I remember people were telling me that “free daycare” won’t be about providing tech companies with a chance to zombify kids into obedient consumers. But hundreds of schools around the country have already adopted a system that dispenses with teachers and regular class work and sticks kids alone in front of screens:
Then, students started coming home with headaches and hand cramps. Some said they felt more anxious. One child began having a recurrence of seizures. Another asked to bring her dad’s hunting earmuffs to class to block out classmates because work was now done largely alone. “We’re allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies,” said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son’s fourth-grade class.
This program is, of course, created by FB and is justified, as usual, by the “underserved students really need this” claptrap. People who oppose this system are accused of being incapable of “embracing change.” Change and choice, as you remember are neoliberal mantras par excellence. So are “freedom” and “individual”:
Mr. Zuckerberg backed Summit in 2014 and assigned five Facebook engineers to develop the software. In 2015, he wrote that Summit’s program would help “meet the student’s individual needs and interests” and that technology “frees up time for teachers to do what they do best — mentor students.” Since 2016, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has committed $99.1 million in grants to Summit.
And see how often these words reappear in every defense of the system. It’s like people are brainwashed into a robotic state:
Around the country, teachers said they were split on Summit. Some said it freed them from making lesson plans and grading quizzes so they had more time for individual students. Others said it left them as bystanders. Some parents said they worried about their children’s data privacy.
And why does Zuckerberg want to do all this wonderful stuff to promote free choice for I individuals?
Because of this:
“Summit demands an extraordinary amount of personal information about each student and plans to track them through college and beyond,” said Leonie Haimson, co-chairwoman of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, a national organization.
It’s called surveillance capitalism.
People protested, of course, and some ended up scraping up the money to put kids in private schools. More and more schools are adopting this system, even though grades plummet and health problems soar as a result.
Now please tell me some more about how this is never going to happen to the free daycare idea.
This is not about what existed 15, 10 or even 5 years ago. Folks, wake up and “embrace change.” This is what’s happening now and into the future.
Do you have a political candidate who is promising to fix this? It would be so easy. Wouldn’t cost the taxpayers any money at all. Do you have anyone promising to address this in any way?
No, you don’t. Instead, you have candidates promising to deliver more kids into this hell.
Ever wondered why?
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