Original Articles on John Dewey Sought

We are seeking original articles on John Dewey for our upcoming issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on "The Education our Children Deserve." The issue will include some of the most significant progressive writers of our time and we would like to include an historical piece on Dewey. The controversy posed for that issue is:


"The politicizing of education at the national level has centered on issues of standards, accountability, global competitiveness, national economic growth, low student achievement on worldwide norms, and federally mandated uniformity. There has been little discussion of the public purposes of our schools or what kind of education is necessary for an individual’s development and search for a meaningful life. There is a paucity of ideas being discussed at the national level around topics such as: how school practices can be aligned with democratic principles of equity and justice; how school practices can promote the flourishing of individual development as well as academic achievement; what skills and understandings are needed for citizens to play a transformative role in their society. Without conversation at this deeper level about the fundamental purposes of education, we cannot develop a comprehensive vision of the kinds of schools our children deserve. We invite authors to contribute their conceptions of the kind of education our children deserve and/or the kinds of schools that serve the needs of individuals and of a democratic society."

DEADLINE FOR MANUSCRIPTS: DECEMBER 31, 2010
PUBLICATION DATE: SUMMER 2011

More on the League of Democratic Schools

In a post below, we described a visit to the Westside Village Magnet School in Bend, Oregon, one of the schools in the League of Democratic Schools. In the League's May newsletter, readers can read updates on the other schools. See page 6 for the highlights from LODS schools.

John Goodlad, the founder of the League of Democratic Schools, has recently published three articles in the Washington Post where readers can gain a deeper understanding of the motivations behind his life's work.

See:

Goodlad on school reform: Are we ignoring lessons of last 50 years? Part 1


Goodlad: Straight Talk About Schools, Part 2


Goodlad: How to help our schools -- Part 3



Common Characteristics of LODS Schools

 Democratic Purpose: LODS schools believe the primary
purpose of schooling is to develop in young people the
knowledge, skills, and attitudes students require for
successful participation in our nation’s social and political
democracy.

 Student Achievement: Students in such schools are
successful academically and socially.

 Ongoing Professional Development: All members of the
school community engage in continuous learning.

 Approaches to Learning: These are schools that use a wide
variety of approaches to learning, including engaging students
with parents and other adults within the community.

 Personalization: These schools deliberately personalize the
relationships among students, teachers, parents, and
administrators by faculty members’ gathering as a group for
dialogue and by making other arrangements to facilitate
communications among the members of the school community.


2010 goals for the League schools focus on developing "ongoing, sustainable mechanisms for deepening our community’s understanding and engagement around the public purpose of schools in our democracy."

Arizona’s Other Bill: What Does it Say

While much of the nation’s attention has been on Arizona’s law on illegal immigration and its implications for racial profiling, another bill has surfaced over the elimination of certain ethnic studies programs in the schools. While we will have more to say about HB 2881 later, we thought readers would want to read the bill for themselves.

From the Arizona State Legislature Website:
House of Representatives
HB 2281
prohibited courses; discipline; schools


HB 2281 prohibits a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

History

The State Board of Education (SBE) must prescribe a minimum course of study, incorporating Arizona’s academic standards, to be taught in Arizona public schools (Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 15-701). School district governing boards must approve the course of study, including the basic textbook for each approved course and all other units recommended for credit before implementing each course in both elementary and high schools. Pursuant to A.R.S. § 15-701.01, a governing board may adopt courses of study that are in addition to or higher than that prescribed by the SBE.

Current law requires the principal of each school to ensure that all rules pertaining to the discipline, suspension, and expulsion of pupils are communicated to students at the beginning of each school year. All cases of suspension must be for good cause and must be reported within five days to the governing board by the superintendent or person imposing the suspension. The school district governing board is required to post regular notices and take minutes of any hearing concerning the discipline, suspension, or expulsion of a pupil (A.R.S § 15-843).

Provisions

• States that the Legislature finds and declares that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people.

• Prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that:

Ø Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

Ø Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

Ø Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

Ø Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

• States that if the SBE determines that a school district or charter school is offering a course that violates this act, the SBE must direct the Superintendent of Public Instruction (Superintendent) to notify the school district or charter school that it is in violation.

• Stipulates that if the SBE determines that the school district or charter school has failed to comply within 60 days after a notice has been issued by the Superintendent, the SBE may direct the ADE to withhold up to 10% of the monthly apportionment of state aid that would otherwise be due to the school district or charter school and requires ADE to adjust the school district or charter school’s apportionment accordingly.

• Specifies when the SBE determines that the school district or charter school is in compliance with not offering a prohibited course, ADE must restore the full amount of state aid payments to the school district or charter school.

• Stipulates that actions taken under this act are subject to appeal pursuant to laws relating to uniform administrative hearing procedures.

• States that this act cannot be construed to restrict or prohibit:

Ø Courses or classes for Native American pupils that are required to comply with federal law.

Ø The grouping of pupils according to academic performance, including capability in the English language, that may result in a disparate impact by ethnicity.

Ø Courses or classes that include the history of any ethnic group and that are open to all students, unless the course or class violates this act.

• Prohibits rules pertaining to the discipline, suspension, and expulsion of pupils from being based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or ancestry.

• States that if the ADE, the Auditor General, or the Attorney General determines that a school district is substantially and deliberately not in compliance with pupil disciplinary actions and if the school district has failed to correct the deficiency within 90 days after receiving notice from the ADE, the Superintendent may withhold the monies the school district would otherwise be entitled to receive from the date of the determination of noncompliance until the ADE determines that the school district is in compliance.

Schools that Make a Difference: A Look at the League of Democratic Schools

Several years ago, the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University partnered with a local school, the Whatcom Day Academy, to be part of the League of Democratic Schools started by John Goodlad. Our partner school is now featured on the website of the Educational Institute for Democratic Renewal at Woodring, the institute that also houses the Journal of Educational Controversy. While the journal provides a format for a national and international exchange of ideas on important and controversial issues in education, our partnership allows us to put some of these ideas in practice and share them with others across the globe.

Recently, at a regional meeting of the League in Bend, Oregon, I was able to experience another school in the League, the Westside Village Magnet School. It is a wonderful example of a democratic progressive school and provides a model of what our schools can achieve. The first thing you notice when you first arrive at the school is the sense of activity all around you. The children are everywhere, and there is a sense of joy that permeates the building. Without the usual bells and teacher talk, the children just seem to know where they should be, something that they have internalized though the culture that the school has created.

A young boy walks up to me and introduces himself as Paul and shakes my hand as he welcomes me to the school. There is a sign in the library of the rights and responsibilities of the students, but it isn’t just the usual mission statements that one finds in schools. It is internalized in the students. We had arrived around noon and students were walking all around cleaning the school. We learned later that the multi-age school is broken into families that represent every level. For ten minutes each day, each family has an assigned set of chores that each student is responsible for. Other times groups are organized around interests.

CHILDREN DOING CHORES





We arrived too late to see the morning community meetings, but we were told that each day starts with different community meetings that are conducted by the children. Each age group has a chance to conduct the meeting and the students raise the issues that concern them.

