“This is real school, this is actual learning.”
Every school has the potential for doing this. Why old school school?
Why Old School School?
2
“I Am Not A Good Boy”
In this marvelous video, Paulo Freire speaks to Seymour Papert about the meaning of education, and Freire’s understanding of education–what education means for him. “Look at how many envelopes of teaching you have deposited into me today…” the girl described by Papert might have said, notes Freire. “I am the opposite of that, and I insist, I am the opposite of that. I am not a good boy. I try to be a good person, god knows, but I am not a good boy.”
The beautiful legacy of Freire, in another radical educator’s words:
“Teaching in a democracy, teaching among free people who respect and honor the autonomy of all people (including children) is about confronting knowledge in all its forms, including where the power lies in our society, why the privileged are living in privilege, why people increasingly suffer the weight of poverty, and why a free people continue to allow their leaders to say one thing while doing another.”
Paul Thomas 2011
The Shaman’s Body
photo by ronniedankelman flickr
“I believe that the individual of the future, like the individual today, faces the lonely task of transforming himself with or without the agreement and understanding of those around him.
He needs only to know transforming himself means coming up against internalized cultural edges (beliefs that are not his in origin). If this is to occur, he will have to disturb the status quo of the world around him as well.”
Bowl of Wishes for American Education
Does wishing have power? Is there danger in wishing? Are some wishes more worthy than others? And what about the ancient link between suffering and desire?
Recently we had an education party at my house. The room was filled with high school students, activists, graduate students, policy makers, academics, deans of education, teachers, writers, and administrators. At the end of the party we asked folks to make a wish for American education.
Here are some of their wishes, from the bowl of wishes they created…
“I wish that schools will embrace the arts, creativity, and alternative models.”
“My wish is that we leave the punitive/threatening language of a Nation at Risk, NCLB behind and become a Nation Inspired by activist organizations in education.”
“I wish government will organize large-scale conferences to pull together the multiple NPOs to share objectives.”
“Compassion.”
“That students experience joy in school.”
“My wish is for better school systems all over. There needs to be a change not just in MCAS but in all aspects.”
“I wish for a day where students can feel that their voices are heard and they have an influence. Also that all students have a mentor to support them and encourage them.”
“My wish is that every child in our country experiences the opportunity to think, problem- solve and innovate.”
“I wish that we mend the broken relationships in our communities, in our schools, and in our homes. That we work to build relationships of care and respect between young people, their parents, and educators.”
“I wish all students would feel valued and connected in school.”
What does it unleash to wish? What does wishing clarify?
What’s your wish?
Men Can Stop Rape
My son protesting in Northampton, Massachusetts against the blaming of victims of sexual assault “because they asked for it.” Slutwalks are a do-it-yourself way of saying, we can do what we want, wear what we want, and we aren’t asking for it.
My son inspires me.
Stomp and Holler March, October 23. Smith College
Real Education Is Human
#BLOG4IDEC, HUMAN, IDEC2012, POWERFUL, RELEVANT, TRANSFORMATIVE
This post supports Blog for IDEC 2012 week and is cross-posted at Cooperative Catalyst.
Photo by taylorgreene flickr
At an extraordinary and unusual school I visited recently, I observed a seven-year-old girl come before the school’s judicial council. The day before she had violated a cardinal rule of the school. She had failed to look after her own safety. She and four of her friends had ventured to a pond dock on the school grounds, where they saw a water snake. Intrigued, they wanted to catch it. Using a Tupperware container, string, and some duct tape, they made a trap and dipped it into the water. The little girl, her heavy backpack still on her back, leaned too far out over the dock and fell into the water. Some of the older, high school boys saw her fall in, rushed to the pond, and pulled her out. The water was only waist-deep and slow moving, but in the life of the school, where children are allowed full freedom to roam the school grounds as long as they look out for their safety, no kid had ever fallen into the pond before. The adults at the school, understandably, were beside themselves.
As I watched the judicial process unfold–the judicial counsel is run entirely by students with a carefully developed set of understandings and procedures evolved over many years–I wondered, how could holding a seven-year-old responsible for her own behavior in this way be “human,” the topic of this post? Developmentally, aren’t seven-year-olds just a bit too young to be expected to think about these kinds of things for themselves, especially in moments of intense curiosity? What were the implications of sanctioning this little girl more severely than her four friends, perhaps simply because her backpack made her unbalanced in ways she was unaccustomed to?
Human education is about exactly these sorts of questions. Real and important questions about individual liberty, collective responsibility and accountability–and how ironically, safety can sometimes be achieved only in a confrontation with danger.
