Black Reconstruction 2.0 Begins With Great Schools For Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

Black Reconstruction 2.0 Begins With Great Schools For Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

BLACK RECONSTRUCTION 2.0 BEGINS WITH GREAT SCHOOLS FOR BLACK CHILDREN

One morning during my junior year of high school, I remember my homeroom teacher saying to me in a dismissive tone that Malcolm X was a bad person. I am unsure how we got on the topic of figures in Black history, but I mentioned his name and that was the response.

That evening, I told my mom. After her phone conference with my grandmother, which was customary whenever something happened, she decided to call the school the next day. As per her rules, I called my mom when I got home from school the next day and I asked if she had spoken to my teacher. In her best Clair Huxtable cadence, she said that she did and that she promptly laid her out.

My mom then said, “It’s a shame that I had to do that. I thought that was a good school.”

The idea of a “good school” and/or a “good education” is subjective at best; such phrases are often ambiguous and open to interpretation.

I can’t help but think that a reason my father’s parents migrated from Attapulgus, Georgia to Camden, New Jersey was to find good schools and a good education for all of their CONTINUE READING: Black Reconstruction 2.0 Begins With Great Schools For Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

A Spiritual Plea to the Biden Administration: “Every Child Needs a Great School” | January | 2021 | Newsroom | Teachers College, Columbia University

A Spiritual Plea to the Biden Administration: “Every Child Needs a Great School” | January | 2021 | Newsroom | Teachers College, Columbia University

A Spiritual Plea to the Biden Administration: “Every Child Needs a Great School”

Growing up in Jesuit schools, José Luis Vilson was instructed to write the letters AMDG, signifying ad majorem Dei gloriam (“for the greater glory of God”) atop all his papers.

In a recent opinion piece in National Catholic Reporter, Vilson, a mathematics teacher and Ph.D. student in Teachers College’s program in Sociology & Education, frames the message in terms likely to resonate with educators of all faiths (or none).  “Every child needs a great school. We can't leave that up to the market,” he writes. “The Biden administration must create an educational system that allows for allocation of resources into every school regardless and because of their zip code and type. This means a system that holistically supports every school, not just financially, but spiritually as well.”

ACTIVIST AND AUTHOR Vilson heads EduColor, an organization dedicated to race and social justice issues in education. (Photo courtesy of José Luis Vilson)

Vilson, an activist, author and speaker who now heads EduColor, an organization dedicated to race and social justice issues in education, became a teacher to fulfill the “ADMG mantra” His students, from poor or working-class families like his own, “taught me and others what it meant to live out our stated values, to stand up and fight back when things didn't work out for the children we serve, and to love our work CONTINUE READING: A Spiritual Plea to the Biden Administration: “Every Child Needs a Great School” | January | 2021 | Newsroom | Teachers College, Columbia University