There is also a peer mediation council made up of students where conflicts can be worked out. On this particular day, a video crew of volunteers from the community was videotaping the mediation process to show to other schools in the community who had requested more information about it. The children would role play a conflict (they played out an incident in the girl’s restroom today) and then take the conflict to the peer mediation council. The student mediators learn to use active listening, search for feelings as well as facts, paraphrase responses, and ask clarifying questions. The mediators then frame the situation, write up the issues and begin to discuss solutions. All discuss win/win solutions and continue to brainstorm until the conflicting students find a solution that they can both agree on. Both the role playing conflict and the mediation process were videotaped to show other schools how it works.

The school is organized around themes. The theme this year was on global issues. Each hub of multi-age student groups – broken into k-1, 2-3, 4-6, 7-8 or something like this – approach the themes at their own developmental level and in an interdisciplinary way. I visited a room where children were making masks. The criteria for the technical making of masks were posted on the wall along with two other sets of criteria – a Research Mask Criteria and a Mask Museum Display Card Criteria.

The artwork was easily connected with their research projects (the school is very inquiry-based) and the following criteria were used to guide the students with the creation of their masks on two dimensions other than just the technical criteria.

Research Mask Criteria:

1. Create a mask that represents the culture, living beings or environment impacted or affected by the issue.
2. Focus on a critical component /issue/solution from your research.
3. Personify your mask.
4. Exaggerate at least one feature.
5. Create Balance and unity.
6. Sketch your design first.
7. Follow Deb’s mask-making technique.
8. Adorn mask to enhance the message.

The third set of criteria that was posted on the wall dealt with a museum display of their work. Notice that many of their state standards that as a public school the school has to incorporate in its curriculum are easily integrated into this interdisciplinary approach.

Mask Museum Display Card Criteria:

1. Create a museum display card
2. Use a thought-provoking quote to inspire
3. Write a complete paragraph using a topic sentence that explains specific information from your research to support your opinions and conclusions.
4. Capture the reader’s interest.
5. Use descriptive language that includes adjectives, vivid verbs and adverbs.
6. Include a title.
7. Follow the writing process.

Many of the children had been studying the artwork of the Oregon artist, Betty LaDuke. The school places great emphasis on the arts and the creative process. As I wandered around the room watching the children draw and paint, I couldn’t resist asking them some questions. They very competently described their use of colors and patterns that they found in LaDuke’s paintings. The task was to create a painting that incorporated Betty LaDuke’s painting criteria. The assignment asked them to capture the essence of their research topic. They were also asked to share the people the topic mostly impacts, show how a change we might make would make a difference for our earth, capture the essence of the culture, include a theme, include a focal point, use vibrant, strong colors and repeated patterns, line and color (all reminiscent of LaDuke’s paintings), include people in the painting, and use Betty LaDuke’s folk art style. They were later to title it and mount it.


Drawings and paintings were all over the school and classroom walls -- most with a cultural and social theme. In fact, the social consciousness that the students exhibited was seamlessly intertwined with the academics and extracurricular activities.
















We had arrived on a Friday which was a day for exploration. There were any number of classes going on from baking bread, repairing bikes, making mosaics, working in and exploring the garden and the streams, creating ceramics, engaging in drama, videotaping, and the Rise up for Nicaragua –sewing quilt. Again the social component was connected with the academic explorations in which the children were engaged. When a child read on the internet about “The Great American Bake Sale” to end childhood hunger in America, she brought the idea to her community meeting. As a result, one of the exploration activities was to learn to bake bread. The school has a huge oven in the garden where some thirty loaves could be made at one time. (It was tasty) The loaves were then donated to the poor and homeless in the community. The school also has its own greenhouse where the children are raising vegetables to give to the poor.

THE SCHOOL GARDEN



THE GREENHOUSE



THE OVEN




THE STREAM

One of the parents was working at the oven in the garden and I had a chance to chat with her. Of course, I asked why she sent her child to this school. At first, she mentioned the focus on individuality, creativity and community and then thought about the freedom from so much trivia she had seen in the two earlier schools that her child had attended – the obsession with gum chewing, wearing tank shirts, etc. Then after a few moments, she said, I guess it really comes down to the fact that this school respects children.

That mutual respect perhaps characterizes the school the best. There was so much more that I witnessed that I might share in a later blog posting. The school has a video on YouTube where you can see more. You can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNS3GlHvVYM

Of course, the question that many of you probably want to ask is the question about children’s achievement and test scores in this kind of environment. Well, the school is high achieving. It reminds me of something that John Dewey always said – that one does not necessarily hit the goal by directly aiming at it. One of the sad consequences of the current reform and its obsession with a standardized test score is the elimination of everything that makes learning and life worthwhile – the arts, music, dance, drama, physical development, etc. It is one of those unintended consequences of the policies we construct. But as Dewey always reminded us, when our curriculum is embedded in meaningful activities, when it has a function other than achieving a test score, children not only ironically achieve but also learn to love to learn. After all, as Dewey would say, education is life not just a preparation for life.

The next issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy will focus on the theme, “The Education and Schools our Children Deserve,” and we will be featuring articles, ideas, and video from other League schools. Susan Donnelly, the head of the Whatcom Day Academy, the school we partner with in the League, will co-edit the issue. Our hope is to provide a vision of what our schools can be.

Whose History Should We Teach?

We reported in several postings below some of the conservative pressures on the curriculum decisions made by the Texas Board of Education on its proposed social studies curriculum. As a journal devoted to the discussion of the controversies in education, we ought to become clearer about the nature of the controversy that is surrounding the recent decision that Texas made. Certainly, introducing the conservative tradition in American political and social life is a legitimate topic in any history textbook. In his article below, Eric Foner from The Nation discusses some of the deeper issues underlying the Texas decision.


Twisting History in Texas
Comment
By Eric Foner
This article appeared in the April 5, 2010 edition of The Nation.


“Reprinted with permission from the April 5, 2010 issue of The Nation magazine. Portions of each week’s Nation magazine can be accessed at http://www.thenation.com/.”


The changes to the social studies curriculum recently approved by the conservative-dominated Texas Board of Education have attracted attention mainly because of how they may affect textbooks used in other states. Since Texas certifies texts centrally rather than by individual school districts, publishers have a strong incentive to alter their books to conform to its standards so as to reach the huge Texas market. Where was Lee Harvey Oswald, after all, when he shot John F. Kennedy? In the Texas School Book Depository--a tall Dallas building filled with textbooks.

Most comment on the content of the new standards has focused on the mandate that high school students learn about leading conservative figures and institutions of the 1980s and '90s, specifically Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the Contract With America and the NRA. In fact, there is nothing wrong with teaching about modern conservatism, a key force in recent American history. My own textbook has a chapter called "The Triumph of Conservatism" and discusses most of the individuals and groups mentioned above.

More interesting is what the new standards tell us about conservatives' overall vision of American history and society and how they hope to instill that vision in the young. The standards run from kindergarten through high school, and certain themes obsessively recur. Judging from the updated social studies curriculum, conservatives want students to come away from a Texas education with a favorable impression of: women who adhere to traditional gender roles, the Confederacy, some parts of the Constitution, capitalism, the military and religion. They do not think students should learn about women who demanded greater equality; other parts of the Constitution; slavery, Reconstruction and the unequal treatment of nonwhites generally; environmentalists; labor unions; federal economic regulation; or foreigners.