The love and care with which the students on the judicial body, ages 8 to 17, gently questioned the little girl, was touching, beautiful and very serious. When she entered the room (each little girl was questioned separately), she was asked to explain what happened. She said, “I’m afraid,” and an adult she had chosen to accompany her to the meeting held her in her arms. A fourteen-year-old girl gently queried, “How far were you away from the edge? Can you show me on this table?” “Did you hear the older boys calling to you to be careful?” The little girl answered in calm, clear tones. “This far. No.” The council asked her: you know that you are going to be charged? Yes, she said. Do you know why? Yes, she said. A member of this community for a couple of years already, this child understood what was afoot, and perhaps also, why it was a very big deal. As I watched this little girl, in a pink t-shirt with a peace sign on her tiny flat chest, I saw her grow under the gaze of this serious attention. Charged and unforgettable, it was a moment of human beings in real consideration of the right way to hold each other and love each other, and offer each other freedom and boundaries at the same time. And how little people can grow into themselves in such a circumstance.
Later in the day, when the whole school deliberated the recommended punishment–lack of access to the pond and a suspension–the adults in the community passionately disagreed with each other. They debated the philosophical principles the incident represented. If a fence goes around the pond, then what? When we tell parents that we expect their kids to be responsible in this way, and we live it, then it creates a “charge,” real and important, for us, the parent, the child. Powerful human education continued on for everyone, in all its unvarnished complexity and lack of clear answers. Small, squirmy nine-year-old boys sat through the entire two-hour meeting voluntarily; older girls knit while the talk went on. The whole-school meeting was ably run by a senior girl.
Without writing at length about the circumstances of this fascinating incident–and its complex and multi-hued punishment–what I saw at this extraordinary school was almost the direct opposite of what I observe in many American schools, where children are schooled down to size almost from the moment they enter. They are–even now with our slightly-better-informed understandings of human capacity–still tracked into ability groups, labeled and sorted around learning abilities and disabilities, and denied creation of a truly accountable community, because adults are almost entirely in charge. (It is inconceivable for them not to be.) In the conventional educational system, the places where children are allowed to show initiative and to be in charge, are all around individual attainment (get good grades, do well on the state tests), competition, and engagement in adult-sanctioned activities. Legally and morally, students are inmates in a system that denies them access to the complexity of the question of what to do if a seven-year-old falls into the pond. When one of our members has violated a rule, what does this mean for all of us, when we are all truly bound together?
A tiny girl becomes big, through contemplation of the seriousness of her own actions. A community becomes more complex and interknit through passionate disagreement, not bland adherence to a set of rules. Children are allowed genuine and near-complete adult authority, and they handle it ably and maturely. Human education means that we will break some of the old rules because they no longer serve us.
International Democratic Education Conference, March 24-31, 2012, Caguas, Puerto Rico
How big are you willing to let kids be? How big are you willing to let yourself be? How many rules are you willing to break in service of a new kind of education?
This Is What Democracy Looks Like
Sunday, October 10 on a beautiful, almost hot day in Boston, over 5000 students, parents,
My son Sam and me with DIY signs
children, educators, working people took to the streets of downtown Boston to join in support for Occupy Boston, a peaceful demonstration that says THE PEOPLE ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL. Income inequality is killing us, corporations are not people, the middle class is dying. We, the 99% have been much too quiet. We must take action.
I hit the streets with family, friends, students. Using the human mike, this was the most well-organized, peaceful protest I’ve been a part of recently. Students from UMass, Tufts, Bard, Harvard and Northeastern explained procedures as we got started. ”We have a constitutional right to be here.”
“We have a constitutional right to be here.”
“If you need medical attention this is what you do.” ”There are peacekeepers wearing green t-shirts in the crowd.” ”We expect this to be a peaceful demonstration.” ”If someone gets hurt, lock wrists and surround them.” “The police are our friends.”
Beginning slowly and picking up energy as we moved, amidst drums, a corporate 10K going on simultaneously, chantkeepers (“Ask me what democracy looks like/This is what democracy looks like!”), we left the Boston Common and marched through the financial district, our numbers growing audibly to roaring crowds. We passed few observers who did not seem with the message. (“We are
"Self-Employed. $12K for health insurance. No retirement. I am the 99%"
the 99% You are the 99%!”) A man working at a parking garage yelled back, “Hell yes I’m the 99%!”
At one point some office workers–folks in their offices on Columbus Day–held up a sign from their second story window. It was of FDR, with a slogan about reinstating the Glass-Steagall act, to huge roars from the crowd. It was that kind of group–wonky Boston, in part.
Great Protester Signs: “Things are bad when English teachers use swear words. Shit is Fucked Up.”
“1% cannot stop a new consciousness.”
I Was Told There Would Be Cake
“I was told there would be cake.”
“Who put the Slitherins in charge?”
Who Put The Slitherins In Charge?
Even with 50 Occupy Boston protesters arrested late last night, this is a movement growing all over the country. We, the 99% are rising up to say we will not be quiet as our government is overtaken by private interests and economic elites.
#OccupyEdu is another way to get in
#Occupyedu is another way to join this movement around education, if protesting outside your door isn’t possible.
Just get in. Just protest.
Once you’ve stood up, you’ll never sit down.
Let’s put our signs together…
