Rob Hopkins's blog. Money and the Crisis of Civilization. [An RS Encore Presentation] Suppose you give me a million dollars with the instructions, "Invest this profitably, and I'll pay you well. " I'm a sharp dresser -- why not? So I go out onto the street and hand out stacks of bills to random passers-by. Ten thousand dollars each. In return, each scribbles out an IOU for $20,000, payable in five years. I come back to you and say, "Look at these IOUs!
I have generated a 20% annual return on your investment. " You are very pleased, and pay me an enormous commission. Now I've got a big stack of IOUs, so I use these "assets" as collateral to borrow even more money, which I lend out to even more people, or sell them to others like myself who do the same. Then one day, the first batch of IOUs comes due. So finally, the government steps in and buys the IOUs, bails out the insurance company and everyone else holding the IOUs and the derivatives stacked on them.
I think we all sense that we are nearing the end of an era. Now enter interest. Contest Time! The Crisis of Civilization Remix Challenge. The Cutting Edge: Overcoming the Crisis of Civilization: Five Revolutions. Last November I did a talk at a seminar hosted by The Crisis Forum, at St Ethelburga's Centre for Peace and Reconciliation (Climate Change and Violence Workshop 7: Avoiding climate change violence: What is to be done? ). I spoke not just about the latest state of the evidence on environmental and energy crises, along with their inherent interrelationships with food and economic crises; I also addressed the increasing problem of state militarisation as an inevitable outcome of the current, failed business-as-usual approach to dealing with these crises.
In the latter part of the talk, I spoke about the five tentative "revolutions" or "transformations" which are taking place in disparate parts of the world, albeit only in embryonic form, and the immense potential they hold for an alternative, sustainable civilizational paradigm. The talk was filmed, and recently put up on video. You can watch it here: Press-Pack-.pdf. The Cutting Edge: Overcoming the Crisis of Civilization: Five Revolutions. Critical pedagogy: schools must equip students to challenge the status quo | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional. The pedagogy popularised by E.D.Hirsch, and recently promoted by the likes of Civitas, reduces teaching into nothing more than a bleak transmission model of learning.
Hirsch's theory focuses on what he calls "cultural literacy". He argues that all students need a "core knowledge" so they can develop into better citizens. In one of his books, he lists various facts, phrases and historical events that he believes all young Americans should be aware of, including the Founding Fathers and Adirondack Mountains.
It's Hirsch's belief that if children aren't taught such cultural literacy at home, responsibility for it should lie with schools. But Hirsch's "cultural literacy" is a hegemonic vision produced for and by the white middle class to help maintain the social and economic status quo. Moreover, teaching a prescribed "core knowledge" instills a culture of conformity and an insipid, passive absorption of carefully selected knowledge among young people. Contents @ the informal education homepage. Press-Pack- The global Transition tipping point has arrived - vive la révolution | Environment. Last Friday, I posted an exclusive report about a new NASA-backed scientific research project at the US National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (Sesync) to model the risks of civilisational collapse, based on analysis of the key factors involved in the rise and fall of past civilisations.
The story went viral and was quickly picked up by other news outlets around the world which, however, often offered rather misleading headlines. 'Nasa-backed study says humanity is pretty much screwed', said Gizmodo. 'Nasa-funded study says modern society doomed, like the dodo', said the Washington Times. Are we doomed? Doom is not the import of this study, nor of my own original research on these issues as encapsulated in my book, A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It.
Of course, there are those who go so far as to argue that humanity is heading for extinction by 2030, and that it's too late to do anything about it. Neoliberal-ostrichism Why is this happening? College Composition and Communication, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 194-213. Services Canada | CSC | IT Reports. Support Canadian Classrooms Donate to My Class Needs Foundation today! Français Log In Designing Quality Solutions for Learning ™ IT Reports A research investigation on the impact of digital technology in transforming teaching practice and strengthening student engagement, learning, and achievement and on the changes and directions needed at the system level for moving forward with 21st Century learning.
English Report Synopsis French Report Synopsis Full Report - English Full Report - French Curriculum Services Canada Phone 416 591 1576Toll Free 1 800 837 3048Fax 416 591 1576csc@curriculum.org HomePoliciesEmployment Opportunities CSC BlogMy Class Needs FoundationAnnual Reports & Releases © Curriculum Services Canada 2014. CSC | Webcasts for Educators - Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. Webcast:November 29, 2007 Today's students live in the information age. They are bombarded with vast amounts of information in a variety of forms and must become critical consumers and users of information in order to be successful in school and beyond. Critical literacy allows students to be active and challenging participants as they respond to texts of all types. It provides students with a lens through which to look critically at written, visual, spoken, multimedia, and performance texts, to challenge the intent and content, and to get the most enjoyment and deepest meaning out of text.
In relation to classroom practice, students' learning experiences must help them to assume a critical stance when responding to or creating texts. They need to discover how texts are constructed and how they work. Students need to understand what texts are attempting to do and they need to move toward taking an active, meaning-making position with regard to texts. Additional Materials Featuring: Share: Freedom After 30 Years on Death Row - Andrew Cohen. A case involving a black man convicted by an all-white jury in Louisiana decades ago may be reopened. A 1984 photograph of Louisiana death row inmate Glenn Ford, who may soon be exonerated (James R. McClure/Caddo Parish Indigent Defender Office) UPDATE: Glenn Ford was indeed released from prison late Tuesday afternoon local time. The same judge who denied him relief in 2009 was the one who signed the order authorizing his release.
ORIGINAL STORY: Glenn Ford, a black man wrongfully convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Louisiana in 1984, a man who has spent the last 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit following a trial filled with constitutional violations, is on the verge of being set free. Ford's dogged lawyers and enlightened parish prosecutors in Shreveport both filed motions late last week informing a state trial judge that the time has come now to vacate Ford's murder conviction and death sentence. Any exoneration is remarkable, of course. CSC | Webcasts for Educators - Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. 252Fs11519-007-0004-2.pdf?auth66=1394761847_de10104496223060ce24b999ab92e917. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 194-213. CSC | Webcasts for Educators - Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. Untitled.
Social Amnesia: A Critique Of Contemporary Psychology by Russell Jacoby.