Here are a few examples. The board has removed mention of the Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention, the letters of John and Abigail Adams and suffrage advocate Carrie Chapman Catt. As examples of "good citizenship" for third graders, it deleted Harriet Tubman and included Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, and Helen Keller (the board seems to have slipped up here--Keller was a committed socialist). The role of religion--but not the separation of church and state--receives emphasis throughout. For example, religious revivals are now listed as one of the twelve major "events and eras" from colonial days to 1877.

The changes seek to reduce or elide discussion of slavery, mentioned mainly for its "impact" on different regions and the coming of the Civil War. A reference to the Atlantic slave trade is dropped in favor of "Triangular trade." Jefferson Davis's inaugural address as president of the Confederacy will now be studied alongside Abraham Lincoln's speeches.

In grade one, Veterans Day replaces Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the list of holidays students should be familiar with. (Later, "building a military" has been added as one of two results of the Revolution--the other being the creation of the United States--an odd inclusion, given the founders' fear of a standing army.) The Double-V Campaign during World War II (blacks' demand that victory over the Axis powers be accompanied by victory over segregation at home) has been omitted from the high school curriculum. Japanese-American internment is now juxtaposed with "the regulation of some foreign nationals," ignoring the fact that while a few Germans and Italians were imprisoned as enemy aliens, the vast majority of people of Japanese ancestry who were interned were US citizens.

Students in several grades will be required to understand the "benefits" (but none of the drawbacks) of capitalism. The economic system, however, dares not speak its name--it is referred to throughout as "free enterprise." Labor unions are conspicuous by their absence. Mankind's impact on the environment is apparently entirely benign--the curriculum mentions dams for flood control and the benefits of transportation infrastructure but none of the problems arising from the exploitation of nature. Lest anyone think that Americans should not fall below a rudimentary standard of living, the kindergarten curriculum deletes food, shelter and clothing from its list of "basic human needs."

Americans, the board seems to suggest, do not need to take much notice of the rest of the world, or of noncitizens in this country. Kindergartners no longer have to learn about "people" who have contributed to American life, only about "patriots and good citizens." High school students must evaluate the pros and cons of US participation in "international organizations and treaties." In an original twist, third grade geography students no longer have to be able to identify on a map the Amazon, the Himalayas or (as if it were in another country) Washington, DC.

Clearly, the Texas Board of Education seeks to inculcate children with a history that celebrates the achievements of our past while ignoring its shortcomings, and that largely ignores those who have struggled to make this a fairer, more equal society. I have lectured on a number of occasions to Texas precollege teachers and have found them as competent, dedicated and open-minded as the best teachers anywhere. But if they are required to adhere to the revised curriculum, the students of our second most populous state will emerge ill prepared for life in Texas, America and the world in the twenty-first century.

About Eric Foner
Eric Foner, a member of The Nation's editorial board and DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is the author of Give Me Liberty, an American history textbook.

April salon to reflect journal's theme

The 12th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum this year will present an evening salon of music, art, poetry and conversation on the topic Art, Social Imagination, and Democratic Education, the theme of our current issue of the journal. Authors whose work is published in the issue will join the audience at the salon. We hope that both the salon and the journal will engage the community in a conversation around the public purposes of our schools and the role of the arts in promoting both a meaningful education and a vital democratic society. It will be both experiential with live music and art and interactive. The audience is invited to join the conversation with the authors and share their own works of art as well as their own justice poems about resistance and empowerment, about finding one's own spirit in freedom and community and about the nature and development of social imagination for democratic living.

The Woodring 12th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice ForumPresents
An Evening Salon with Music, Art, Poetry and ConversationOn the Topic:
Art, Social Imagination and Democratic Education


Wednesday, April 28, 2010
5:30pm Reception
6-8pm Salon
Solarium in Old Main – 5th Floor
Western Washington University

Sponsored by the Center for Education, Equity and Diversity and the Journal of Educational ControversyWoodring College of Education
Western Washington University


Program:

5:30-6:00
Reception with music and refreshments
Welcoming interlude

Bellacorda String Quartet
Selections from Mozart Quartet in C Major “The Dissonant”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:00 Musical Introduction to Salon

Quartet No. 1 in d minor (Mvts III & IV) Randall Thompson (1889-1984)
Vivace ma non troppo
Allegro appasionata

Bellacorda Quartet:

Christine Wilkinson, Violin
Rosalie Romano, Violin
Michael Neville. Viola
Noel Evans, Violoncello

Art Slide Show and Discussion of Children’s Drawings – Susan Donnelly, Whatcom Day Academy

Conversation on Social Imagination, Art and Education with Authors and Facilitators and the Audience:

• Facilitators: Lorraine Kasprisin, Editor, Journal of Educational Controversy and Kristen French, Director of the Center for Education, Equity and Diversity

• Authors: Daniel Larner, Susan Donnelly, Rosalie Romano, Anne Blanchard, Matt Miller

• Video clip of Maxine Greene will be shown. This issue of the journal was dedicated to Maxine Greene.

Audience will be invited to bring and share their own justice poems as well as works of art.

Free and open to the public.

Diane Ravitch: A New Agenda for School Reform

A new agenda for school reform

By Diane Ravitch
Washington Post
Friday, April 2, 2010

I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice. But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program enacted in 2002 did not produce large gains in reading and math. The gains in math were larger before the law was implemented, and the most recent national tests showed that eighth-grade students have made no improvement in reading since 1998. By mandating a utopian goal of 100 percent proficiency, the law encouraged states to lower their standards and make false claims of progress. Worse, the law stigmatized schools that could not meet its unrealistic expectation.

Choice, too, has been disappointing. We now know that choice is no panacea. The districts with the most choice for the longest period -- Cleveland and Milwaukee -- have seen no improvement in their public schools nor in their choice schools. Charter schools have been compared to regular public schools on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, and have never outperformed them. Nationally, only 3 percent of public school students are enrolled in charters, and no one is giving much thought to improving the system that enrolls the other 97 percent.

It is time to change course....

To read the entire article, go to the Washington Post.


Diane Ravitch is an historian of education. Her most recent book is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

Schooling as if Democracy Matters

The focus of our Winter 2008 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy was on the topic, “Schooling as if Democracy Matters.” In that issue, we raised the question about the ways we should teach the young about the foundations of our democracy and our collective identity in an age of the patriot act, NSA surveillance, extraordinary rendition, preemptive wars, enemy combatants -- all likely to involve violations of civil rights and liberties and a curtain of government secrecy? We asked, what story do we tell our young about who we are, who we have been, and who we are becoming?

I’d like to raise this same question in light of today’s events. In an interesting NY Times op-ed article, “The Rage Is Not About Health Care,” Frank Rich talks about some of the underlying reasons for the rise in rage, venomous rhetoric, violence, and anxieties in today’s demonstrations against the recently adopted health care bill. Comparing the bill’s passage to earlier bills that shook the country – the Medicare Act of 1965 and the Social Security Act of 1935, Rich describes the rhetoric and the upheavals that these bills also caused. But the bill that comes closest to the type of vitriolic criticism that today’s bill is evoking, Rich argues, is the Civil Rights Bill of 1964.

