EDUCATION

Education is fundamental to any change in the operation of our spaceship earth. We cannot make the necessary upgrades to our production, life support, communication, or command systems without a well educated crew. This education must include universal basics, and ubiquitous lifelong continuing education.

One of the primary impediments to an ideal system of education is profit seeking competition. This prevents many learners from being able to access the resources they need. It also causes an enormous waste from redundant production of educational resources. Numerous web services and apps compete for subscriptions from schools and home educators by offering essentially the same product. This results in wasted work on the part of the people making the educational resources. Imagine instead of 10 companies making nearly identical math practice apps, 10 times the effort being put into one freely available comprehensive math learning app.

This waste is univeral throughout education at all levels and all in aspects. The particulars are too numerous to list, but examples include subscription based education video services, textbook publishing, recording and sharing restrictions on college classes and professional development, and journal subscriptions

On an individual level, learners and educators can make use of the already free resource available online. Going a step further, educators can collaborate with their peers and share their own resources freely to create a larger online library of resources. Wherever possible, boycott the companies that produce nothing but artificially scarce educational content.

On a systemic level, we need to build systems of universal free lifelong education. Initially this means preserving and improving public education, organizing skill shares and educational collectives. In time, it will mean building alternative institutions that can overtake existing educational systems.