I have been sifting over this conversation since Sarah posted her original message. The conversation about democracy and school, well, I'm with Sabrina about getting into teaching because I feel that public education is the last bastion of democracy. The last and best hope for rescuing our nation from a most dismally incoherent and banal dialogue about the most complicated, complex issues of our time. I was struck by what Sabrina said about the complex dialogue around progressive education existing largely in the written word and how few people have access to it. I guess that has me thinking about the academy in general. While I know that my beloved Sarah is toiling away in the ivory towers of one of our nation's most esteemed institutions-the same towers our president once toiled in-I am disenchanted at the disconnect between the academy (let's say the academy is a metaphor for the written word) and the classroom (let's say the classroom is a metaphor for action).
Karla told me about yet another "community dialogue" between the disconnected, arrogant, power hungry educational leaders of DPS' office of reform and the teachers at West High School and Manny Martinez Middle School. Another conversation built upon the research of the ivory towers, their rubrics, their mandates meant to "reassure" the teachers and staff at these schools that reform is underway and growth inevitable. The kind of conversation that's shrouded in blame and secrecy and lies, where the agenda is completely different than what's being articulated and ground is being laid for decisions that are harmful and devoid of courage.
Please don't think me some conspiracy theorist. I've lived these conversations. I woke up in the middle of the night after hearing about this "meeting" at West and I scrolled through a list of things that I might say when invited to ask questions or bring comments to our esteemed DPS officials, as the West and Manny staff had been. I kept asking myself, "what would be the preamble to speaking my truth that would get them to listen?" I kept coming back with the answer, "nothing". I have never felt so disconnected from educational reformers, but even more than that, so done dirty by their mantel of reform.
So turned inside out is the rhetoric that even I say this, I'm questioning whether this means that I'm against kids or that I'm questioning whether all kids can learn. You see, that is what they do when you're a teacher who begins to complicate school reform and why it's not so easy. With a total of 5 teaching years between them, these DPS officials make sweeping decisions/opinions about my practice and look at me with disdain and I internalize it. This power dynamic is what I learned in the academy-this is the model that schools sell and I am a product of this. The model is: there are people with power and knowledge (teachers/administrators/DPS officials) and people without that power (students/teachers/parents)and those without should wait for those with to tell them what is important and what to do next. I'm sick of this model.
It's not about reform, it's about a revolution. What we know for sure in 2010 is that we know nothing for sure. Our planet is changing at a rate that is mind blowing and what if none of the skills we value will serve us in this changing world? What if one's ability to access literacy means nothing in a planet lacking enough resources, full of global instability and conflict? What if we need to rethink how we learn and get our ideas out? What if the written word is not where power is located? Yes, Malcolm read the dictionary, but wasn't it his visit to Mecca that changed everything? Wasn't it travel learning?
I want both. I want fiercely literate children with deep compassion, a sense of accountability for this world and their role in it, and the knowledge that all bets are off. In other words, their best, creative ideas may in fact change the world. I want reading classes and dance classes and welding classes, because all bets are off and shouldn't we be offering as much diversity of content and methodology as possible? We are providing the support for students to navigate a world that we adults can safely say we have not a clue what it will look like. The only thing I know for sure is that our youth will have to be high flying aerial trapeze artists to traverse it. They need literacy and compassion. They need a global lens and empathy. They need to learn the master's tools to dismantle their house and to rebuild a green, zero emissions house off the grid somewhere. Sometimes I think the quest for "literacy" (whatever that term broadly means) only teaches them the master's tools, but never questions the tools or the house they built-it just perpetuates this model. We need a revolution, not reform.
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