This may sound like a strange claim given that the present Health Care bill actually contains many of the recommendations of the Republican Party, falling far short of the single payer system or public option plan that more liberal proponents advocated. Rather than a “government takeover,” it extends the free market’s involvement in health care. While there are legitimate arguments over health care entitlement, the type of reaction we are experiencing seems to be disproportionate. Rich argues that the health care bill is just a spark that is galvanizing anxieties at a deeper level.

He offers the following explanation for today’s rising tide of rage:

"The health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

"In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

"If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

"They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded." (The New York Times, March 27, 2010)

Both the 1964 and 2010 bills have become the catalyst for shaking the nation’s core understanding of itself. Rich notes the silence resulting from the lack of leadership among today's political leaders, who often tend to exploit the anxieties and fears instead. And this leaves us with the question with which I began this post. What is the responsibility of our teachers and public intellectuals for addressing these deeper issues in the classrooms and in the public square. We hope to address these more profound questions in our summer 2011 issue of the journal on “The Education our Children Deserve.”

(cross-posted on Social Issues blog)

David Saxe, litigant in Saxe v. State College Area School District, tells his own story

We have added a new article to our rejoinder section of the Journal of Educational Controversy. In the first issue of our journal, we focused on a controversy that emerged from the court case, Saxe v. State College Area School District, that was decided by Judge Samuel Alito before he was appointed to the US Supreme Court. The case reflects the tension between two values – liberty and equality – that both form the bedrock of our liberal democracy.

David Saxe, the litigant in the case, has decided to end his silence of ten years and tell his own story. Saxe argues that the characterization of his motives as “homophobic” or “religious fanaticism” was unfounded. On the contrary, he argues that he was actually defending the first amendment of the US constitution. You can find his article in our Rejoinder Section or go directly to:

Union next to our liberty most dear: Anatomy of Saxe v State College Area School District and Constance Martin, Righting Wrongs in the Sea of Rights

Judge Alito had found that the anti-harassment policy that David Saxe challenged was too vague and couldn’t pass constitutional muster. How might an anti-harassment policy be written that would be found constitutional?

We invite readers to add their thoughts with a formal rejoinder or a more spontaneous comment on our blog.

Historians Speak Out Against Proposed Texas Textbook Changes

Historians speak out against proposed Texas textbook changes
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2010

Historians on Tuesday criticized proposed revisions to the Texas social studies curriculum, saying that many of the changes are historically inaccurate and that they would affect textbooks and classrooms far beyond the state's borders.
The changes, which were preliminarily approved last week by the Texas board of education and are expected to be given final approval in May, will reach deeply into Texas history classrooms, defining what textbooks must include and what teachers must cover. The curriculum plays down the role of Thomas Jefferson among the founding fathers, questions the separation of church and state, and claims that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists during the Cold War.

To read the entire article go to: Washington Post

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
New York Times
Published: March 12, 2010

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

To read the entire article, go to: New York Times

**********************************************************
The 2011 summer issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy will engage readers in a conversation on "The Education Our Children Deserve." The Times article reports that "there were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings" of the board. It is time for public intellectuals, scholars, and teachers to join parents, community leaders and the general public in a conversation about the public purposes of our schools in a democratic society. We encourage a wide-range of voices to enter the dialogue and to submit manuscripts.

Go to our "call for submissions" for more information.

A New Voice Enters the EcoJustice Debate

We announced below a lively debate taking place in our Rejoinder Section of the journal on the appropriateness of "crisis language" in engaging people in the conversation over sustainability and ecology.

Check out our most recent voice in the debate. See Don Burgess's article,
"Rethinking Eco-justice Within a Biophilic Framework: A Rejoinder," in the Rejoinder Section.

There are serious implications here for the way we introduce the young into the questions about our planet and our place in the web of life.

Join the debate.

Washington State Legislature passes two bills on Civil Rights in Schools and Anti-bullying

The Washington State Legislature has passed two bills that will be of interest to readers concerned with the rights and protections of our students. We would be interested in learning about actions taking place in other states.

The Safe Schools Coalition has provided the following analysis of the bills and has permitted us to post it to our blog for our readers.

The bills are:
(1) HB 3026 -- civil rights in schools
(2) HB 2801 -- bullying bill

*****************************************
(1) HB 3026 -- civil rights in schools

From the Safe Schools Coalition’s Law & Policy Work Group Co-Chairs Jennifer Allen and Lonnie Johns-Brown:

Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 3026 was passed by the Senate as the very last bill before the cut-off. Both of the harmful amendments to the bill were defeated, and the bill passed on a vote of 30-18.

Thank you Rep. Sharon Tomiko-Santos for serving as the bill's prime sponsor and providing leadership and thank you to the communities of color that have championed the bill from its birth.

Background

Since 2006, Washington State law has prohibited discrimination in employment (which applies to teachers) and public accommodations (which applies to students) on the basis of sexual orientation, gender expression and identity, and HIV status (as well as race, creed, religion, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, and disability). Individuals could file discrimination complaints with the Washington State Human Rights Commission. But there was no state agency with authority, short of a specific claim of discrimination, to monitor or enforce the law.

HB 3026: What it does

In a nutshell, it gives the law teeth with respect to schools.

Engrossed Substitute House Bill 3026 will establish a new chapter in the Common School Code of Washington State that prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, religion, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, sexual orientation including gender expression or identity, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, or the use of trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability. The bill will authorize the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to make rules and regulations to eliminate discrimination and – this is the crucial piece -- to monitor local school district compliance with the anti-discrimination policies.

Under current law, the protected classes identified in E2SHB 3026 are required to file complaints with the Washington State Human Rights Commission or file a civil suit in order to seek relief from actual or perceived discrimination. This legislation will enable the OSPI to help preclude litigation against school districts through compliance monitoring and dispute resolution.

What needs to happen next

The bill's costs need to be included in the budget … still being negotiated.

*****************************************************************

(2) HB 2801 -- bullying bill

Thank you to Equal Rights Washington for this summary:

It’s a victory for everyone in Washington State, especially students, and a milestone in how far society has come in their understanding of LGBT Washingtonians.

Yesterday the Washington State Senate passed HB 2801, An act relating to anti-harassment strategies in public schools. What made this vote so impressive was that it was 48-0 in the State Senate. Earlier in the session the bill passed the State House 97-0.

Background


In 2002 the Washington State legislature passed an anti-bullying law. At the time the bill that was meant to protect ALL students from bullying was controversial because it included sexual orientation. The anti-bullying law required schools to adopt an anti-bullying policy that covered, at a minimum, all the classes contained in Washington State’s hate crimes law and this included sexual orientation. In 2009 the definition of sexual orientation was amended to include gender identity and expression.

In 2007 the scope of the anti-bullying law was expanded to include electronic acts, and the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) was directed to develop a model policy and sample materials prohibiting acts of harassment, intimidation, or bullying conducted via electronic means by a student while on school grounds and during the school day.

Meanwhile, the legislature commissioned a report to study the effectiveness of the State’s anti-bullying law. The Report was released in late 2008 and found that bullying in Washington Schools had not diminished. New legislation was needed.

