Education

5/4 This weekend I went to CSSC California Student Sustainability Coalition Conference in Santa Barbara, CA and had a wonderful time. My favorite speaker was discussing the infiltration of corporations into universities, and I couldn't help feeling as if I have been wronged in my educational experience. The corporatization of the modern day education system began in the late 1970's when the US Chamber of Commerce pushed to allow universities to accept research grants for corporations. These grants allowed the research conducted by the university to directly benefit the corporation, and to be property of the corporation. This law subsidized corporate research by providing cheap labor, and subsidized facilities in which their research was being done. Realistically, the corporation was receiving much more for their dollar compared to if they did the research outside of the university. This difference in money was accounted for with tax payer dollars and student tuition---this is why tuition has risen 3-fold in real dollars since the late 1970s.

This started a competitive model across universities to obtain the most corporate money. It also started competition between departments within the university itself to obtain the most funding. This had consequences regarding what our universities teach, and where their priorities lay. Those majors and universities that cater to corporate needs are those that survive. Our higher education system has turned into a corporate business training ground. Only majors that make money are considered valuable, and all other educational topics are considered "lesser".

The issue with this is that there are more forms of capital in the world than physical, social, and financial capital. Money is only good to make things and to buy things, but there is more to the world than that. Sure, we need money and industry to survive, but there is more to life than surviving; we need to learn how to survive well and happily. These are things that money cannot provide direction for, and we often times are left feeling as if we've mistaken the means (money) for the ends (happiness).

We need to begin valuing cultural capital, intellectual capital, spiritual capital, and the like in our universities once again. These things have value as well, even though is may not be reflected though the what we currently value in terms of dollars.

College should be a time of exploration, growth, and self improvement. Allowing corporations to influence the way we think sets up our society to know little more than their profession as means of self-identification.

I entered Cal Poly as a freshman engineer, ready to take on the problems of the world. I soon realized that I wasnt expected or encouraged to solve the worlds problems at my univerity. There was not talk of what problems needed solving, or previous solutions. There was a feeling of hushed desperation amongst the smartest of students who couldn't figure out why they felt they weren't learning anything interesting.

Only time would reveal that things were to remain the same, as penetrating questions into the value of our education were swept aside.

We were thrown into the gauntlet of advanced math, physics and chemistry kept inline by the whip of tests, grades, and societal pressure.

Keeping the blinder on students is the way to get them though our higher education system.

What I Going to do About It


I had to transfer schools to Prescott College to see things from another perspective. I got meningitis at Prescott, and had to leave becasue I was still struck with the fear of not being valued after college.

I came home, and decided to go back to Cal Poly, a place I thought I would never return. I wanted to synthesize what I had learned at Prescott, and bring that knowledge back to Cal Poly to do things on my own terms and have it work for me.

I started at Cal Poly as General Engineering in which we study the common classes between all the engineering professions, but choose and area of expertise or a "concentration". I didn't know what needed solving, and couldn't nail down an area of engineering study that I wanted to pursue.

I did want to find out what needed solving before I began solving problems. Many of the things we consider problems in today's society were created by people with good intentions solving problems.

Before I put my head down to concentrate on arbitrary problems to impress future employers with a portfolio, I wanted to really understand what needed solving.

What I have found is that the biggest problem with the world is corporate hegemony. We are controlled, and held in place by the need to consume and pay them. We have become addicted to oil in large part because corporations profit from it. We have electric cars, they were invented in the mid 1800's, but we still use gasoline.

We are cooerced into working for the very corporations that keep us inline, buy their products, and listen to their bullshit.

Corporations are not people, people are people. Democracy is not corporatocracy. Money is not speech; speech is speech. Corporations are fine for commerce, but keep them out of the areas that make us human beings: our politics, or education, and our culture.

