27 May
2015
27 May
'15
12:57 p.m.
For those of you who aren't receiving sudo-info emails, Five Keys Charter
School just sent an email inquiring if we have any basic computer classes.
I have added my response to that email at the end of this email.
Honestly, I think this is a huge opportunity for sudo room, even though
Five Keys was founded by the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. Their goal
is restorative justice through education, and I think we're in a unique
position to help provide that to a community who seriously needs it and
doesn't have a lot of opportunities to receive it. (Thanks capitalism!)
I'd really like to discuss this at tonight's meeting. Even if we don't work
with Five Keys, I think we really should do more work at providing basic
tech/computer skills to the community. A lot of folks in Oakland have never
gotten the opportunity to get the basic skills they'd need to join in on so
many of the fantastic conversations in sudo, never mind participate in some
of the "higher level" projects.
If we really want to create a space where anyone in Oakland can hack, I
think we need to provide more people in Oakland with the basic skills they
need to spring up to the point they can self-educate.
And no, I'm not saying "somebody else" should be the one to do this. If I
can get my ducks in a line, I would love to try and hold some basics
classes. I just can't go at it alone. This is a burden a person can't hold
up on their own.
Here's the email I sent to the person who contacted us on behalf of Five
Keys:
Hi Mario!
We're not exactly a "program" -- we're a hackerspace, where anyone can
come
and hack any time a member is present. Occasionally, we do have what many
could consider "classes" like cyber wizard institute
<http://cyber.wizard.institute/>, but for the most part the learning is
informal. We have groups that meet about certain subjects and if people are
willing, there may be learning at those groups. Hardware Hack Night on
Tuesdays at 7pm is often accessible to people who have little to no
experience in circuitry, but that's not really a training course, nor is it
computers. Sometimes we have Linux install parties or classes to teach the
basics of cybersecurity, but they're not usually ongoing classes.
However, as a group that strongly believes in Restorative Justice, I would
love to know what *your *needs are at Five Keys Charter School. I
personally have had some interest in seeing if sudo room could get together
some basic tech literacy classes as a bit of community outreach. The only
problem is, sometimes as hackers, we're a bit so entrenched in tech, we can
become disassociated with what basic computer literacy is. aka, it's hard
for me to tell if you're trying to find keyboarding classes, classes on how
to set up and use an email account and search for jobs, and classes on how
to use word processors, or if you're more interested in intro to coding,
basic electrical engineering, and learning how to use a 3D printer or a
laser cutter.
These are *all* things that sudo room could teach, as long as we found
someone, or someones willing to put together a curriculum and volunteer
their time. There's only one slight problem:
We don't have a lot of public computers. Now, this is also a problem that
we could spend some time fixing... but we'd probably not be able to
accommodate too many students within our small space if they were all on
desktops we've set up. One-on-one sessions might be more feasible for us.
Or, if some of your students have laptops they can bring, either their own,
or lent out from your school, that's the optimal solution for our setup.
If you're not already aware, sudo room is housed in a building called The
Omni Commons... It's a commons space that's a horizontally-run collective
of collectives. Our values as a space include restorative justice and
countering the dominant culture that disenfranchises so many folks in our
community. There are other groups that might be interested in working with
you:
Bay Area Public School teaches a variety of free classes on many topics,
but usually not tech-based. You can see their class list here
<https://bayareapublicschool.org/> and contact them by joining their email
list <https://groups.google.com/d/forum/bayareapublicschool>.
Counter Culture Labs is a biohacker space and they have a lot of wonderful
lectures on biology and related topics. Some of them are more specialized
and some of them just require an eagerness to learn. You can check out
their upcoming events and lectures on their Meetup page
<http://www.meetup.com/Counter-Culture-Labs/> and contact them by joining their
email list <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/counterculturelabs>.
The Omni also hosts a lot of other awesome things, like pay-what-you-can
yoga and martial arts classes. Sometimes things fall through a bit because
we're entirely volunteer run and (for the most part) human, but we've got a
lot of really cool stuff going on. You can check out our full calendar
<https://omnicommons.org/calendar/> here. Pretty much everything is either
free or pay-what-you-can. We try to make every event never turn anyone away
for lack of funds.
I personally (although I can't speak for everyone) would love to see The
Omni and sudo have more opportunities to help reach out to those in our
community who could most benefit from what we can offer... and please, let
us know what kind of educational services are most needed, so we can see if
it's something we can help with.
- Ryan
(note: because sudo room and the Omni is horizontally led and no one's "in
charge," this email is not "official" and others may disagree with me.
Please don't take anything in it as a promise! I have not had a chance to
run all of this content by other collectives at a delegates meeting or by
other sudo room members at a sudo room meeting... but I am going to bring
this up at our meeting tonight! I think there are a lot of people who'd be
on board with seeing what we can help provide Five Keys, even though it is
founded by a sheriff's department.)
Also, Five Keys' website: http://fivekeyscharter.org/