The experiences over the past two and one half decades have been from teaching primarily in open access colleges having minority populations and minority administrations.  We also have teaching experience at elite colleges.  It is easy to show that the phenomenon we observe is only slightly pronounced when compared with Ivy League colleges.  It is even easier to see the consequences of a wide variety of cultural phenomenon; including the over use of information technology, the impact from advertising, and negative cultural histories related to racism, egotism, nationalism, or self centeredness.  We have talked, in The Education Bridge, about these issues in the context of the concept of ownership.

We have made the principled argument that the Bridge technology should be developed over an eighteen-month period using a budget of sixty million dollars from federal funds.  We propose a plan of action that will create the future infrastructure for localized e-governance.   We have proposed that the People create a public sector infrastructure for the use of a new public sector so that we may have control over our education and our private lives.  This control is hotly contested from that 1% of people who have most of the effective ownership over natural resources.  The private sector is seen as a servant of this 1% of humans. 

We see a massive encroachment on the learning process.  Damage to the learning process is seen in large and expensive textbooks, and in requirements that computer technology be used in even the most non-technology related subjects.  For example, we saw the replacement of the chalkboard with the white board; a replacement that is in every way negative.  The white boards are far more difficult to write clearly on.  A uniform layer of poor use of resources is documented. 

We see classrooms where small white boards are supposed to be used to teach mathematics, something that is virtually not possible to do.  A one college, we saw chalk boards that were created using non oil based paints and then washed so that no mark could to placed on them.  Faculty then pretended that marks could be seen, and the students pretended to learn.  We see college administrations not providing classroom resources while also requiring the use of methods that are widely understood to be ineffective.  We see the role of faculty reduced to that of a simple machine. 

The proposed development of demand theory has a pedagogical, curriculum and a technology component; all of which are to be integrated.  As we do this, the technology will become transparent.

The computer can not be thought to teach mathematics, at least not to this generation of students. Such a strategy will continue to fail.  In many cases, computer aided insruction fails in 75% to 85% of the cases, when used as part of pre-college level college courses.  Other factors are involved, this is true.  However, the desired result is 100% success rates.  We are observing 80% failures rates across the United States. 

When used computer technology should not be the distraction we now find in computer tutoring systems.  The Bridge is developed without proprietary ownership by corporations.  The technology design is in fact illustrative of natural principles seen in how nature is organized. 

A central point is this:

The pedagogy and the technology is mutually grounded in natural science, as we discuss in detail in The Education Bridge. 

Demand Theory

Demand theory requires a stratified view of natural processes, and with this view the placement of the individual human in an action perception cycle; e.g., a learning cycle.  This cycle must have no advertising and no third party ownership, else the observed phenomenon related to control over population behavior will not be moderated. 

A general principle is established; e.g., that learning must be real and deep and not burdered as we now see in most under-served popualtions of young adults.  The responsibility for learning must shift to the individual.  However, the system cannot be standing in the way. 

The notions underlying The Education Bridge are based on our understanding that the system in place to transfer knowledge of arithmetic and algebra is broken in every respect.  Quite literally, if we do it now; then what ever "it" is is part of a deeply broken system. 

Once the principles of pedagogy are well known and existing virtual world technology refactored so as to have a distributed technology called a computing backplate, we will see the emergence of community intelligence as political power.  These emerging political forces will finally set aside the now dominate and growing capital driven instruments shaped by the 1% who believe that they should be in control of everything. 

Section 2.1: The evolution of the demand pedagogy (to be written)