 So how do solve the problem of reliance on corporations. We can stop buying their products. We can start making our own products and growing our own food. We can live off the grid. Sure we can do all of these things if put our mind to it. The issue is that no one actually does these things. There are too many people in the world to afford your own piece of land without first making a profit. Growing food and making our own products is labor and time intensive. In general it is easier to work for the corporations and rely on the conveniences they provide to us in the form of cars, appliances, and technology than it is to just break of from them all together.

In fact, the sheer number of people in the world make it almost a necessity to do so. Food is too expensive, land is too expensive; making our time to make enough money limited. We need to make money fast, and farming for ourselves does not do this unless it is done at a large scale and done properly. Selling our own products does do this, but is what we are selling really improve the world? Does the world need more products, or maybe better products, or maybe it needs something else? I think the world needs products that don't destroy our natural environment, and don't take us out of our natural by taking away our time or our natural spaces. We need more time, more natural spaces, and more spaces of community involvement and engagement. We need more things that make us feel like human beings connected to their community, nature, and themselves.

Capitalism started as a noble idea, allowing people to buy products to alleviate their problems. Products solved problems by reducing labor inputs, and reducing the time it took to get from place to place. These problems were solved once by certain products. Once these products were embraced, it seems they have severely altered our environment, and we are having a hard time exploring alternatives as a society.

Capitalism happened once, and since it happened, those who solved the problems first and best are still those in power. Large corporations like GM might have an inferior product, but they have so much money that they can push their products on society, and effectively squish the little guy by sheer volume. The more cars GM produces, the cheaper they can make them, and the less incentivized people are to buy a car form a smaller manufacturer that produces a better product that is more expensive.

So those in power stay in power, regardless of merit.

Along with this, our environments are physically altered, along with our way of living. We need to buy the products that corpoartions have produced because we lack the knowlege of how to do things differently; how to live differently.

Not all corporations or products are bad. But, those that destroy our environment, or take away our quality of life should be taken out of power. To do this we need to re-imagine the way that we interact with the world. We need to exise those things that do not serve us, and replace them with things that contribute to a healthy culture. The problem is that our culture has become so influenced by corporate america that we have forgotten how to live, enjoy, and be in the world.

These changes creep in over time when we dont examine the full consequences of the things we accept in our lives

We need to first look towards what a healthy culture looks like, and design our products and our society around making that culture. This is the opposite of changing our culture to fit in a product that solves one singular problem. When we design product to design singular problems, we are stuck with the unforeseen problems that those supposed solutions create. Before we begin making a product to solve a problem, we need to seriously think about what kind of world we want to create. We need to have a vision, and we need to be careful that this vision isn't contrary to what makes the world an enjoyable place for humans to be in.

A basis upon which we can design our products and our way of life is Sustainable Living and Permaculture. Sustainable Development encompasses the four aspects of economy, ecology, politics, and culture. Or the three E's economics, ecology, and equality. These three aspects need to be considered when we deiding what to put on the market. The quest for profit encourages producers to put things on the market that might not be the most satisfactory in these areas.... This same level of responsibility goes for consumers who have the right to know what they are buying, and the effects of what they are buying. The internet may prove to extremely useful informing consumers of what they are buying.



Appropriate Technology is the use of technology that is appropriate for the world, and for people. Appropriate Technology is defined as being, "decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled... and people-centered.^{[2]
Whether or not these are ideals that you agree with, they are a place to start critical analysis for those who are at a loss about where to start. The important part is that we begin to think about these things when inventing and buying products.}

Those who physically survive but spiritually die are those that take corporate positions.  Those who refuse are rejected by society and fall into the cracks of the world and flounder economically, but are not in chains spiritually.

I want to find a way that we can provide for ourselves though appropriate technology and self reliance, and not have to choose between feeding ourselves, having time to live life well, and living in  beautiul world. I want to integrate the economic, culutral, and enviornmental aspects of my everyday life; so they all inform and are interconnected with one another in a healthy way. I think we have the technology to do this, its a matter of working to make it happen.