Journal perfessor multigeek's Journal: I'm asking YOU 14
In recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, I have a question for you. In the last part of his life, Reverend King spoke more and more about the need for our citizens to become personally involved in healing the divisions between the people of the United States and the people around the world on whose lands we had made war.
He warned that our hubris, our cavalier willingness to bomb and invade and overrun other countries "for their own good" and our consistant habit of tearing up other country's societies on the grounds that we would replace it with new, much better governments and structures of our making was making us enemies and building hatreds that would not die down for generations to come.
Kinda relevant these days, don'cha think?
So, let's say that somebody actually implements the kind of thing that we've talked about, where Americans really are sent out there to do good works in ways that are not just blatant extensions of our military and commercial interests. Would you be willing to go?
I'll posit a hypothetical. A non-governmental group (perhaps Geekcorps) sets up a school in Bahrain to teach open-source programming and systems to Middle-Easterners. Soup to nuts, from running Apache to writing code, to managing an open-source project team. Classes will include significant time devoted to teaching things like consensus decisonmaking, voting and then sticking by the results, yielding to better suggestions from others, and even how to avoid flaming.
Graduates will each be given a basic linux box with solar panel and a choice of 802.11x gear or a LEGO Mindstorms kit*. Classes will also be set up in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, rural Indonesia, and (given the real number on terrorist attacks against Americans) endemically depressed parts of the U.S. like Appalachia, Lakota lands, and parts of the farm belt.
People who sign up to teach will be assigned where needed and must commit to at least one month of teaching time. Where appropriate, teachers will be given training in the relevant language and some training in teaching techniques. They will also be paid an Americorps/Peace Corps level stipend, including pay for one month of training time.
Equivalent schools will also be set up to teach various other stuff, from vegetarian cooking to political organizing, putting out a newsletter/magazine, to permaculture. In other words, we're spreading the best of American culture and being Sorosesque about choosing forms of aid that help build and sustain pluralistic, democratic values.
Schools will be built in remote rural areas that are easily secured and housing, food, etc. will be taken care of to minimize risk of terrorist attack. As is already standard Geekcoprs policy, relevant immunizations will be provided and other such problems addressed.
So, would YOU, personally, be willing to do this? For how long?
Me? I'm a little busy at the moment, but I'ld commit to two months, maybe three if it could be broken up into two stints. Not quite sure what I would be best suited to teaching, but I don't doubt that there would be options.
Rustin
*I'm giving the short form here. Yes a Parallax/Basic Stamp/whatever kit would be better, but I'm assuming that more people know Mindstorms and we can get back to the specifics later.
He warned that our hubris, our cavalier willingness to bomb and invade and overrun other countries "for their own good" and our consistant habit of tearing up other country's societies on the grounds that we would replace it with new, much better governments and structures of our making was making us enemies and building hatreds that would not die down for generations to come.
Kinda relevant these days, don'cha think?
So, let's say that somebody actually implements the kind of thing that we've talked about, where Americans really are sent out there to do good works in ways that are not just blatant extensions of our military and commercial interests. Would you be willing to go?
I'll posit a hypothetical. A non-governmental group (perhaps Geekcorps) sets up a school in Bahrain to teach open-source programming and systems to Middle-Easterners. Soup to nuts, from running Apache to writing code, to managing an open-source project team. Classes will include significant time devoted to teaching things like consensus decisonmaking, voting and then sticking by the results, yielding to better suggestions from others, and even how to avoid flaming.
Graduates will each be given a basic linux box with solar panel and a choice of 802.11x gear or a LEGO Mindstorms kit*. Classes will also be set up in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, rural Indonesia, and (given the real number on terrorist attacks against Americans) endemically depressed parts of the U.S. like Appalachia, Lakota lands, and parts of the farm belt.
People who sign up to teach will be assigned where needed and must commit to at least one month of teaching time. Where appropriate, teachers will be given training in the relevant language and some training in teaching techniques. They will also be paid an Americorps/Peace Corps level stipend, including pay for one month of training time.
Equivalent schools will also be set up to teach various other stuff, from vegetarian cooking to political organizing, putting out a newsletter/magazine, to permaculture. In other words, we're spreading the best of American culture and being Sorosesque about choosing forms of aid that help build and sustain pluralistic, democratic values.
Schools will be built in remote rural areas that are easily secured and housing, food, etc. will be taken care of to minimize risk of terrorist attack. As is already standard Geekcoprs policy, relevant immunizations will be provided and other such problems addressed.
So, would YOU, personally, be willing to do this? For how long?
Me? I'm a little busy at the moment, but I'ld commit to two months, maybe three if it could be broken up into two stints. Not quite sure what I would be best suited to teaching, but I don't doubt that there would be options.
Rustin
*I'm giving the short form here. Yes a Parallax/Basic Stamp/whatever kit would be better, but I'm assuming that more people know Mindstorms and we can get back to the specifics later.
No (Score:2)
Today? (Score:1)
Yes, but.... (Score:1)
culture clash and other details (Score:2)
Yes, along with language training, training on cultural stuff would be very important.
But keep in mind that this whole thing is *supposed* to be a Trojan horse. If the students learn very little about the ostensible subject but pick up American values and learn where to get the actual training later, then I would be entirely satisfied.
I am NOT a cultural relativist. I am convinced that in some ways western (euro-amer
lesse... (Score:2)
No. (Score:1)
Certainly not in today's world. 50 years ago, maybe...
Fifty years ago but not now? (Score:2)
Rustin
Re:Fifty years ago but not now? (Score:1)
50 years ago, international relations were really fairly new to the US. We had basically been an isolationist country prior to WWII - we didn'
Go to teach, come back in a bag? Maybe not. (Score:2)
The only obvious approach that suggests itself is the kind of security in depth that our government never wants to be bothered to create.
Frankly, seems to me that most of the embassy/consulate/whatever security breaches in modern U.S. history have come down to our refusal to do our own dirty work. What gets us in trouble? Usually a local contractor brought in to do some sort of scut work, from construction (Moscow embassy) to translation (
Yes, I'd go... (Score:2)
Still... Frankly, I'd rather go do something like this in Nunavut or rural Labrador (programmes already exist, and they pay well -- a friend of mine came back from the far North with many thousands of dollars in the bank, because of the pay based on the outrageous cost of living while there, and also the "Northern Allowance" of ~$12K/a) than in Bangladesh or Bahrain -- it's safer
Re:Length of Service Term (Score:2)
In reality, the "obvious" realities preclude most programs from sending folks for terms any shorter then six months.
Personally, I dis
Don't know how much teaching you've done... (Score:2)
How do you teach someone to teach? (Score:2)
I think a lot of it has to do with the preparation one gets before facing a "real" classroom. That's why I put the part in about giving them training in how to teach.
Left up to me, much of this would consist of having would be volunteers (with coaching) teach brief topics to various hostile and receptive audiences.
Let 'em do nine or ten "how to use a computer" sessi
In a heartbeat. (Score:2)
Aside from disagreeing with your focus on technical issues, I think you make a very good point. There would still exist major security concerns
That said, allowing citizens to become personally engaged in what, to date, has been a Television Struggle would, in addition to the gift of knowledge, bring a real level of understanding of the conditi