You can read the full report here:

http://equalrightswashington.org/pdfs/Bullying%20in%20Washington%20Schools_electronic%20version_FINAL.pdf

Representative Marko Liias who serves on the education committee immediately responded to the report and introduced legislation in the 2009 and 2010 legislative sessions. Among the challenges facing the legislature was how to address the persistent problem of bullying in the context of the economic crisis. HB 2801 is an important step in reducing bullying in our schools and reflects the legislature’s ability to address important issues even during the economic downturn.

HB 2801: What it does

The new law begins with an assessment of the current situation and a strong desire to improve the situation.

“The legislature finds that despite a recognized law prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students in public schools and despite widespread adoption of antiharassment policies by school districts, harassment of students continues and has not declined since the law was enacted. Furthermore, students and parents continue to seek assistance against harassment, and schools need to disseminate more widely their antiharassment policies and procedures. The legislature intends to expand the tools, information, and strategies that can be used to combat harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students, and increase awareness of the need for respectful learning communities in all public schools.”

The law that will now go to Governor Gregoire to be signed into law includes the following provisions:

• By august 1, 2011 each school district must adopt or amend its anti-harassment policy and procedures to at a minimum incorporate the revised model policy that will be drafted by the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with representatives of parents, school personnel, the office of the education ombudsman, the Washington state school directors' association, and other interested parties.

• Each school district shall designate one person in the district as the primary contact regarding the antiharassment, intimidation, or bullying policy. The primary contact shall receive copies of all formal and informal complaints, have responsibility for assuring the implementation of the policy and procedure, and serve as primary contact on the policy and procedures between the school district, the office of the education ombudsman, and the office of the superintendent of public instruction.

• The superintendent of public instruction shall publish on its web site, with a link to the safety center web page, the revised and updated model harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention policy and procedure, along with training and instructional materials on the components that shall be included in any district policy and procedure.

• The superintendent shall adopt rules regarding school districts' communication of the policy and procedure to parents, students, employees, and volunteers.

• Each school district shall by August 15, 2011, provide to the superintendent of public instruction a brief summary of its policies, procedures, programs, partnerships, vendors, and instructional and training materials to be posted on the school safety center web site, and shall also provide the superintendent with a link to the school district's web site for further information. The district's primary contact for bullying and harassment issues shall annually by August 15th verify posted information and links and notify the school safety center of any updates or changes.

• The office of the education ombudsman shall serve as the lead agency to provide resources and tools to parents and families about public school antiharassment policies and strategies."

To be certain much work remains to be done to combat bullying in Washington Public Schools but HB 2801 is an important step forward. A key finding of the 2008 report was that anti-bullying programs need to be funded. When the economic crisis lessens we will need to return to address the budgetary needs of anti-bullying programs. Happily Washington State has a strong Safe Schools Coalition that will continue to work with the legislature to make sure that Washington State Law reflects best practices in combating bullying in schools. The Safe Schools Coalition website is an important resource for Parents, Educators and students alike.

Today let us celebrate the leadership of Representative Marko Liias who championed this legislation, the commitment of the legislature to ensuring that every student enjoys a safe learning environment and the ongoing work of the Safe Schools Coalition.

Joshua A. Friedes
Advocacy Director
Equal Rights Washington

Is the Language of an Ecological Crisis Appropriate: Join the Debate

In our winter 2009 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy, we published an article by C.A. Bowers entitled, Rethinking Social Justice Issues Within an Eco-Justice Conceptual and Moral Framework.

We are now running a lively debate over the ideas in this article in our Rejoinder Section of the journal. Check it out and join the debate with a formal rejoinder to the journal or on this blog.

Volume 4, Number 1, Winter 2009: The Hidden Dimensions of Poverty: Rethinking Poverty and Education

REJOINDERS to C.A. Bowers, Rethinking Social Justice Issues Within an Eco-Justice Conceptual and Moral Framework

A Moral Vulnerability for Chet Bowers and Other EcoJustice Educators: A Rejoinder
Michael P. Mueller
University of Georgia

Response to Professor Mueller’s Critique
by C. A. Bowers

A Reply to Professor Bowers - How Chet Bowers’ Writings Contribute to A Moral Vulnerability for EcoJustice
by Michael P. Mueller
----------------------------------------------------------
Also take a look at Chet Bowers' critique of Bill Ayers' book on Social Justice Education below.

"Call for Papers" for Volume 6 Number 1: The Education Our Children Deserve

The Journal of Educational Controversy announces a new "Call for Papers" for Volume 6 Number 1, Summer 2011.


THEME: THE EDUCATION OUR CHILDREN DESERVE

We invite authors to respond to the following controversy:

The politicizing of education at the national level has centered on issues of standards, accountability, global competitiveness, national economic growth, low student achievement on worldwide norms, and federally mandated uniformity. There has been little discussion of the public purposes of our schools or what kind of education is necessary for an individual’s development and search for a meaningful life. There is a paucity of ideas being discussed at the national level around topics such as: how school practices can be aligned with democratic principles of equity and justice; how school practices can promote the flourishing of individual development as well as academic achievement; what skills and understandings are needed for citizens to play a transformative role in their society. Without conversation at this deeper level about the fundamental purposes of education, we cannot develop a comprehensive vision of the kinds of schools our children deserve. We invite authors to contribute their conceptions of the kind of education our children deserve and/or the kinds of schools that serve the needs of individuals and of a democratic society.

Please see the website of the Journal of Educational Controversy for guidelines on submitting manuscripts. http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/eJournal/

Deadline for manuscripts: December 31, 2010

March 4 - National Day of Action to Defend Public Education

One of the purposes of our blog and our journal is to provide a forum for a rigorous debate that represents all voices. Here is a link that announces an event that a growing number of local, regional and statewide groups are sponsoring. It reflects many grassroot voices. Go to: Defend Education Website.

Writing at the Master’s Table

Teri McMurtry-Chubb, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Educational Controversy, has published an article in a recent law review that we believe our readers will want to check out. Teri uses Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism to examine possible causes, problems and solutions concerning the low numbers of women of color among legal writing professors, a field that is dominated by women. As a lawyer and law professor, Teri has brought an important legal perspective to our editorial board that reviews papers coming from all disciplinary areas. She provides a brief summary of the article below.

By Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb

"Writing at the Master's Table: Reflections on Theft, Criminality and Otherness in the Legal Writing Profession" by Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb is now available in the online version of the Drexel Law Review (Fall 2009). You may access the article using the following link: http://www.drexel.edu/law/lawreview/current.aspx


This article considers the convergence of race and gender marginalizations in the legal writing profession, a profession comprised almost entirely of women. Prior to its publication, scholarship on the marginalization of women in legal writing was written only about and from the perspective of white women. The content of this article seeks to deepen the discussion introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her seminal work on race and gender intersections, which argues that a single-axis framework of analysis that examines race and gender discrimination separately is insufficient to deal with the overlapping oppressions women of color face. Thus far, the literature on how legal writing programs discriminate against women lacks this intersectional dimension. The article draws on the narrative traditions of Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism to examine issues of race, gender, and status three-dimensionally within the racialized, gendered, and elitist structure that is the legal academy. The theoretical framework is provided by Adrien K. Wing’s multiplicative theory and praxis of being, in which Wing describes women of color as indivisible persons with multiple race and gender consciousnesses. The author examines the multiple race, gender, and status consciousnesses of women of color who are legal writing professionals.

