The World According to Lockheed Martin?
The Wall Street Journal today reported a strange story about new high school course materials underwritten by large corporations. Curricula–which can be costly to produce and implement–are more and more frequently taking monies from companies like Lockheed, Intel, and accounting firm Deloitte. In exchange, the corporate world exacts a certain level of control over the types of material being taught. In a recent four-color glossy hand out in Roselle, NJ, about career choices, five employees from Deloitte were profiled, under a quote: “Consider a career you may never have imagined…[w]orking as a professional auditor,” says the Journal. Across the board there is a push for American teenagers to take an interest in engineering, computer programming, and other professional fields, particularly in the defense industry (hence, Lockheed), whose contracts largely prohibit international outsourcing of sensitive material.
One reason the Journal gives for such a push by corporations is an aging workforce of professionals, with slender prospects for the future. Engaging students prior to college level is a good way vie for them. The article interestingly relates what corporations are doing now to what the fast food and snack food industries have been doing for years: subsidizing school lunches through installing vending machines, and rewarding honors students with free pizzas.
Project Lead the Way is one of the key curricula to enter the high school arena. With the aim of providing a “hands-on, project and problem-based…approach” Project Lead the Way promises to present an applicable reason for learning math and science. That the National Fluid Power Association, as well as Lockheed and car manufacturer Rolls Royce, contribute hefty monies and get special mentions (“by kind permission of Rolls Royce”) embedded in the advertising–ahem–lessons, is beside the point.
In a way, this is a logical extension to the embedded advertising we find in everywhere in the world: product placement in movies, television, and even pop music; in our language (it’s no longer a cappucino, latte, or mocha: it’s a “Starbucks”); even American churches, synagogues, and temples are sometimes underwritten by foundations or corporations, with an affixed logo. Though a logical extension, I still find this to be a very strange phenomenon. Interesting how the world becomes a shadow of what it was, and how we ultimately come to view things topsy-turvy.
