[Themaintainers] Education Week: Maintenance Vs. Innovation in K-12 Schools

[Lee Vinsel]

Hi, everyone.

We'll be sharing some good news in the next week or so, so please stay
tuned for new developments in The Maintainers world.

Yesterday, I had a nice chat with Ben Herold, a reporter at Education Week,
a magazine that covers issues in K-12 education. Ben is working on an
article on the role of maintenance in K-12 education and how that need is
sometimes undermined by the drive for new things and initiatives. Ben is
looking to talk with folks who have thought specifically about maintenance
in K-12 schools but also others who have analogies from other fields and
sectors. (We discussed higher ed, cities, and public works during our
conversation.) He's also happy to receive tips on articles, links,
resources, etc., that he should be checking out.

I paste some of his thoughts and what he's looking for below. Please feel
free to respond to my post here with thoughts (I'm very interested to learn
more about this myself) or reach out to Ben directly. I've copied him here,
but his email is BHerold at epe.org.

Best,

Lee



As I mentioned, I’ll be doing some coverage in November of the tension
between maintenance vs. innovation in U.S. K-12 public schools.  I’d love
to tap into the Maintainers network to get some insights on this.



To your question, I’ll be taking a pretty broad view of “maintenance,”
thinking of it more as a mindset and approach, rather than a narrow,
literal look just at facilities.



I’ll also be looking to put K-12 schools into a broader context.  There are
a lot of claims made, e.g., about the benefits of getting all K-12 students
access to the internet, about the inevitability of moving towards
personalized content and experiences to all students, about the wisdom of
the cloud, and about the necessity of tearing down traditional bureaucratic
structures and norms..  Surely, these promises aren’t that different from
general promises about the value of the internet, the importance of
Facebook and Amazon, and the need to privatize public services that have
also been made in other realms.



>From your network, I’m specifically interested in:



   - Work that is already being doing on maintenance vs. innovation in
   K-12. Links, referrals, papers, articles, etc. are all most welcome.
   - Relevant examples/analogies/ideas from other sectors.  Again, articles
   and links are welcome, and I’d also love referrals to smart people to talk
   with about these issues.
   - The big ideas and questions that animate the work of the Maintainers,
   and thoughts about how they can/should be applied to K-12.



Please feel free to share this message with your listserv, and let people
know they are more than welcome to contact me at the info below.

-- 
Assistant Professor
Department of Science, Technology, and Society
Virginia Tech
leevinsel.com
Twitter: @STS_News
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.stevens.edu/pipermail/themaintainers/attachments/20181024/882b5e41/attachment.html>