Part I of the article highlights the precarious position of women of color in the legal academy and in the legal writing profession. Part II examines the characteristics of LRW programs that deter women of color from seriously considering legal writing instruction as a profession. Part III explores how the low number of LRW faculty of color affects how all law students are taught legal writing and reasoning skills. Finally, Part IV proposes some solutions.

Philosophy for Adolescents : the Teachers College Philosophy Outreach Program

Author David Hansen, whose article, A Response to a New Book about Maxine Greene’s Philosophy, appears in our current issue of journal, writes to tell us about a new project between the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College and the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University that is engaging young adolescents in the wonderful world of philosophy. David points out that most high school students throughout Latin America and Europe study philosophy . One wonders why such an important discipline is largely missing in U.S. schools. David describes the project below:

Philosophy Outreach Program
Teachers College and Columbia University
New York City

By David Hansen

The Philosophy Outreach Program is an after-school project designed to engage middle and high school students in philosophical discourse. A collaboration between the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College and the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, the Program currently involves eight high schools in New York City. Its faculty sponsors are Professors David Hansen and Megan Laverty at TC, and Professors Philip Kitcher and Achille Varzi at Columbia. The Outreach Program’s teachers visit the schools in pairs, one student each from TC and Columbia, in order to engage middle and high school students in philosophical inquiry. Tim Ignaffo and Guillermo Marini, who are Philosophy and Education Ph.D. students and co-founders of the program, say that the collaboration between TC and Columbia has proved to be an exceptional opportunity for benefiting school communities.

In justifying the program, Guillermo points out that most high school students throughout Latin America and Europe study philosophy. These experiences have inspired many international students in TC’s Program of Philosophy and Education to pursue the field as a career. He wonders if this opportunity “happened to American students, what might it lead them to?”

The Philosophy Outreach Program believes that adolescents are in a wonderful place to begin studying philosophy, as the decisions many of them make at that age about life, self, work and college are closely related to universal questions addressed by philosophy. Tim Ignaffo, who is currently the coordinator of the Outreach Program, suggests that young people ask themselves difficult questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Providing students arguments and the vocabulary to discuss these questions can be very empowering. He also notes that at a certain point in these discussions a realization dawns that “the questions that are popping up in my head have been engaged by every generation.” Students’ testimonials about their enjoyment of philosophy have increased participation in the Program at every school. The Outreach Program’s teachers have also been invited to be guest lecturers in some of the high school classrooms, speaking, for example, to science and English classes.

The Program is supported by recurring grants from The Squire Foundation, as well as from the Teaching Center at Columbia and the Arts and Humanities Department at TC. The Squire Foundation’s long-term goal is for U.S. schools to follow the European and Latin American example, making philosophy part of the core curriculum in all high schools. Though Guillermo and Tim appreciate that this goal is “extremely ambitious,” they note the recent adoption of philosophy as a required course in Ontario, Canada. To further their aims, the students in the Outreach Program are organizing a conference for this coming October, 2010, on teaching philosophy in schools.

Maxine Greene Tribute Now Online

The Journal of Educational Controversy is pleased to announce that the winter 2010 issue on “Art, Social Imagination and Democratic Education” is now online. This issue is dedicated to the life and work of Maxine Greene.


We would like to draw the readers’ attention to an innovation that we introduced in this issue. In place of one of the printed articles, we are providing the reader a slide show of a child’s artistic drawings, with the author’s voice describing to the readers the significance of what they are viewing in the child’s work. The author traces the motifs found consistently in the child’s drawing over the course of several years so the reader/viewer can gain insight into the child’s imaginative communities, values, and dreams.


We invite readers to contribute formal refereed responses to our Rejoinder Section or more spontaneous responses on our journal’s blog.


Next Issue: The Role of Professionals in the Public Square


Future Issues:
The Education our Children Deserve
The Modern University in Turbulent Times
The School to Prison Pipeline
The Effect of Cultural Diversity on the Schools across the Globe: A Comparative Look

C.A. Bowers critiques Bill Ayers' book on Social Justice Education

Editor: Both C.A. Bowers and Bill Ayers have written articles for the Journal of Educational Controversy in the past. Among other things, this blog is a forum for authors to continue the conversations started in the journal. Below Chet reviews Bill Ayers book, The Handbook on Social Justice in Education.


Is It Relevant as a Guide for Understanding Social Justice Issues in the Twenty-First Century? A Critique of the Handbook on Social Justice Education
Author: C. A. Bowers

The Handbook on Social Justice in Education, edited by William Ayers, Therese Quinn, and David Stovall was so highly regarded that the reference librarian at the University of Oregon placed it in a special collection out of a concern that it may be lost or damaged if allowed to be taken out of the library. As I read through the many aspects of social justice issues to be addressed by educators, which range widely from historical perspectives to the continuing challenges in the areas of race, gender, disabilities, and globalization, I was struck by how dated the collection of well-intentioned essays had already become. Perhaps the reference librarian was unaware that the Handbook would perpetuate the silences that characterize the last 30 or so years of thinking about how teacher educators should address social justice issues. There are some books that never become dated, such as Eric Havelock’s The Muse Learns to Write (1986), Karl Polyani’s The Great Transformation (2002 edition), and Daniel Worster’s Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (1997). Other books, including many that address changes occurring in the world’s ecosystems, quickly become dated as their authors either continue to remain silent about the ecological crisis or write about environmental changes and their impacts on cultures that are quickly surpassed by more recent changes.

Books by educational reformers that fail to acknowledge that the ecological crisis is altering the prospects of humanity in fundamental ways cease to be useful guides for how to address the new injustices that are being magnified by recent environmental changes. Their usefulness is not only limited, but becomes part of the mis-education that students encounter in other university courses that fail to address the cultural roots of the ecological crisis. But the Handbook suggests another failure. Namely, it serves as evidence of the failure of educational theorists to break out of their mutual quoting circles that share the same silences. Unfortunately, many graduate students are likely to be encouraged to consider the Handbook as a primary scholarly resource that should guide their thinking, which would again lead to reproducing the silences and misconceptions their professors learned to take-for-granted in their own years of graduate study. These may seem like overly harsh criticisms of the editors and the contributors of what must have been initially viewed as an important contribution to overcoming social injustices in society. As scientists are warning that we may have as little as a couple of decades before global warming can no longer be slowed, and as we are already witnessing with the collapse of local ecosystems the suffering and deaths of millions of people, it’s time that educational theorists be held accountable for not rethinking the orthodoxies that now make their prescriptions for addressing social justice issues so dated.

My criticisms are not directed at such sensible recommendations as hiring faculty that are representative of a multicultural society, or at the need to incorporate into the curriculum awareness of the range of social injustices—ranging from race, gender, poverty, etc., or for the need for students to learn about the systemic roots of these forms of injustice. Rather, my criticisms fall into three different categories.

