THE BECOMING RADICAL
EMPATHYEDUCATES!
the becoming radical
A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness
by
Margaret Fuller: “I find no intellect comparable to my own”
“Men disappoint me so,” Margaret Fuller shared in a letter (21 February 1841) to Reverend William Henry Channing. Born on May 23, 1810, Fuller was a contemporary of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, notable for what I believe is my favorite comment by Fuller: “I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.” The only known daguerreotype
“most people of high intellect have sought to serve power and not critique or question it”
“The Role of the Intellectual – An Analysis,” Lawrence Davidson, Truthout, Speakout
MAY 22
REVIEW: An Untamed State, Roxane Gay
Toward the final pages of Roxane Gay‘s An Untamed State, the primary narrator, Mireille, admits about her response to the earthquake in Haiti in the wake of her own personal horror of being kidnapped and repeatedly raped and tortured over thirteen days of captivity: “We sent money instead and it was then I felt like a true American” (p. 345). When Margaret Atwood writes about Canada, she is also w
Segregation not about Proximity, but Equity
For several years, I have been showing Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later in both my introductory education course and an interim educational documentaries course at the selective private university where I teach. Two scenes address the contemporary realities of lingering segregation within the walls of historic Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas: the school principal announcing mix-up day ove
MAY 21
RECOMMENDED: Vonnegut’s Graduation Speeches and Drawings
Small and unexpected resurrections of a kind help lighten the weight of the inevitable consequence of aging, those losses of people and things that you know must happen but you regret nonetheless. One such loss for me was when the group R.E.M. called it a day. So it is fitting that I sit writing these recommendations while listening to Unplugged 1991 2001, a beautiful and bittersweet resurrection
MAY 20
Post-apocalyptic Mindset in a Civilized World
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau, Walden Since October 1999, when I experienced several weeks of unrelenting panic attacks, I have been negotiating my lifelong struggle with anxiety—many of those years spent completely unaware of the problem and then coming to recognize and even understand a condition that to most people seems completely irrational (even silly
“A Sustained Critique of the Entire System”
Please read and consider carefully: The Master’s House Is Burning: bell hooks, Cornel West and the Tyranny of Neoliberalism
MAY 18
Free Reading Redux
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollak 1904 Paul Horton at Anthony Cody’s blog has offered a third installment of his defense of reading, recommending: David Mikics, a Professor of English at the University of Houston, has recently written a very good book on this issue, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age (2013). As reading and English teachers grappl
Autonomy Must Precede Accountabilty
Nearly 2.5 years ago, I wrote directly about the essential flaw with the thirty-plus-years accountability movement in K-12 U.S. public education. That essential flaw is that accountability built on standards and high-stakes testing is a corruption of the concept of accountability—which may be better understood as “responsibility.” The corrupted “accountability” imposed on students, teachers, and s
Segregation not about Proximity, but Equity
In this April. 1, 2011 photo, New York City fifth graders enter PS321, a public elementary school in the Brooklyn Borough of New York. New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no […]
Getting A College Degree Won’t Protect Black Workers From The Economy’s Racial Barriers
AP Photograph | Carolyn Kaster By Bryce Covert Originally Published at Think Progress. May 20, 2014 AT 3:57 PM The unemployment rate for black workers has been significantly higher than for white workers since government data has been collected. But despite the fact that college graduates fare […]
Enforcing School Dress Codes Teaches Girls to be Ashamed, Not ‘Modest’
We need to stop telling girls that their existence is problematic to men. Photograph: Alamy By Jessica Valenti | Originally Published at The Guardian. May 21, 2014 Now that the warm weather is here, everyone is happily boxing away sweaters and breaking out their summer clothes. But […]
MAY 21
Post-Apocalyptic Mindset in a Civilized World
Photograph; Appalachian Children. Tumblr. By Paul L. Thomas, Ed.D. | Originally Published at the Becoming Radical. May 20, 2014 Since October 1999, when I experienced several weeks of unrelenting panic attacks, I have been negotiating my lifelong struggle with anxiety—many of those years spent completely unaware of […]
Evidence that the Meritocracy is Made Up of Poor People
By Paul Buchheit | Common Dreams. May 19, 2014 Many wealthy Americans believe that dysfunctional behavior causes poverty. Their own success, they would insist, derives from good character and a strict work ethic. But they would be missing some of the facts. Ample evidence exists to show […]
MAY 20
High School Dropout Rate Depends on Mentorship, Study Finds
Photograph; Luis Mateo and Kasandra Vega, who both left high school without a degree, are involved in the culinary program of the United Teen Equality Center, in Lowell, Mass. | Evan Richman / For NBC NEWS rom the moment Luis E. Mateo started high school in Lowell, […]
MAY 19
How Charter Schools and Testing Regimes Have Helped Re-Segregate Our Schools
Photographic Credit; Chris Hondros/Getty By Sally Kohn | Originally Published at The Daily Beast. May 16, 2014 Sixty years ago tomorrow in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public education is unconstitutional, writing that “in the field of […]
The Origins of “Privilege”
Photograph courtesy Peggy McIntosh. By Joshua Rothman | Originally Published at The New Yorker. May 13, 2014 The idea of “privilege”—that some people benefit from unearned, and largely unacknowledged, advantages, even when those advantages aren’t discriminatory —has a pretty long history. In the nineteen-thirties, W. E. B. […]
MAY 18
School Closures: A New Version of Separate and Unequal
Photograph; Students walk through the Loop March 25, 2013, to protest plan to close 50 Chicago elementary schools. | Scott Olson/Getty Images By Jitu Brown And Debra Jones| Originally Published at The Root. May 18, 2014 Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. […]
When Racism Slips Into Everyday Speech
Generic image | THINKSTOCK By The Root Staff | Originally Published at ,/em>The Root. May 15 2014 3:00 AMA recent NPR story revealed the disturbing and shockingly racist origins of the catchy jingle played from ice cream trucks around the country. What else are we hearing—or saying—that […]
Recall That Ice Cream Truck Song? We Have Unpleasant News For You
By Theodore R. Johnson, III | Originally Published at National Public Radio. May 11, 2014″N*gg*r Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!” merits the distinction of the most racist song title in America. Released in March 1916 by Columbia Records, it was written by actor Harry C. Browne […]