"Germany is Pregnant with the Social Revolution"

The reading that I did for this assignment was "A Call to the Workers of the World" by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Klara Zetkin and Franz Mehring. Personally, I think it is interesting to learn about the life of Rosa Lievknect in connection to this article. She was highly educated and headed various revolts against multiple governments since the 1870s. She was imprisoned multiple times and ultimately executed for her stances. In August of 1914, Rosa Luxemburg along with the other authors of this particular piece founded the Die Internationale group (or the Spartacus League), which was well-known for publishing articles criticizing the Bolsheviks and warning of dictatorship. They generally wrote to move the working class to revolt and take power. Therefore, by 1918 (when this was written), Rosa and her counterparts were well-known and accepted as leaders by a large group of the proletariat. They were trusted and admired by their followers.

Written in 1918, this marks both the end of World War One and the beginnings of the German Proletariat Revolution. "Europe has been ruined by this damnable slaughter. Twelve million bodies cover the gruesome scenes of this imperialistic crime." Specifically, this piece was written soon after Rosa Luxemburg was released from jail and while she was working to create a revolutionary working class. This piece of revolutionary rhetoric is interesting because it does not simply call for action in Germany. The authors wrote it to the worldwide proletariat class. "This great task cannot be accomplished by the German proletariat alone; it can only fight and triumph by appealing to the solidarity of the proletarians of the whole world."

The article itself is teeming with blame and a call to action. They blame the current government for all their problems--all the death and destruction that has been brought upon the working class. Furthermore, they blame capitalism: "The beast of capital that conjured up the hell of the world war is incapable of banishing it, of restoring real order, of insuring bread and work, peace and civilization, justice and liberty, to tortured humanity." Imbedded within the blame, the authors call the proletariat to action. They say, "Arise for the struggle! Arise for action! The time for empty manifestos, platonic resolutions, and high-sounding words is gone! The hour of action has struck for the International!" The whole article is filled with emotion and their desire is to not just change people's minds, but cause them to act.

Changing the way we look at education

I have tried and am currently working on getting in touch Deanna Mayers. She is the curriculum coordinator for blendedschools.net which is a website that develops curriculum for grades K-12. What made me want to get in touch with her was a presentation that she posted on twitter about how to become a maker educator. This is the idea of allowing kids the opportunity to build something with their own hands. Throughout the process they will be able to express creativity while at the same time learning about math, science and engineering. Now this is an idea worth pondering.

http://www.slideshare.net/jgerst1111/educator-as-a-maker-educator

Since I have yet to hear from her I have been perusing the internet for ideas behind educational reform. I was immediately drawn back to Sir Kenneth Robinson. He is a member of an organization called RSA or Royal Society for the Arts. Their mission is this, “21^st century Enlightenment: enriching society through ideas and action.” Sir Robinson has taken a particular look at the educational system and pondered how we can improve it and what actions need to be taken. He mentions that our current system of education was “designed and conceived for a different age… during the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment and in the economic circumstances of the industrial revolution.” That was a few hundred years ago. It served its purpose when it was initially created but now it is simply outdated. With the advancement of technology we have all the information we could imagine at our fingertips.

Most companies now are looking for people who will be creative and innovative. Another important skill is adaptability since technology and the world around us seems to be changing so rapidly. Most schools are not focusing on developing these skills within their students because they are still hung up on the idea of what education used to be a few hundred years ago. This thinking will have detrimental effects on our economy in the future if we don’t act now. We need to start making changes from the bottom, up. We need to truly take a look at our schools and see them NOT as some sort of factory spitting out the next generation of workers but as a living and breathing organism, students are the future. Kids have a natural desire to learn but we snuff that out as soon as we begin to "educate" them. It may seem like a radical idea, but what if we let them govern their own education? Allowed them the opportunity to learn about what intrigues them? What if we let them use the technology that is so readily available for them? I believe that this would foster creativity, it would nourish their natural desire to learn and help them to understand the world around them. This goes back to being a maker educator. Giving students the opportunity to become producers instead of consumers, to learn how to collaborate with their peers, to be creative and innovative. These young thinkers have great potential, they are our future. Let's not fail them.

The Arguments of Overhead

The video I linked to my post last week of Dan Pollota is one that I have seen many times. I have seen it in multiple classes and before that, I saw it on my own while digging through TED talks. Most of the comments I have heard from those I associate with (particularly in the nonprofit management minor) feel quite positive about his remarks and about how people ought to care about other factors besides overhead to determine whether or not a nonprofit is fulfilling its mission.

As I have plunged into other conversations through twitter feeds and online comments, I have found that there is a lot of negativity about this idea (granted, there is probably some self-selection bias because only people who are extremely passionate or extremely peeved will generally take the time to comment on an article). There were quite a few people who said that Dan Pollota was out of his mind and the majority of their arguments were that if they gave a dollar to charity, they wanted to know that a whole dollar made it to fulfilling the mission. While that is fine in theory, they are not taking into account the fact that it takes a lot of work to get something useful to the beneficiary. Also, a lot of that hard work is being done by people who need to be paid.

In some ways, a nonprofit is the opposite of a business like Walmart. There are products in Walmart that the company only makes 7-10 cents per dollar that someone pays for the product because of the cost to produce that item. Now, a nonprofit is doing the same process, but instead of being the consumer, the general public is now Walmart. Yes, you want to provide a toothbrush to someone in need, but first you have to pay for the production of the toothbrush. You have to pay for the raw materials, the building where it is produced, and the people's hourly wages who put in all the hard effort. Therefore, it makes sense that it is virtually impossible to get 100% of the donated money to the end user. There is a process and that whole process takes time and it takes money.

Additionally, as many other's pointed out in the conversations through the internet, when people only look at overhead percentages, they are not looking at the overall impact that the organization is making. They get so caught up in the salary of the CEO (because it is actually public information on a 990) that they don't see all the good that the organization is doing. This information is public because the government wants nonprofits to be held accountable for their spending. But, what for-profit CEO is going to tell you his/her salary? It is private information and in our culture it would be extremely improper to ask. Therefore, I don't think people should get so caught up in the overhead. People should look at the end product. Is the nonprofit really serving the constituency they say they are and are they doing a good job?