First, This 774 page tome has only one reference to “ecological analysis”, and it focuses on patterns of human interaction--and not on the cultural and natural system ecologies. And the phrase “ecological crisis” appears in one sentence along with the usual list of unresolved social problems. Given that even Wal-Mart as well as other major contributors to a hyper- consumer, toxic producing lifestyle are attempting to lighten their ecological footprint, and the plethora of books addressing both the nature of the ecological crisis and ways that local communities are working to recover their traditions of mutual support and self-reliance, the reader might expect that social justice issues might be understood in a more current way. There is now a huge literature on the impact of water shortages being experienced as a result of climate change, and it would seem that this would be a critical social justice issue. In the United States alone, twenty percent of the population does not have access to clean water. World-wide, there are more people dying from the lack of potable water than are being killed in current wars. The range of toxins that are affecting the development of children, as well as the range of illnesses experienced throughout society from the thousands of synthetic chemicals used in the manufacturing process, have been the focus of attention since Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring (now in its 27th edition), and the first Earth Day held in 1970. Climate change is now recognized as responsible for the melting of ice fields that are the source of water for hundreds of millions of people, as well as the droughts that are forcing people to become environmental refugees. The regions of the United States experiencing serious droughts in the last few years are contributing to unemployment, changes in diets, and a further decline into poverty. The evidence has been available in responsible media that social injustices will expand exponentially if one considers the implications of the changes occurring in just one area of ecological degradation. Scientists, for example, are documenting that the chemistry of the world’s oceans is becoming more acidic and is having an adverse impact on the bottom of the ocean food chain upon which the fish stocks humans rely upon depend. This, combined with over-fishing, has already led to the collapse of major fisheries in different regions of the world. If the shortage of fresh water does not lead to international conflicts, the lack of ocean sources of protein will.
One has to ask why these well-publicized changes have escaped the attention of the contributors to the Handbook. If they had given any thought to the social justice issues that have been the focus of a wide range of national and international organizations, one might have expected a radical reconceptualization of the social justice issues that can be traced directly to the globalization of the western model of development. These are issues related to actual homelessness, disease, death, hunger, and the refugee status of millions that involves the loss of the ability to achieve one’s most basic potential as a human being. How does one explain the silence on the part of the contributors to the Handbook? One possible explanation can be found in the long list of books cited at the end of each chapter. Most of the citations refer to articles and books written by colleagues in the field who share a similar educational background. There are few books cited written by environmentalists, by scientists concerned with how our bodies and environments are being poisoned by our industrial/consumer oriented lifestyle, and by community activists.

Second: While the Handbook includes recommendations for achieving social justice in nine areas, the failure to address how the ecological crisis, as well as the impact of economic globalization, are expanding the list of social injustices experienced by the majority of the world’s population, leads to an excessive amount of repetition. References to the contributions and failures of past approaches to multicultural education, to the need to foster critical thinking and a transformative lifestyle, to anti-biases in curriculum materials and pedagogy, and to the need to create positive learning environments, are important. But the repetitiveness of these recommendations does not help the reader obtain an understanding of the curricular changes that can help alleviate the scale of poverty, and will provide the conceptual basis for exercising communicative competency in resisting the further commodification and monetizing of the local cultural and environmental commons that is a major contributor to poverty. Again, the contributors rely upon the formulaic prescriptions of the late twentieth century, which include more critical thinking, more concern about the plight of social groups and individuals who face a myriad forms of injustice. But the prescriptions do not translate into recommendations for how individual and community gardens can be promoted, how traditional technologies for preserving food can be intergenerationally passed along, how volunteerism and mentoring in a wide range of non monetized and mutually supportive activities can be promoted, and how to enable students to recognize the differences between their experiences in the cultural commons and market-oriented sub-cultures that will lead to the development of the communicative competence necessary for resisting the further enclosure of what remains of their non-monetized lives.
With the spread of economic globalization, colonization to a western individualistic/consumer oriented lifestyle, and the unrelenting quest for new technologies and markets, one of the dominant features of the future will be scarcity—in access to protein, to potable water and water for agriculture, to sources of a dignified and community supporting livelihood, and to the intergenerational knowledge that has enabled many cultures to achieve a degree of self-reliance without destroying the bioregions they were dependent upon. The double bind the world is now facing is that the emphasis on material progress is leading to more forms of scarcity—including the loss of intergenerational knowledge and skills that enable people to live less consumer dependent lives.

Several contributors focus on the systemic causes of social injustices, and suggest that students should be engaged in a discussion of how to bring about needed changes. However, what they miss is that students should also be encouraged to engage in auto-ethnographies of their local communities in order to identify the forms of intergenerational knowledge and skill that need to be renewed. Indeed, the possibility that critical inquiry should also lead to an awareness of what should be conserved goes unrecognized by the contributors to the Handbook. Traditions such as the gains in civil liberties, as well as recent achievements by the labor, civil rights, feminist, and now environmental movements—all essential to addressing unresolved social justice issues—need to be part of the curriculum. Passing this knowledge on to the next generation is part of the process of conserving important social justice gains. Social justice education, contrary to the impression left by some of the contributors, should not represent all traditions as being the source of oppressive. The legacy of previous social justice struggles should be part of the collective memory, as it provides evidence of the importance of collective action focused on the common good—a value that is increasingly being marginalized in our consumer and technologically addicted culture.

Third: Since both the students who are victims of social injustice, as well as those who will dedicate their lives to improving the prospects of others, will encounter mostly a middle class, consumer-oriented curriculum that may include shallow introductions to the cultures of minority groups, the following questions arise: Do the contributors to the Handbook provide guidance for recognizing how to reframe the analogs that are encoded in the vocabulary that students encounter in most areas of the curriculum? Will readers of the Handbook be able to recognize how the vocabulary in the curriculum serves as a form of linguistic colonization of the present by past thinkers who were unaware of environmental limits? Granted, social justice-oriented educators are more likely to be aware of the linguistic colonization that goes on in multicultural classrooms. But they are unlikely to be aware of the history of the analogs that frame the meaning of words in the curriculum they take-for-granted, such as “individualism”, “progress”, “traditions”, “ecology”, and so forth. Introducing students to the fact that words have a history would seem especially critical in a social justice-oriented curriculum—and there was no mention of this in the Handbook.

Nor is there any discussion of how to introduce students to the many ways in which the idea of individual intelligence is problematic—for ecological, cultural, and moral reasons. It would seem that if the contributors spent less time reading the writings of their professors and colleagues who share the same silences and historically rooted misconceptions, they might be able to focus on how to introduce their students to the many cultural alternatives that serve as evidence that intelligence is not an attribute of the autonomous individual. That is, they might understand how to introduce students to the limited ways they already exercise what can be called ecological intelligence—and the problems that arise in the students’ interpersonal relationships when they assume that the preconceived prejudices, ideas, and judgments they act upon are based on their own perceptions of reality. That is, when they ignore the differences which make a difference in their ongoing relationships with other students, parents, others in society—and in their relations with the other participants in the local and global ecological systems they are part of, their sense of being an autonomous individual (which was promoted in different ways both by Rene Descartes and by many current educational reformers) cannot help but promote further social injustice. There are many non-western examples of how the exercise of ecological intelligence fosters mutually supportive community relationships as well as how to live in more ecologically sustainable ways, but the question to be asked of social justice educators is: How do we begin to help students make the transition to exercising in a more conscious way their ecological intelligence? Somewhere in the 774 pages of the Handbook this question should have been raised, particularly since one of the major contributors to the many forms of social injustice that exist in American society is the lack of awareness of how the hyper-subjective sense of individualism and entitlement marginalizes an awareness of how one’s actions adversely impact others, including cultural groups.

