A monopoly on Truth is dangerous if we are concerned with the well being of humanity. #education #edreform
0074: #Occupy and #Anonymous in the Classroom: To Censor is to Lie
@UnicornsImage #censorship #discourse #legion
I received a response to a Tweet I made regarding the importance of helping students understand the occupy movement. The response stated: “@educatedtodeath Teachers should TEACH our kids not BRAINWASH them! #ows DOES NOT belong in ANY curriculum!” I tweeted back that I agreed. The Occupy Movement does not belong in a standardized curriculum, but it should not be hidden from students.
This movement is the first time in many of our lives that we have seen or been a part of people, from We the People, standing up and fighting (peacefully) back against a systemic injustice. People are standing in solidarity exercising their constitutional rights, just as they have in other social movements throughout history. This should not, cannot be ignored by teachers. First, it’s an incredibly teachable moment. History is unfolding before us, and with us. We are included. But, more important than the educational teachable moment, we have people becoming powerful without all the typical means to power: money, guns, etc. The people of the Occupy Movement and Anonymous are acting civilly to represent the people. This is a truly democratic movement, standing against myriad injustices. Do we not teach to build critical thinkers? Is praxis not the goal of a critical education? Democracy runs on informed action of the people I believe. For that to occur, information must flow freely. It would be the greatest injustice to demonize or hide the action of the people from our children. They are the stakeholders in the future. They are we. And, we are legion.
http://thebookofcletis.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-honesty-by-educated-to-death.html
On Honesty by Educated to Death. Special Thanks to Cletis Stump for sharing his space for a few of my words.
0033: Notes from an Education Underground (teachers become radical please)
#teaching #edreform #revolution
We must move beyond things that are only quantifiable. Our people are being neglected as we focus more and more on quantifying their intelligence. Teachers and students are forced to work mindlessly. Critical thought and the human spirit are being neglected. Students are leaving schools semiliterate and unprepared. We are working toward an undefined and nonexistent goal. We are simply a consumer culture. Do we want a mindless future. Or an underclass?
The value of the arts. The production of culture. The transformation of an individual through the creation of culture thereby transforming a community. We are a spiritually impoverished nation. Beauty and truth unnoticed because of the focus on empiricism and survival. The wasted time in classrooms. Students are neglected because there is no time to explore. Can we look for life in our students? It’s when they’re fully engaged in something meaningful. It’s when they’re given power. We need radical teachers. We need bureaucracy to be lessened in schools. Teachers need to be quality, but so do the people and policies policing them. Learners need to be free. Teachers need to be radical. Good teachers step outside the boundaries of what is expected. They connect with their students as people not students. Teachers empower and lead because they are good people who care and are intelligent. Teachers are and should be radical. The predicament we are in requires a a radical change. Our country needs a revival of arts and beauty and truth. We are poor. The daily grind no longer serves to help our people. We need a breath of spirit. No longer can we toil away in factories. We must innovate and join together. We need a change. Rather, we must demand a change. Let our souls be acknowledged and then awakened. There is life to be had.
We must see to it that the status quo is upset, because it already has been. Our education and culture and grasp of beauty is famished, and so will be our people.
Our youth are innovators, but education is not meeting that inquisitiveness. Schools are wasteful places where children learn to wait in lines and hide their cell phones while ignorant teachers numb their minds as theirs have already been numbed by countless directives from blind administrators. This must change. The school must change. The best work I did as a teacher is when I engaged the learners in my care in dialogue. Whether they were 8 or 18. Our intelligences sharpened each other. We worked together. The curriculum stands as a guide, but in reality is a step by step manual. Is there a step by step manual to becoming more fully human? If you say yes than my words a null and so is the concept of freedom. Freedom is an unexplored concept in our culture and our schools. We are killing America.
