I took a few minutes to click through some of the 150 registrants for BloggerCon II next month and up popped this great post from Ejovi Nuwere:
blogs.edu
Some remember summertime free lunches as a social program created by the Black Panthers in the public schools. Since I was one of those kids eating the free lunches I remember it a little differently. It’s a great example of a program that makes use of public schools infrastructure to help the disadvantaged. Blogging has that potential too.Blogging can accomplish several things in the public school system, especially for the poor.
- It will give 3 millions passionate, poorly paid and highly educated public school teachers a chance to speak up about the issues they face everyday.
- It gives teachers, a thankless position, a chance to communicate with other teachers across America and debate issues among themselves (prayer in schools?) while the public participates.
- Gives disadvantaged students a voice. A chance to communicate with the public, other students and feel as though someone is actually listening.
- Allows students to express themselves through writing. Blogging at a young age will develop better writers through parent / teacher assistance and eventually more intelligent and thoughtful adults.
A program like this would need national governmental support. There are a few small blogging communities for public educators but without a national effort, and national participation the voices won’t be diverse enough to be a real discussion. Children need to be able to communicate with other children in America and understand that they are not alone the same applies to teachers and parents.
The easiest way to do this is to eliminate the traditional pen pal system and replace it with blogpals. Then give all public school teachers access to the national blogging system and have the unions encourage teacher participations to have their issues heard.
Who can help make this happen? Does it have potential? I’d like to hear more thoughts on this.
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