Hopefully, the Handbook will be viewed by educational historians as a well-intentioned effort of educational reformers who are out of touch with the dominant realities of their times. And hopefully, these historians will possess the conceptual ability to explain the linguistic reasons that one generation that has been colonized by many previous generations succeeds in colonizing the next generations. This hope should not be interpreted as giving support to Paulo Freire's universal recommendation that each generation should rename the reality of the previous generation. The process of linguistic colonization is far more complex than he understood or his followers understand today. But this is another story—and another potential source of misunderstanding.
________________________________________________________________

Educational Controversies from Other Parts of the World. Today's Look at Thailand.

Welcome back to our blog for 2010. We thought we would start out the new year by introducing our readers to educational controversies from other parts of the world. We think a global look will help us understand ourselves better as well as acquaint us with what is going on around the world.

This morning I received an e-mail from Alain Mounier, director of research at the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD) and adviser to several governments in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. He has been teaching and carrying out research projects in Thailand for some years, and has created a research centre on education and labour (CELS) in Chiang Mai University. Along with his co-editor, Phasina Tangchuang, a senior researcher and director of the Centre for Education and Labour Studies (CELS), and an associate professor in the Faculty of Education, Chiang Mai University, he would like to announce a new book entitled Education and Knowledge in Thailand. The Quality Controversy, published by Silkworm Books.

The authors provide the following description of their book below:


This book is a comprehensive and critical account of current debates over the state of the Thai education system. Using contributions from philosophy and sciences of education--sociology, psychology, and didactic in particular--it focuses on the issue of the quality of education in Thailand, engaging especially with recent educational policy and reforms. The purpose is to contribute to the vivid and enduring national debate on this major and crucial issue and to corresponding controversies at a world level. It is an attempt to identify clichés that disguise a lack of careful thinking, to expose ideas that are merely fashionable, and to unearth implicit or hidden postulates and premises. While the authors document the dramatic quantitative expansion of Thai education, particularly in the past four decades, the major theme of the volume relates to quality issues at all levels. The authors identify four fundamental dilemmas of Thai education: 1) quantity vs. quality, 2) perennialism-postmodernism vs. progressivism, 3) work vs. education, and 4) diploma vs. knowledge. Each time the choice of the first term of each dilemma has been made quite clearly by the society and the government. Here in this choice lies the explanation of the low quality of education across the board. Quality of education could be achieved by extirpating seven important flaws in the Thai educational system: 1) inequality, 2) commodification, 3) localism, 4) vocationalism, 5) credentialism, 6) conformism, and 7) pedagogism.

Their Public Relations sheet highlights the following topics in the book:

• An original and critical scientific
analysis of the Thai education
system in historical and
comparative perspectives

• A critical look at the 1999
Education Reform

• A comprehensive survey of
education theories

• The first study of education in
Thailand using field data from the
last half-century

• A detailed analysis of the
determinants of educational
quality

• An analysis of current
impediments to educational
quality

We may provide a review of the book in our upcoming issue on "Schools Our Children Deserve." If you are interested in reviewing the book, let us know at CEP.e-Journal@wwu.edu

Essays on Ecologically Sustainable Educational Reforms

One of our authors in our current issue on "The Hidden Dimensions of Poverty: Rethinking Poverty and Education" has announced his new online book that is available for downloading as part of the "cultural commons." You can find the book, Essays on Ecologically Sustainable Educational Reforms by C.A. Bowers, by going to www.cabowers.net/ Also check out Chet Bower's article in our journal entitled, "Rethinking Social Justice Issues Within an Eco-Justice Conceptual and Moral Framework."

Below is the table of contents for the book:

Essays on Ecologically Sustainable Educational Reforms

By C.A. Bowers

Chapter 1 Making the Transition from Individual to Ecological Intelligence: The Challenge Facing Curriculum Theorists

Chapter 2 The Limitations of the Daniel Goleman/Wal-Mart View of Ecological Intelligence

Chapter 3 The Hidden Roots of Cultural Colonization in Teaching English as a Second Language

Chapter 4 Reflections on Teaching the Course “Curriculum Reform in an Era of Global Warming”

Chapter 5 University Reforms that Contribute to the Revitalization of the Cultural Commons

Chapter 6 The Environmental Ethic in Three Theories of Evolution

Chapter 7 Educating for a Sustainable Future: Mediating Between the Commons and Economic Globalization

Chapter 8 The Imperialistic Agenda of Moacir Gadotti’s Eco-Pedagogy

UPDATE: For readers who have had difficulty finding the book, here is a direct link:

http://www.cabowers.net/pdf/Book-Essays-Eco.pdf

Even Diane Ravitch has Now Changed her Mind

Diane Ravitch, who was once the great advocate for test-based accountability and other reforms so favored by our current Secretary of Education, has come to see the realities of these reforms once they are implemented in the schools. Her forthcoming book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, brings into question many of her earlier commitments. In a recent talk, Ravitch says, "Where once I had been hopeful, even enthusiastic, about the potential benefits of testing, accountability, choice, and markets, I now found myself experiencing profound doubts about the same ideas.” In explaining her change of mind, Ravitch says, “What was the compelling evidence that prompted me to reevalute the policies I had endorsed many times over the previous decade? Why did I now doubt ideas I had once advocated?” she asked. “The short answer is that my views changed because I saw how these ideas were working in reality.”

Here is the link to her recent talk that I found on the Paul Thomas' blog.


http://gothamschools.org/2009/12/18/diane-ravitch-explains-why-she-changed-her-mind-about-reform/

The Journal of Educational Controversy is planning an upcoming issue on the topic, "Schools Our Children Deserve." We hope to begin a more substantive national discussion on the purposes of our public schools. Some of today's most progressive thinkers will be contributing to the conversation.

UPDATE:

For an interesting review of the book, see: the Sunday, February 28, 2010 post,
The Death and Life of the Great American School System, on the Education Policy Blog.

If you are interested in reviewing the book for our upcoming issue, e-mail us at:
CEP.e-Journal@wwu.edu

The Zinn Education Project

Our readers may want to check out a new website called, Teaching a Peoples History -- the Zinn Education Project.

It is a collaborative effort by Teaching for Change and Rethinking Schools.

Influenced by Howard Zinn's classic book, A People's History of the United States, as well as his other works in revisionist history, this website provides educators and viewers lessons and resources for teaching a fuller, broader perspective on the history of the United States. Check it out.

“American Indians in Children’s Literature” Blog

I have been following a very informative blog that would be helpful for teachers who are trying to understand the rich cultural lives of an increasingly diverse student population in our schools. Called, “American Indians in Children’s Literature,” it helps teachers to grow in their understanding, appreciation and discernment of Native American literature. It also corrects so many of our misconceptions. Actually it goes beyond just books and says its mission is to provide "critical perspectives of indigenous peoples in children's books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society-at-large." As always, we try to bring our readers multiple perspectives on issues.

If you are aware of other resources that would expand our understanding of the cultural diversity of our students, please let us know in your comments to this blog and we will share them.