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I believe the right to an education is a basic human right..what can we do to make that a reality?
Governor Brown just signed the Dream Act and that propelled me to think about how accessible education is in United States and around the world. Education shouldn't be something that only the privileged can afford. What can we do to give every child an opportunity to improve their lives through education?
Topics:
education human rights
Utsab Mukherjee
Michael Wolok
Have great teachers create courses of study on interactive DVDs.
emm dubahew
One day, this great country will be led and/or influenced by the scientists and engineers-- people who actually understand and are subject matter experts in terms of resource allocation and sustainability. I hope it's not too late to let conventional wisdom someday have a chance to reflect a culmination of intelligence gathered and shared among the people, through all ages of time...
Shan Talton
Im sure a lot of this is pie in the sky. I firmly believe that people only learn and explore if they want to. Schools' rote training is the death of creativity and invention. Luckily that's not all most schools do.
Get them exposed to the idea and then expose folks to the tools and techniques.
Don Wesley 50+
Djw.
David Chitty
1. they learn about information use
2. solves basic problems in their own lives
3. reading and writing become essential to improving their lives and increasing their chances of survival
4. when the ideas are implemented and they see the benefits to their families, it becomes an essential tool that directly leads to the educational process
5. teaching becomes a profession and value is placed on the role as a key means of survival through manifestation of intellectual process, leading to practical results.
6. they may have an innovation to contribute to the on-line collective, they and the world benefit.
Paul LaRocca
Very very few really know where true enlightment comes from... School is not the answer it is the problem.
Maxime Touzel
Keenan Brugh
Alex Ihde
We must be very careful in expressing these important concepts (education, health care, food) in terms of basic human rights. For when we do so, we risk making of another man a slave. After all, if it is a "right" then someone must provide it. And if no one is motivated to do so, then in order to preserve everyone's rights, we will end up coercing people to work to meet those obligations (violating the rights of one person to preserve another's).
Rights are those protections we have from governmental abuses, often granted to win consent of the governed. We have the right to life (the government may not take our lives without due process), to property (ditto), to the franchise, and various others. In the U.S., a number of them are stated explicitly in the Constitution, others have been created by Court actions. But we tread dangerous ground when we change rights from protection (i.e., what government may not do to us) to rights that require someone else be coerced into work on our behalf.
Perhaps there is a better way of expressing the sentiment?
Carol A.
Bruce Ding
First, we only have certain amount of resources-making them available to more people might mean that each people will have less. For instance, by making more people get into colleges, Chinese government has been in fact lowering the standard and end-result of higher education. And I think that's definitely not something we want to see.
Second, where exactly can we get the money we need to make such equality happen? in an economy as unstable as now, every governments are facing the problem of deficit. If we are borrowing the money from tomorrow to make the people today to have a more equal education, is that a little unfair for future generation?
In addtion, I have another concern about the working definition of "equal opportunity". More often than not, a university with a equal opportunity scheme will admit more disadvantaged students even though they have a lower score. but It's really a gray area of fairness. By doing this, we are creating new inequality.
yazan fad
Shan Talton
In more remote parts of the world have radio booster stations that have many channels for various subjects and current events.
Drew Bixby
Shan Talton
Jamey Weston
Steven Puplett
Drew Bixby
I would rephrase your comment to say, we need to reduce barriers to education. Give it away free and its worth what people directly paid for it (nothing).
Valerie Burton
I am the product of a private university and I am the granddaughter of a product of a private university. I know that it is essential for all high school graduates to follow through and attend college whether it is a 2 or 4 year public or private institution.
Whether the student is legal or illegal is irrelevant to me, having the desire to continue with their education is the most important thing to me. The Dream Act makes illegal immigrants who are accepted into state universities eligible for financial assistance and I am OK with that.
I am surrounded by American born and bred students who I have to fight with daily just to get them to complete their high school education.
I believe that getting educated is too important for us not to help students who see the value and seek financial assistance.
Shan Talton
Lenalee Wies
Maxwell Michaels
Kim Robertson
I would like to talk on two points:
1. Basic Right - I believe that the solution to the world's upcoming population crisis is education and the opportunities to use this education to work and earn a stable living. People with jobs, income and no threats to their survival, have fewer children. At least this is the phenomena seen in many of the richer parts of the world. Which leadsinto my second point.
2. Education is a requirement - For a person to vote and be a full member of the world, I believe that they must have received enough education to be able to understand the whole world context. IE understand political systems, world religons, macro economics, envronmental issues etc. Maybe a UN international standard should be introduced as a mandatory minimum level of education that a nation must provide free of charge to all of its citizens? Some system where the testing and quality of the educational outcomes are rated on an international scale by an external arbitor.
What can we do about it? Well, countires like the US could require that any corporation operating in a third world listed country must implement community investment into schooling infrastructure in that country. Also, these companies should invest in the necessary infrastructure to get those children to school, clothed and clean and with the necessary materials to participate in the education. This model works well in companies that work in the primary industries sector as they have a localised presence in those countries and also have sustainability goals that would align with this activity.
dan philips
Kim, you make good points, and on # 1 I agree with. Education will, and is helping our population crisis that we will soon to be experiencing in the near future.
But requirement?
I'm in college right now, and after reading, " IE understand political systems, world religions, macro economics, environmental issues, and how much more is etc?
That seems like a lot of information to be educated on, and would be a dounting task for any young student to learn.
How many years of education do you think that this would take? And in today's world, "time is money," so how would we make this affordable?
It would have to be made extremely affordable to make it mandatory, especially on an international scale.
