As we gear up for Occupy The Tournament of Roses Parade can thoughts of occupying the Oscars be very far off? Thinking about it put me in mind of two fellow CalArtists who crashed that glamorous event nearly 25 years ago, bringing down the Hollywood 1% before it was in style.
Rahm Emanuel, whom Occupy Chicago has dubbed Mayor 1%, fired another shot at the city’s public schools this month. He's proposed to close schools, fire teachers and staff, and hand over space to private charter school operators. Photo: Chicago Teachers Union.
Rahm Emanuel, whom Occupy Chicago has dubbed Mayor 1%, fired another shot at the city’s public schools December 1. He proposed seven school closings and phase-outs, 10 “turnarounds” in which all the teachers and staff get fired, and six “co-locations,” where private charter school operators grab portions of existing public schools.
Two days later, the Chicago Teachers Union and community groups responded with a teach-in that brought 500 to a high school in South Chicago. CTU and allies pledged to fight through grassroots organizing, street mobilization, maybe even occupying schools.
Chicago communities have fought school closings for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. About 100 public schools have been shuttered since 2004, when the city’s Commercial Club unveiled its Renaissance 2010 sch
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Avalon learning space in action - kids love the ideas wall
Okay … this lesson probably commenced in my early childhood if I count the number of hospital visits from bumping into (stupidly designed) concrete telegraph poles in Auckland, slipping off high chairs to raid the top kitchen cupboards or eating poisonous plants because they looked nice. But the notion of learning by doing really took ground in 2005 when I visited the Icelandic Ministry of Education. Their motto: ‘do then think’. Why,
can be seen in this Washington Post article, just posted, from which I quote the following:
Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House has risen 2 1 / 2 times, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, rising from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars.Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the median sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.
All figures have been adjusted for inflation and exclude home equity, which is not included in
Standing up to authority is about standing up for our students, our communities and ourselves.
A few months ago I was teaching a somewhat uninspiring writing curriculum to a group of sixth graders as part of teacher training program. As young educators, participants in the training were expected to prepare original lessons from a pre-written curriculum and teach them to classes of about twenty students on a daily basis. We were observed by mentor teachers several times a week, and met with those mentors about once a week to receive feedback on our growth as aspiring teachers. Even with many great supports in place, my colleagues and I were struggling to make the curriculum our own, as well as making it engaging for our students. The program, which was private and in league with many of the standard “reform” movements of the day, put a great
