Christopunks

Edupunk is an anti-institutional approach in which ordinary people take education into their own hands using new tools such as wikis, free online videos, blogs, open-source textbooks and experiential learning. So what’s Christopunk?

Rebellion. Individualism. Anti-authoritarianism. Progressive thought.

No, not last night’s committee meeting. We’re talking about punk-rock culture.

Punk was born in the mid-’70s, taking the same rebellious spirit of ’60s protest music but making the music faster and more aggressive, giving it a Mohawk instead of a hemp headband. Bigger-name punk bands have become relatively well known — The Ramones, The Clash and, more recently, Green Day.

Punk bands are fiercely independent and pride themselves on a do-it-yourself (DIY) ideal. Many bands record and distribute their own records. They self-promote their shows with homemade concert posters and fliers.

Punk music is basically the opposite of anything Wal-Mart: anti-corporate, anti-commercial, anti-little-yellow-smiley-logo.

Now higher education is trading its mortarboards and graduate robes for black T-shirts, spiked belts and pink hair. It’s called edupunk, a term that was blog-coined by Jim Groom, a technologist from the University of Mary ...