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Maccas do Maths Education
One thing that has caught my interest in recent weeks that simply cant go without mention is the development in Australia of the McDonald’s sponsored ‘Maths Online’ web tutorial program. Designed as ‘... a high quality, independent online maths tutoring program based on Australian state curricula for Years 7 – 12’, it caught my eye as being something more than the many (some corporately sponsored) web based education programs available. My normal sensibilities immediately suggest something sinister is at play when something that should be corporately untouchable like education, is entangled in a sponsorship deal with the likes of McDonalds (Simpsons aficionados will recall the episode where Springfield Elementary was sponsored by Pepsi, with Troy McClure who ‘you may know from such educational films as...’ taking over ultra-crowded classrooms via a video screen as teacher/marketing compère and running dubious lessons with quiz questions such as ‘how many pepsis does it take to quench a thirst?’).
What is at stake with programs such as this? The McDonald’s television ads for Maths Online are quick to point out that their involvement has been to sponsor and to make the program possible, and that qualified teachers of maths are behind its development (and therefore, presumably, the pedagogy is sound and its intentions genuinely for performance improvement in mathematics legitimate). In a seeming corporate-education win-win, the ad also notes that McDonalds staff will be able to apply this online training to improve their point of sale arithmetic and (I guess) the calibration of french fry cookers. But is this it, and are lefties with naturally suspicious minds when it comes to these sorts of collaborations losing touch with a global-capitalist world that no-longer sees any real issues with these sorts of things (providing that legitimacy without undue corporate influence can be maintained)? I cant help but think of the Ronald McDonald House developments that support sick kids and their families in hospitals around Australia and the good that these have done for countless folks (my own partner who is a survivor of childhood leukemia included, and who has only positive things to say about the support these provided to her and her family). Is this the way it is in this corporate, late-capitalist world of ours?
Are we destined to rely on the charity (and tax-benefit induced incentives for corporations to do these things) that corporate sponsorship of things as precious as education and health brings and should we be hoping like hell that there will be similar corporate support when we need it in the future? I’m cynical (as in beyond skeptical) when it comes to these sorts of things and one of those dwindling few who firmly believe in centralised, democratically sanctioned support of public institutions like education (and health), but accept that my thinking has its opposition in those who see benefits in corporate support. So, what do we do folks? Is this perhaps incidental, but symbolically significant, move by an archetypal corporate like McDonalds a benign threat to public, centrally authorised education systems, or should we be a bit more concerned about the foothold that this website perhaps suggests (it isnt the only example of this of course, and the US has been particularly canny in having its corporate citizens involved in the construction of schools, universities and other education providers for some time, just as the private education industry in Australia has also in recent years).
On another level, is there something fundamentally wrong with a fast-food giant getting tied up with schools- those same places that have become sites of significant community action on childhood obesity and poor diet? Can we trust that McDonalds is just trying to give back, or is my cynicism that this is simply a mechanism to have this corporate citizen look all nice and fuzzy via feigned interest in the future of our kids justified (just like when they introduced the the ‘healthy choices’ menu because they were worried about our health. It had nothing to do with cigarette company type litigation coming from folks about to die from heart attacks caused by Big Macs, I’m sure). Please allay my cynicism and tell me I’m wrong...
Andrew
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Let's Do the Math on Philanthropy
Hey Andrew, greetings from the other side (of the world, that is, not your question).
Of course, you are right! And I'm sure you feel it, and, really, know it too. But I'll give a short answer as if your question were real:
Just about every great capitalist fortune has been amassed through atrocities and crime and then masked with philanthropy--in the U.S. from Carnegie and Rockefeller to Gates and Buffett (see the forthcoming volumes "The Gates Foundation and the Future of U.S. 'Public' Schools" ed. Philip Kovacs, Routledge, 2010; or "The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy: Education, Politics and Public Life," by Kenneth J. Saltman, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
The philanthropy can be entirely genuine, such as building and funding public libraries, or, as in your example, providing help with medical crises, but that does not cancel the criminal function and motivation behind the apparent charity.
In a nutshell, if I make/steal a few billion dollars by spreading toxic substances through the atmosphere and waterways, exploiting thousands of workers, and devastating whole ecosystems beyond repair, I may have the pocket change to support some charities that are squeaky clean, and really do help a few lucky beneficiaries--I may even do it with mock modestly and limit the press coverage! Do the math--I am a war criminal because I have made war on the oppressed and laid waste to mother earth. And I am the more despicable for having set up a tear-jerking cover-up to mask the lives I have taken.
The irony, as you note, of MacDonald's pushing dangerous calories on the poor and then underwriting the cure of some seriously sick children is sickening, in many senses. Shame is an unknown concept in the corporate world.
Of course, most of the "robber barons" never get to the philanthropic stage--they go bust and never even try to look good. And some are so clumsy and nerdy it's laughable, in a tragic sense, like the early Gates Foundation program of giving pc's (that run his terrible and costly monoply software) to public libraries and schools--is this any different from the honestly criminal cartels pushing drugs in poor communities? (Check out Slavoj Žižek, "First as Tragedy, then as Farce," Verso, 2009.)
Now, of course, Gates is spending more money on his Foundation's public relations than on his "philanthropy," without, however, any better results. Catch him on TV with his wife and Oprah Winfrey telling the world what to do with schools just because they are billionaires . . .
So, Andrew, don't become cynical, become honestly enraged, or maybe, scrupulously righteous, or whatever--but don't deny your instincts--question them and refine them and share them.
If you're still with me, here's a little bit of theory: "The word “philanthropy” is bi-polar, its roots mean to love people—i.e. other than oneself—and point to a spiritual state beyond culture, a goodness that is recognized everywhere. Yet, in practice philanthropy means giving money, and money is a representation of individual ownership of property, an act that violently excludes others." You can't have it both ways . . .
Peace, Steve
P.S. Are you a math teacher, by any chance? It's another thread, entirely, but, do you think that computers are an effective way to teach anything--especially taking into account their very high environmental cost--isn't it like using a tank to kill a fly? Maybe, just maybe, learning is a human activity that can be assisted by another human, one to one.