Comments on: Blog Action Day 08 – Poverty

By: MariaD

MariaD — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:09:44 +0000

I got to (cynically) say that we need to provide "those" boys and girls with toys and games that are more exciting than war in order for them to abandon war as their game of choice. And then provide "those other" boys and girls with means of personal profit even more lucrative than war. Space exploration may just work for the purpose, as it is both expensive and exciting. I am calling these people "boys and girls" to indicate their pre-conventional stage of moral development. It would be nice to promote actual moral development, though.

By: zac

zac — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:56:59 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Maria.

I also read one or 2 of the Mars Trilogy a while back and enjoyed them.

Speaking of Mars, I have to say I am quite concerned about the talk from NASA (and Dawkins) along the lines that we need to explore other planets as it is the only hope for our race in the future. From New Scientist:

The renowned University of Cambridge physicist has previously spoken in favour of colonising space as an insurance policy against the possibility of humanity being wiped out by catastrophes like nuclear war and climate change. He argues that humanity should eventually expand to other solar systems

How about saving the billions of dollars and fixing the environmental mess this world is in first? Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for scientific exploration, but nuclear war and climate change are things we can do something about at significantly less cost than trotting off to some nearby sun. Really…

Thanks for the great list of educational resources.

By: MariaD

MariaD — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:20:14 +0000

An interesting take on the issue can be found in the psychological theory of flow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_state). Some poor people and poor communities (and poor countries) seem to be significantly happier, or more able to achieve “flow,” than others. Many social groups, such as graduate students, artists, or some intentional communities, register low on money measures and high on other life success measures. If we look at networks, some extremely successful and large web projects get a huge bang for a buck (Craigslist, Wikipedia). I just finished reading the Mars trilogy, an excellent science fiction book where a future society combines money and “other” economies. It is utopian, yet quite inspiring.

All in all, I am thinking the answers to problems of poverty will come from social mechanisms – people helping each other, cooperating and in general networking. Which makes technology education and cooperative learning extremely important goals for all educators, in particular math educators. I am working on organizing coop math clubs, and collecting group math activities that support high level of interaction and result in contributing to the creative commons. People who organize OERs (open educational resources – a good list is here) and invite their students to contribute content make the world richer, and are my personal heroes. When you send Intmath newsletters out, you fight poverty!