If Steve Jobs Designed Schools
What if Steve Jobs had re-invented the education system rather the computer and consumer electronics industry?
Steve Jobs was a contradictory character, combining control freak and Zen Buddhist, and technology with design. He had a revolutionary impact on computing, animation, the music industry, printing, and publishing. Last year he and Bill Gates together expressed surprise at how little impact technology had had on schools. Jobs’s wife is an educational reformer, he was a college dropout; but what would it have been like if Steve Jobs had focussed on education? What would the Jobs School be like?
Hmm-A Zen Buddhist who is a control freak as well as a design and technology Tsar who designed high priced unsustainable products that
- look and work great until they become obsolete in 2-3 years.
(technology needs to be built to last, recycled and not discarded as quickly a Apple products)
-are inaccessible to the the larger majority of people who are poor, lower middle and even middle class
-also lack environmental or human rights consciousnessness
(see recent reports on labor conditions in their factories in china. Few are aware of the dangers of rare earth metals used in IPad and Iphones. Until recently 95 % of rare earth metals were controlled mostly from China which decided to slash exports reportedly due to environmental concern. While South Korean companies look to Burma for rare earth metals, US also has been exploring rare earth reserves in Afghanisthan although this has not been publicized. The discovery that Rare earth metals exist on floors of pacific ocean by japan near HawaiI has excited technology corporations, but I am wondering how environmentalists and the coastal people of Hawaii feel about this. Also, wasn’t the war in Afghanisthan extended after discovery of trillions of dollars of minerals including rare earth metals which btw are also used i hybrid cars, wind turbines, navigators, radars, smart bombs and missilies and not just Ipads and Iphone.
We see a growing number of articles like this on rare earth products which speak of sustainable development and controling urbanization, but choose to ignore the dangers to the environment, health and livelihoods of people who are employed by and live and farm near rare earth materials mines.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/low-carbon-rare-earth-metals-built-environment
The article below discusses some of the dangers of rare earth mining
http://www.fluoridealert.org/Pollution/Mining-Industry/China-s-Rare-Earth-Mining-Catastrophe.aspx
The farms nearby and water get polluted from untreated water.
Quote
“Every ton of rare earth produced (in China) generates approximately 8.5 kilograms of fluorine and 13 kg of dust; and using concentrated sulfuric acid high temperature calcination techniques to produce approximately one ton of calcined rare earth ore generates 9,600 to 12,000 cubic meters of waste gas containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, and sulfuric acid, approximately 75 cubic meters of acidic wastewater plus about one ton of radioactive waste residue (containing water).”
Unquote
The following article provides further details on the environmental and human costs
Dirty, dangerous and destructive – the elements of a technology boom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/26/rare-earth-metals-technology-boom
So however revolutionary he may have been in design of technologies and marketing them, regarding Steve Jobs reinventing the education system, I would not want to see my grandchild sent to a Jobs school.
Having stated the above, I must admit that I am a macbook pro user and my family members use IPAD and IPhones. Wish Apple would make more sustainable products and would also recycle them.
Uma V Chandru
25/02/2012 at 00:32
Giorgio-How do I edit the comment I made as there are some typos?
Uma V Chandru
25/02/2012 at 00:36
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