Your accusations are your confessions
I didn’t know Stephen Downes had a political blog. These are his thoughts on cancel culture which, like most of what he says in general, I agree with.
Every time a conservative complains about censorship or ‘cancel culture’ we need to remind ourselves, and to say to them,Source: Cancelled | Leftish“You are the one complaining about cancel culture because you are the one who uses silencing and suppression as political tools to advance your own interests and maintain your own power.
“You are complaining about cancel culture because the people you have always silenced are beginning to have a voice, and they are beginning to say, we won’t be silent any more.
“And when you say the people working against racism and misogyny and oppression are silencing you, that tells us exactly who – and what – you are.”
“Your accusations are your confessions.”
Moving down Maslow's hierarchy of needs using OER?
David Wiley, the standard bearer for Open Educational Resources, says:
Many of us believe that education is an incredibly powerful tool in the fight to increase equity, and this is a primary motivation for our participation in the open education movement. The shared core of the work we do in open education is increasing access to educational opportunity – with the long-term goal of making access to that opportunity truly universal – by licensing educational resources in ways that make them free and 5R-able. That is, by creating, sharing, and improving OER.However...
In general, without a stable basic needs floor to stand on you aren’t capable of benefitting from access to educational opportunity – including those opportunities made possible by our collective efforts in open education. And unfortunately, as long as basic needs problems persist, those whose basic needs are not being met will be essentially incapable of taking advantage of the opportunities created by OER, while those whose basic needs are being met will be capable of taking advantage of those opportunities. Consequently, while basic needs issues persist, OER will likely expand some of the gaps we intend for it to shrink.I can't tell whether he's covering his back or advocating for full communism now.
Source: iterating toward openness
Image: CC BY Atelier Disko, Hamburg und Berlin
How do you show off your privilege when everyone's got an iPhone?
It uses to be all about conspicuous consumption and bling…
However, the democratisation of consumer goods has made them far less useful as a means of displaying status. In the face of rising social inequality, both the rich and the middle classes own fancy TVs and nice handbags. They both lease SUVs, take airplanes, and go on cruises. On the surface, the ostensible consumer objects favoured by these two groups no longer reside in two completely different universes.It's all about buying organic produce and privacy these days:
Today’s inconspicuous consumption is a far more pernicious form of status spending than the conspicuous consumption of Veblen’s time. Inconspicuous consumption – whether breastfeeding or education – is a means to a better quality of life and improved social mobility for one’s own children, whereas conspicuous consumption is merely an end in itself – simply ostentation. For today’s aspirational class, inconspicuous consumption choices secure and preserve social status, even if they do not necessarily display it.Source: Aeon
High-performing schools in England less accessible since 2010
Same old Tories, defunding education and entrenching privilege:
Access to high performing schools in England has become more geographically unequal over the period 2010-2015. This is in spite of government policies aimed at improving school performance outside higher performing areas such as London. Virtually all local authorities with consistently low densities of high performing school places are in the North, particularly the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber. In Blackpool and Hartlepool local authorities there are no high performing secondary school places.Source: Education Policy Institute