Posts in Category Social Justice

Democracy at Risk? Ask the Kids!

Editor's Note: Laura Stine is a member of IDEA's Advisory Board and a guest blogger. In this post, she responds to the recent exposure of a school district that used webcams to spy on students. She refers to a blogger with the screen name "Brainwrap" on the political opinion website The Daily Kos, which calls its blogs "diaries."

The other day, I made a suggestion in the comments of Brainwrap's excellent diary (2/22/10) on the latest developments in the evolution of the Pennsylvania school district tale known in the Daily community as ‘WebCamGate.' In short, the district is being sued by the parents of a student who was disciplined by his school for something he must have done in his...

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Posted on Feb 26, 2010 - 01:20 AM by Laura Stine

Uncle Sam Wants YOU… and he’s waiting in the cafeteria

He stood there like a statue -- dressed head to foot in the full uniform of a United States Marine. His hands were behind his back with unmatched pride. He stood behind a table that was sitting in the middle of my cafeteria. The banner on the front of the table read "Marine Recruits."

Another man, slightly older, stood beside him, also in uniform. My peers looked curiously over at the table, and most of them wandered over and talked to the two men. The kids asked them questions and looked through all of the material the men had brought.

Later, I talked to one of my friends, who had gone over to talk to the recruiters. He announced that he had decided that day to join the Marines. I...

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Posted on Feb 15, 2010 - 06:16 PM by Claire Russell

The ABC’s of School Success

On Feb. 1, President Obama vowed to toss out the nation’s current school accountability system and replace it with a more balanced scorecard of school performance that looks at student growth and school progress.

I love the idea. Mr. Obama and education secretary Arne Duncan have repeatedly criticized the No Child Left Behind Act for keeping the “goals loose but the steps tight.” On their watch, both men aspire to introduce a new law that keeps the “goals tight but the steps loose.”

With that more flexible standard in mind, I have a scorecard to propose: the ABC’s of School Success. It provides both structure and freedom by identifying five universal measurement categories—Achievement, Balance, Climate, Democratic Practices and Equity—and letting individual schools chose which data points to track under each category.

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Posted on Feb 12, 2010 - 08:27 AM by Dana Bennis

Howard Zinn: One of the Great Democratic Educators

"The interchange between student and teacher, the free inquiry that is promulgated in the classroom, a spirit of equality in the classroom, to me that is part of a democratic education." - Howard Zinn

This week, the world said goodbye to Howard Zinn, an award-winning writer, activist, professor, and role model for democratic educators. He was 87.

Zinn dedicated his life to promoting true democracy and social justice through education and action. Although he spoke and wrote extensively on the injustices that humans have inflicted upon each other, throughout history and in the present, he never lost hope for a more peaceful world.

In one of his last interviews, Zinn said that he wanted...

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Posted on Jan 30, 2010 - 03:10 PM by Melia Dicker

Teacherken on Linda Darling-Hammond’s New Book

I've followed Teacherken's writings on education for a couple of years now. Teacherken (Kenneth J. Bernstein, a teacher in the DC metro area) is one of the most outspoken voices advocating for more personalized and democratic education, writing on the popular Daily Kos blog. In a post written this past weekend, he reviews educator and author Linda Darling-Hammond's new book, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future, a great book I just picked up last week. As Teacherken explains, Darling-Hammond provides us with a strong argument to significantly change the direction of education in this country away from more tests and standardization...

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Posted on Jan 25, 2010 - 10:22 AM by Dana Bennis

Working for Freire’s “True Word”

Paolo Freire writes, "Human existence cannot be silent nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world."

Our man, Freire, is calling us out--PUT YO' MONEY WHERE YO' MOUTH IS! Words without reflection are pointless. Words without action are likewise pointless. It is only when we balance our words with reflection and action that we can call ourselves thinkers and transformers. (Sigh. Where are the Freires of the world? 'Cause I'm single and ready to mingle! If you're there--mouths silently--call me.)

All kidding aside, this is exactly what I have moved to implement in my classroom--a movement from thoughts and words to...

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Posted on Jan 18, 2010 - 06:26 PM by Ammerah Saidi

The Plans of Mice and Men

My friend and partner, Khadigah Alasry, in the fight to make education real again, developed a vision for a model of reform last year. We started presenting this model within the U.S. and over the internet. We've been invited to present in Dublin, the Cayman Islands, Hawaii, Dubai, Paris, and other places but due to our lack of funds and now time, we have had to kindly decline.

We developed this model for educational reform while I was out of the classroom for a year and Khadigah had just graduated from undergrad with her newly minted teacher's certificate. For a nine minute synopsis of our model, watch our video:




This video summarizes my vision for my return to the classroom. My...

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Posted on Jan 11, 2010 - 08:04 PM by Ammerah Saidi

Remembering Hope & Joy

I am currently on vacation in Nicaragua, and while I have been doing a lot of thinking, I have not been doing very much writing, as is wont to happen from time to time. And with thinking inevitably comes questioning. So what better place to explore some of those questions than here?

I'll begin with a story. I spent the last four days on a small hostel/ranch/community center/aspiring eco-destination called Rancho Esperanza in the isolated fishing village of Jiquilillo. The owner of the ranch, Nato (Nate), was born in Maine and has been involved with the village for eleven years, living there full time for the last eight.

Six years ago Nate began an after school program for the youth of...

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Posted on Dec 27, 2009 - 02:41 PM by Jonah Canner

Painting The Landscape

Think “landscape” and you might visualize an expansive nature scene, or maybe the nitty-gritty workings of the political landscape. Perhaps you think of the act of landscaping in terms of developing a park or other area. For the purposes of this blog, the landscape metaphor refers to all of this and more.

The Landscape is a blog for IDEA staff, board, and advisory board members to reflect on the bigger picture in education today, from philosophy to practice and policy to pedagogy. We'll report on exciting ideas, schools, and changes toward the development of a more deeply democratic educational experience for young people. We'll also share stories from our personal experiences as...

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Posted on Nov 23, 2009 - 10:28 AM by Dana Bennis

Using the Master’s Tools

My first week into teaching after my year in graduate school, I was filled with grand ideas and ideals as to what I would do in my classroom to help my students liberate themselves from the intellectual shackles of US public education. I entered my classroom and my school with the belief that my students and I would revolutionize the educational experience in Detroit forever--no hyperbole intended. This is how deeply I believed in my students and their potential to be positive change agents in a world which deemed them failures or equally insulting, average at best.

Critical pedagogy was my tool of choice: an educational philosophy accredited to the late Paolo Freire, which...

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Posted on Nov 01, 2009 - 06:47 PM by Ammerah Saidi