Do you mean "World" corporations, or just American corporations? And if it was, all of the "Worlds" wealthier corporations getting involved, it would still be difficult.
You would first have to come up with some kind of estimated "price tag" that it would cost to achieve these conditions. Then see if it is a reachable goal that can be with in the realm of the worlds economic situation.
How long would this take? Two or three generations maybe even longer. It is a great long term plan, but we need to try to think in short terms.
Terry Freeman
Amrut Deshmukh
In country like India it is a Fundamental Rule written in India's Constitution .....
dan philips
"Trust no one, and question every thing."
If people would put this to work in their every day life, they could actually be their own teachers. If you know how to read, and you are able to use "critical thinking," with all the information out there on the web, you can learn just about anything.
I'm finding out that if you really want to learn about a particular thing, you just have to do some investigating for your-self. Would it be equivalent to getting a college degree?
Do we haft to have a "document" or a "piece of paper" saying that we are smart enough to do a particular thing?
Can we become a lawyer or doctor with out going to college?
Maybe we need to give our-self's, our own education.
Si Xie 10+
Then face this question into two different situation:
One, you or your family don not have the financial ability to afford you to the school. If somebody like the government have policy to afford you to have a education in low price or even free. You have the right to be educated and the policy protect this right. In this situation, you just basically have the chance and oppotunity to go to school. In this situation, government can help a greater people go to school or be educated while using the relative policy.
Another situation is that you already have the financial ability to school or be educated, but you do not have the equal change to have the same chance to go to a nice college or instuctor, is that violet the basic right of you? Is this unfair? Also, as for a international student, should he or she have the same chance with US residents when applying a school in US? Moreover, if you are the resident in this states, you are prior to go to the college in your own place than people out of the state.
Basically, the last situation is just built on the people who already have the oppotunities in eduaction, but not in a equal way.
So if education is a basic right of human, it not only can be accessed, and also be fair to every one...
Hence, this issues can be involve not only the society and government, also the institute that provide the education.
Helen O kekai
And again I say to you tishe...Is education a "right"? is way too broad of a question. With the Amish, 8th grade is the highest level ever achieved in their closed communities...actually even allowed.
In some countries, girls aren't even allowed in schools. And then we have "Howard Roark's" comment that anyone who wants to get the government involved is a complete dolt! (Ahh Thank you Ayn Rand for bringing up another generation of "egoistic" -correct spelling, NOT egotistic- selfish people who think Wall Street hedge fund mangers are the quintessential American success story)..Success equaling NOT your service to your fellow mankind, but owning a 10 million dollar penthouse in TriBeCa and owning a Bentley or two. Because we all just know that if you work very hard anyone can be a billionaire! What a bunch of horse patookey!
Hey in some countries such as Somalia, millions of children are starving to death of malnutrition or dehydration secondary to not having potable water within a day's walking distance...before hitting the ages of 3 or 4. I'm sure Roark and the other 1% will decide that is God's plan to wipe out the unfit..Heck, they will probably even misquote Darwin on that one.
Roark may call me a "bleeding heart liberal" or some other trashy nickname that he pickup from Faux News, but the Boston fireman who caught the child thrown from a third story window in an horrendous building fire is much more of a hard working person than any super trader on WS. but then we see living a certain lifestyle has a different meaning of success forth eHoward Roarks of hte world.
tishe I presume you have read the idiocy of the "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. It is the current "it" philosophy of the 1%. Of interest, the author of this book on egoism, selfishness, and narcissism was a Communist!
Douglas Wolf 50+
Helen O kekai
As for me, in 1965, I left home at 15..from a "1%" home and worked as a motel maid to finish high school. My parents disinherited me. But I worked very hard and my high school teachers worked with me so I could graduate. Instead of sitting in an English course, I wrote a thesis on the writers who influenced Shakespeare. In place of history class I wrote a lengthy paper on how other countries in Europe viewed the revolution in America. For math, I was given a series of advanced calculus equations to solve. I graduated at the top of a 1,000 student senior class despite not stepping foot in the high school and won full scholarships to a lot of good universities. BUT I HAD GREAT GENETIC MATERIAL!
If you still feel I have no imagination..well... Hey Roark,anyone who thinks they are the lead character in an Ayn Rand book is not dealing with a full deck, mon ami! And my name is really o ke kai. It is Hawai'ian for "of the sea." I renovated a 50 foot sailboat and sailed the Pacific.
I was lucky to inherit intelligence...but some kids don't have a chance in hell. If you grow up with drug-addicted parents, it takes a one in a million person to escape that turmoil. But with your self-centered Ayn Rand egoism, you don't give a shit about the less fortunate. I do! That is why I have a free medical clinic. And I work with gang members to get them into college. What have you done lately for anyone but yourself?
Daniel Yoo
No matter your opinion on whether education should be considered a basic human right, or how much of a role government should play in delivering education, I think most would agree that better education is a good thing for society at large.
We can dream up recommendations to change schools, parents, or communities to create better and more accessible education. But without incentives to act on those recommendations, no one will act, and they will just be fantasies. So I think a question we should also ask is: how do you create incentives for people, whether it's parents, community members, government workers, teachers, or students, to create better education? How do you make people care and act?
I can only think of two ways to motivate people in this way: via money or by appealing to their social conscience.
We also could benefit from more incentives to experiment and innovate in education. Because frankly, we don't know how to deliver education in a meaningful way to many people, such as the underprivileged, impoverished, malnourished, abused, neglected, etc.
So whether you believe in education as a basic right or not (and I argue that this is a matter of belief rather than debate), how might we get people to care enough about education to act? Money? Leadership? Social pressure? Laws?
Pete Castricone