that, especially not children. What if their questions outrun the class time? What if they simply don't understand what the “teacher” is reading? Most crucially, what room is there for any human behaviour within this model?

Technology is the given answer to the school’s structural system. They boast of how technology develops all of the applications used to complete their research, navigates land buying, teaches, tracks and assesses pupils, communicates with parents and manages and evaluates each academy. The schools are literally being run by robots; facilitated by robots and are producing robots.



What of the "teachers" themselves within these models? What sort of worth do they feel about themselves, working as some sort of "facilitator" and simply reading a script that an unknown hand has written; working as someone who is not qualified or perhaps even able to understand or explain what it is that they are teaching, and whose every move during the day is rather frighteningly controlled by a machine...what impact is this model having upon the teachers?



Focusing particularly on the maxim "Fighting poverty through education" (the catchphrase of so many educational models across the world) the models at work in so many of our formal school systems all require movement into paid employment, as the global systems of education that we are using at present promote fiscal reward as the solution and the result of formal schooling. In other words, you need to go to school so that you can get a good education and get a good job. “Good”, for the most part, means “well paid" and thus migration to cities (where all of these “good jobs” lurk) is such a definite conclusion for so many of the products (aka kids) of educational models across the world.





Beyond the search for jobs, there are other reasons that kids are encouraged, through school, to leave home. An education that is teaching children about a world outside of their own context does not allow for the building of knowledge connections and deep understanding of the world in which they live; it simply sets them up for a world outside of their own. It is the inherent extraction from context that concerns me within our homogenous modern schooling systems. If an education is setting up children to exist in a world beyond their own, what is that education doing, other than teaching children that there is no value in their own lives, and they must leave home to find better ones? 

Bridge Academies has a curriculum that is scripted in-house (aka in America) by “world leading educational experts”. This is great. But how much do they know about the needs of each community within the areas they are writing this curriculum for? And even if they did know, this knowing is irrelevant if there is the same curriculum for every child in every village or town across every country housing these schools.  Aside from the notion of teaching children in an alien language (the model in "developing countries" across the world, about which I will write another time), how can this company think that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to education across an entire continent is going to ever work to do anything other than alienate a child from their community, their culture and their self worth?

Bridge Academies may well have the intention of “fighting poverty through education” but they are also working to make money (they are, after all, a for-profit company). They state that one of the reasons for not hiring qualified teachers is a cost-cutting mechanism (unqualified folk are a darn sight cheaper) and they encourage large class sizes (more $5 monthly payments rolling in). They also advocate the benefits of just one “computer” planning all the lessons as fruitful in its cost-cutting capabilities, allowing them to train teachers faster and not waste their time on lesson planning.

Another question I continually ponder is this: 

How much does a need to "fight poverty through education" erode the importance of promoting self-worth, advocating quality and equality and serving justice? 

Why, for example, is something many countries would deem as a farcical way to educate children (seen in this Academy-in-a-Box method) seen and sold as a great system to use for those who are classified as "poor"? Why should half the world be served an Education that is deemed not good enough for the other half?

I had an interesting discussion with my teacher, Gamba, about this just this afternoon (he being a very interesting man to discuss ideas with). He asked me the question: Which is Equality and Which is Justice? and then drew me this picture:



Looking at the left, we have a model of equality – all three people given the same. And this is what so many factions of educational aid are serving to do: roll out the same chance to children across the world to have an education. This is wonderful, I will never deny that and (as I said earlier) I obviously have no argument against people getting an education. But look at the picture to the right, and the story changes slightly. In these global models to promote a sense of equality, Justice is rarely served.  We are all equal, but we are not the same. This simple fact is so frequently forgotten in our move towards Globalisation. Yes, Education should be available for us all; to promote equality, but it should not all be the same. A homogenised Education is not tailoring to a person’s needs; it is simply one version of the meaning of success rolled out across the world, a version that automatically cuts off half of those involved (Gamba drew the "invisible line" to highlight the point!)

I think about these questions a lot. I believe in the value of Education (in its myriad of forms) but I lament the way we are often presenting it to our children.  I write about these ideas a great deal but rarely do I find answers, simply more and more questions. However, when it comes to models such as Bridge Academy’s “School in a Box” working to “fight poverty through Education” I find very definite answers (loud and negative in this case). In my opinion, their boxes do not (and never will) hold any answers to guide us towards a brave new world. They simply highlight the need to find another way to fight.