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It is not in Google's best interest to have people that think independently of Google. The more woven Google is into the daily fabric of our lives the more prof
by dkarapetyan 9y ago
It is not in Google's best interest to have people that think independently of Google. The more woven Google is into the daily fabric of our lives the more profitable it becomes. I don't understand why more alarm bells aren't ringing. A for-profit corporation should not be subsidizing public education. They're not a non-profit. Their motives are always going to be at odds with creating a free-thinking populace.
Google and Google products are not commodified and generic tools of thought. In fact they are the exact opposite. They're contextualized and proprietary. We are doing ourselves a disservice in the long run by letting them get a leg up in education.
The best thing that happened to me was learning math in post-soviet Armenia. To this day I still think best with pencil and paper and can put other computational tools in the proper context. Whereas growing up with Google branded products I imagine would have had a much different effect. There was one thing the communists got right and that was science education.
- WalterBright 9y agoGovernments have their agendas in public schools other than free thinking, as well.
- dkarapetyan 9y agoThis is also correct. I mean you're speaking to someone who has first hand experience with how those agendas play out in the U.S. and abroad. Those agendas are exactly why education must not be coupled to proprietary tools. We should be teaching people how to think instead of giving them government or corporate sanctioned thought gardens and patterns. I don't see how letting Google take the lead is fixing that fundamental issue. It is not in their best interest to do that no matter how you slice it. By Google I mean the corporate entity and not the people working within it.
- johnsmith21006 9y agoWhat? Google provided a far better solution to our schools that is more efficient in every aspect. They listened and stepped up. Not a good thing?
- bamboozled 9y agoA narrow focus on efficiency, which does not always equal the best solution overall. Take a read of the 350+ comments on the NYTimes article to see how thrilled actual parents and teachers are about all of this.