Rules for Handling Distance Education During a Crisis

Rules for Handling Distance Education During a Crisis

• Rule #1 – only start work on distance education when a crisis hits.
  
• Rule #2 – complain about how terrible distance education is when you’re forced to immediately start using it in a crisis.
  
• Rule #3 – once the crisis passes, immediately stop working on distance education.
  
• Rule #4 – use the terrible experience you had with distance education to justify not working on it when the crisis passes.
  
• Rule #5 – when the next crisis hits, repeat rules 1-4.

---

The Political Economy of Writing in Ancient Samaria

If the Sumerian Association of Story Tellers (circa 3100 BC) had realized that the advent of writing might someday fundamentally change society (and their role in it) they probably would have promoted these ideas:

• Keep writing systems as poor as we possibly can.
• Letting writing systems gain strength is letting an invasive species take hold.
• No going back!
• The end of passing down the knowledge stock through the oral tradition as we know it.
• What might come next?
• Perhaps someday there will be mechanical devices that make copies of the written word. Horror of horrors!!