Quote:
Originally Posted by XaulZan11
For example, many (most?) people think corportations should be kept out of public school for various reasons.
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When confronted by people who think that something utterly impossible and (very!) debatable in terms of value such as keeping "corporations" out of public school, we should do when confronted with anything else: educate!
"Corporations" aren't soulless, money-sucking greed machines. Corporations are PTC, Deka, Bausch + Lomb, IFI, AndyMark... They're groups of people united in a common purpose to bring a product or service that betters both their own lives and those who use their product/service.
And many of these corporations seek to help people by participating in programs like FIRST, not because it gives them some sort of benefit, but because it's the right thing to do.
I'm as cynical as the best of them, but even I can see the value in more active corporate-school relationships--and this is true even when the corporate relationship is fundamentally self-serving. (Apple, for example, doesn't discount Apple products in schools solely out of the goodness of their hearts... They want people to prefer Apple products by the time they're able to buy their own and/or influence what their business/school/etc. buys... But their desire for Apple-preferring adults benefits schools and school children in very real and tangible ways.) That said, it's worth noting that many corporations support FIRST even though the long-term projections on their bottom line don't justify it -- they do so because helping awesome kids become ever more awesome is just awesome, and they want to help.