- While going through my classmates canon posts, it is clear that there are multiple areas of interests as far as diversity and inclusion goes. What struck me was the post about “Bridging the generational gap” because that has always been something that has interested me outside of this class. I know age discrimination is certainly a thing, both for younger and older people, and it was neat to see this article about different generations working together. One passage from this post that was especially interesting to me was “His last suggestion is to include more technology in the curriculum. One way he suggested doing this is by incorporating fun and engaging games such as jeopardy to keep his students involved”. This stuck out to me because I have always had this assumption about the younger generation being highly reliant on technology, so it would naturally be incorporated into the learning style to keep them engaged. As for the media element that helped my understanding, I really appreciated the bar graph in the article discussing diversity in minority education. Bar graphs are simple, yet they paint a picture that is easy to understand.
3. The paragraph that touches on Webb blaming educational efforts and being obsessed with STEM and disregarding other areas of education is what I am focusing on for this. Bogost uses Webb’s statements aggressively to really drive an emphasis on this. Starting out with “Even though she’d like to see more diversity among tech workers, Webb blames educational efforts like those that Constellations is pursuing for the current state of affairs, at least in part. ” This sets the rest of the paragraph to explain why she thinks we need to do better in terms of educating people, and smoothly transitions to the next paragraph where she can give a counter example. In this case it is China, and how they teach children in a more organic way so that they are more versatile in their education rather than just focusing solely on one area.
Aaron, I totally agree with your observation about the Webb quotes re: STEM. Hits you like a ton of bricks, doesn’t it? He sets you up to think this is going to be yet another article about the need to focus on STEM, but like Ali, pulls a rope-a-dope and hits you with a truth about focusing more on critical thinking.
Webb’s point of view is definitely strong and partial, although I agree that reform in our current education system could definitely have some major benefits compared to the set up that is being used today. China’s ideology of adapting our education system to our technology-driven world makes a lot of sense, we are moving to the next step in industrialization and we should set our children up with a more contemporary understanding of what our job on this earth is.
Consider this–when an author is going to offer a different take on a problem (one that runs counter to how we typically think about addressing that problem), they have to lay some serious groundwork if they want us to shift our thinking.
Here that means drawing on a credentialed, reliable expert, carefully explaining why the current approach comes up short, and then offering something new. That’s a multi-part logical progression that requires careful transition work.