Hi Juha,

Yes - we too have been looking at Mozilla Open Badges with interest.

But I guess the thought that has just started to vaguely form in my mind
is the idea that ANY form of accreditation or "badges" might be
problematic for localism.

Money is a token which allows you to transport debt from one place to
another - a ten euro note is a way of telling someone, "Hey, the world
has agreed to owe me ten euros worth of value. You don't need to know
how I earned that value in the first place - all you need to know is
that I did - and this note proves it." (We realise, of course, that
there are exploits to this system - such as stealing - but nonetheless,
the exchange system, broadly, works.)

Recent conversations on the Brico list have challenged the social
impacts of global money - and alternatives have been proposed. One
dialogue has been around the social desirability of re-localising money
- shopping local to keep value within communities as much as possible.
This may be very positive for social cohesion, economic regeneration,
ecological impacts and local wellbeing.

The thought that occurred to me is this:

Just as money is a token which allows you to transport debt,
certification is a token which allows you to transport capability. You
can assert your capability to do some task quickly and conveniently to
complete strangers... through use of these tokens.

Could it be that ANY FORM OF global skill certification has similarly
toxic effects to local communities as does global money? Are the two
attempts, to make debt and capacity UNIVERSALLY PORTABLE, inherently
problematic?

I don't know that I really think this - but I suggest it's a legitimate
area for discussion and speculation.

Best regards,

James
=====

On 02/11/11 11:48, Juha Huuskonen wrote:
>
> Hello James,
>
> About education certificates -
>
> I recently visited Mobilityshifts event (mobilityshifts.org) in NYC,
> there many people were excited about Mozilla's Open Badges
> initiative, https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges.
>
> Especially in US there is a big problem in higher level education -
> students finish their studies with huge debts but still don't find
> a job... and meanwhile there are myriads of options for cheap,
> non-institutional learning, where people learn useful skills but don't
> get an official certificate. Mozilla Open Badges is one possible
> solution for this - instead of a generic diploma you can give a more
> detailed certificate that explains what the person learned, how, when
> and where, who was teaching, etc.
>
> * *
>
> Also about the Barefoot college - their work is truly amazing,
> I learned about them a couple of years ago from Annemie Maes
> (from OKNO) who has made several projects about their work.
> She has interviewed some of the women who were going
> through the training, videos are online at:
> http://opengreens.net/category/politicsofchange/barefootcollege
>
> Best,
>
> Juha.
>
> On Nov 1, 2011, at 13:28 , James Wallbank wrote:
>
>> Hi Vicky, thanks for posting this link.
>>
>> One thing in particular which Bunker Roy said got me thinking - that
>> men were difficult to train:
>>> One lesson we learned in India was men are untrainable. (Laughter)
>>> Men are restless, men are ambitious, men are compulsively mobile,
>>> and they all want a certificate. (Laughter) All across the globe,
>>> you have this tendency of men wanting a certificate. Why? Because
>>> they want to leave the village and go to a city, looking for a job.
>>
>> This got me thinking about certification and qualifications, with
>> relation to Access Space. Recently we've been investigating the
>> possibilities for developing our own, alternative qualifications, as
>> a way to assert and celebrate the value of people's achievements -
>> but also, of course, as a way to help us access funding.
>>
>> One of Access Space's core objectives is "the relief of unemployment"
>> - we interpret this to mean assisting with the social, cultural and
>> economic regeneration of Sheffield. (Whether unemployment is
>> "relieved" by being reduced, or by being made more positive and
>> meaningful, is another question.)
>>
>> We have always maintained that a purpose of coming to Access Space
>> may be to learn how to do something. Not to get a certificate showing
>> that you can do it, but to actually be able to do it.
>>
>> What is a certificate? It's value encapsulated in paper - a form of
>> money. It's a way that you can assert to strangers that you are
>> expert in a particular field, and have them believe you. A
>> certificate is a mechanism for you to export your expertise.
>>
>> By this understanding, therefore, is certificated training actually
>> antagonisitic towards local development? What local development
>> requires is that LOCAL people become more skilled, and exercise those
>> skills IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD. Not do what lots of people do, which is
>> grab the certificate, and get the hell out.
>>
>> In Sheffield, the only game in town is "urban regeneration". The city
>> has had structural economic problems every since the shutdown of the
>> UK coal industry and the technological changes in steel making. (Now
>> steel is made by robots, not people.) Is the best move for young
>> graduates simply "away"? (If you'd like a laugh, check out the Regen
>> School: http://www.regenschool.com/ )
>>
>> This got me thinking about mobility - what may be good for the
>> individual (lots of options, high mobility, opportunities) may be bad
>> for the collective, which needs skilled, motivated experts to STAY
>> PUT and BUILD - not make a quick getaway.
>>
>> So how many of us Bricos are working in communities where the work is
>> hard, and the opportunities are scarce? And how many are ambitious,
>> highly qualified and compulsively mobile, making their own way in the
>> world without making an impact on places and real-world communities?
>> Is the tension between localism and academia a key
>>
>> I guess that most of us are somewhere in-between - we try to apply
>> our expertise in localities, despite the facts that we have
>> opportunities to move on.
>>
>> Just a thought.
>>
>> Warm wishes to all!
>>
>> James
>> =====
>>
>> On 30/10/11 00:55, victoria sinclair wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> sorry everyone
>>> i would not post this if it didn't seem to be something that would
>>> yield some reactions
>>>
>>>
>>> love from sunny brasil, and link is
>>>
>>> http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy.html
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Brico mailing list
>>> Brico@???
>>> http://lists.dyne.org/mailman/listinfo/brico
>>>
>>
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