EDUPUNK or, on becoming a useful idiot
Jim Groom,
bavatuesdays,
Jun 11, 2010
The bava discusses the repurposing of edupunk to service the machine. "I love how the dismissal of women's studies, religious studies, and by extension philosophy, english, art history, fine arts, music, theater, and on and on, brings into sharp focus what the neo-liberal vision of an unregulated, free market education might look like: service training for the new de-humanized economy (The Wire, anyone?). What we are seeing is the gentrification of higher ed as an impulse to razing public education though the liberatory rhetoric of innovation and efficiency-only to have the process devoured by the wolves of the free market.
"Reynolds understands the 'edpunks' as the useful idiots who very well may help bring the public education system down, and that's all part and parcel of the framing of EDUPUNKS as the romanticized destroyer-or necessary idiots-who pave the way for the eduprenuers, the ultimate heroes of Kamenetz story. It's a tough narrative for me to swallow, and I don't need to read the book to follow it's arc. But when organizations like NCAT get framed as a solution in terms of efficiency at warehousing their services like box stores, you know the solutions aren't going to end well.
"Last I checked that's really not what EDUPUNK was all about, but I don't write books, so you're gonna have to take my word on this."
"Reynolds understands the 'edpunks' as the useful idiots who very well may help bring the public education system down, and that's all part and parcel of the framing of EDUPUNKS as the romanticized destroyer-or necessary idiots-who pave the way for the eduprenuers, the ultimate heroes of Kamenetz story. It's a tough narrative for me to swallow, and I don't need to read the book to follow it's arc. But when organizations like NCAT get framed as a solution in terms of efficiency at warehousing their services like box stores, you know the solutions aren't going to end well.
"Last I checked that's really not what EDUPUNK was all about, but I don't write books, so you're gonna have to take my word on this."
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