1 second of funding

two separate editorials and articles were sent to me this week, both offering a commentary of sorts on the current administration.

one was an article in the l.a. times which told of a company called Ignite! Learning, headed by neil bush, brother of the current president. at the heart of this company's educational product line are (purple colored) COWs - Curriculum on Wheels.

the other an op-ed in the n.y. times which discussed the cost of the war in iraq in terms of how much is being spent per second and where the money isn't going.

i will reserve extensive commentary for a later date, and for now will say only this:
i know a few handfuls of people (yours truly, included) who are doing good work, asking different questions and thus yielding insights beyond staid, easily categorizable nuggets who would benefit greatly from a few seconds of funding. 1 second ($6300) or a generous 1 minute ($378,000) would certainly go a long way in supporting inquiry into the in-between spaces and unspoken moments where learning really lives.

there may be a sucker born every minute, but for the many minutes' equivalent of national war expeditures that's being chewed up by COWs, there certainly ought to be more to report than just increased test scores. band-aids, purple or otherwise, will eventually fall off, and the laceration will still be visible. too often, the cuts are located in the sites that similarly bovine programs prey on: districts with large numbers of "economically disadvantaged students." COWs wouldn't get out one moo if they were grazing in the lush pastures of well manicured lawns, yet they are routinely set out to pasture and feed amidst the concrete playgrounds of our cities.

with 1 second of funding, i could set up a basic, semi-portable, video editing studio like the one i've cobbled together now - thanks to generous departmental "leftovers" and even more generous department colleagues - where youth can learn to compose in a new digital environment. with two seconds of funding, i could increase the portability of this studio, add some documentary equipment, and hire these new filmmakers as co-researchers. with a whole minute of funding... well, to start, i could better support my fabulous research assistants! :)

1 hour = $22,680,000. with one hour of funding, even i could come up with a clever product to market in a hideously annoying color... a nice, metallic green SNAKE (Storytelling and Networking Across Known Experiences) should do nicely.