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Should Teachers Get $100 For Steering Kids To Google's 'Hour of Code' Lesson?
Tomorrow's "Hour of Code" kick-off event features Melinda Gates, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and "multiple state governors," reports theodp -- who has some concerns.
With Microsoft boasting that nearly 70 million of its Minecraft Hour of Code sessions have been launched, and tech companies pushing coding and their products into classrooms, it's probably no surprise that the 2017 Hour of Code -- organized by tech-bankrolled Code.org -- seems to have presented a too-hard-to-resist branding opportunity for Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.
And, in what might evoke memories of Dollars for Doctors, some teachers will even be rewarded for steering their kids to Google's Hour of Code lesson. "Thanks to our friends at Google," explains crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org, "4th-8th grade public school teachers who engage their students in a 'Create your own Google logo' Hour of Code activity can earn a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift code -- and have the opportunity to receive one of five other grand prizes (including $5,000 in DonorsChoose.org credits for your school!)."
And, in what might evoke memories of Dollars for Doctors, some teachers will even be rewarded for steering their kids to Google's Hour of Code lesson. "Thanks to our friends at Google," explains crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org, "4th-8th grade public school teachers who engage their students in a 'Create your own Google logo' Hour of Code activity can earn a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift code -- and have the opportunity to receive one of five other grand prizes (including $5,000 in DonorsChoose.org credits for your school!)."
Thing is, the US is following the "great education experiment" that the Ontario Liberals just pulled up here in Canada. The results? Well it was female-centric methods of teaching, so here's what happened. Boys doing much worse in every area. Less then half of boys pass the standardized math and reading tests in G.6 and again in G.9. Girls on the other hand 70% passed. Dropouts are increasing. They pushed all of the "ebooks, new text books, chromebooks, etc, etc, etc." Dumped learning by rote and so on and it's been a gigantic clusterfuck.
On the other hand, homeschooling is skyrocketing along with private schooling. I don't live in a rich town, the median income is around $42k/year(median ontario wage is $52k, though closer to $39k if you take Toronto out of the picture), but around half of my neighbors in this area have pulled kids out of school because they'd rather spend time making sure they get an education vs not being taught anything useful at all. Those home schooled kids are passing those standardized tests and coming out in the top 10% though.
Om, nomnomnom...