Selling souls in the name of eduaction!!

Another week and another great ED Tech Debate. I am defiantly a fan of the debate format.  It allows us to explore tech issues and then take it further by reading relevant articles and linking it all together.  I would highly recommend an online course, I just love them so much!  This week I had a chance to catch up on reading other’s blogs.  It is great to see so many people with amazing insights.  I agree with Angela, when she talks about not noticing how many partnerships are actually happening in front of our eyes.  She mentioned the vending machines,  in the elementary school that I work at we don’t have machines in the halls.  But with 35+ staff members in our staff room I mentioned getting rid of the Coke machine to make room for another fridge, my principal mentioned that unit was a permanent fixture as Coke gives the school a lot of money.

Dean’s blog got me thinking about the old Taylor Field, hard to believe that the name switch happened 10 years ago.  It also got me thinking about how the Agridome went to Brant Center back in 2005.  Dean’s blog sparked a brief conversation with my husband Aaron.  We chatted about how the sports industry is looking for ways of generating additional funding through the use of ad’s on jerseys.  Shannon pointed out that corporate impact is everywhere “education is not immune to this mind set and so the tendrils of corporate influence have most definitely become a part of the foundation”.  Aaron suggested how long will it be before Regina is home to Pepsi Middle School or Rexall High.  If schools were to be sponsored by big corporation perhaps education wouldn’t be underfunded or maybe teachers 2016 -2017 salary increases would be fully funded by the government as mentioned in good faith bargaining.  Perhaps we would never hear that the education minister is just funding half the salary increase and expecting the school boards to make the tough decision of which programs to cut and which people to let go.  Maybe in time, education will be forced to sell it self to corporate interests, never know when we will see the Regina Mosaic Public School Division.

Luke  made some very good points about corporations wanting to be involved in education but also wanting recognition. He further mentions that the most important consideration becomes whether the corporate involvement in schools is actually providing enhanced learning for student.  Shannon further pointed out that “our guest debaters indicated that some corporations do have morals and values that promote student achievement and what is good for education.  These companies may the lesser of the business evil”

I think that when educators are forced to wrap their heads around corporate sponsorship and education we have to realize that our government is severely under funding education.  This forces school boards into corporate partnerships. Our government is giving us no choice but to sell out and to create these critical friends, and partnerships.
So much more to keep my eyes open for when I look at all the branding that we have within my school.  I will certainly begin to question what’s the motivation behind the$e partnership$.  Thanks to last week’s debaters and to all for the great blogs!!