Thursday, May 31, 2012

The People Shall ... Reinventing Schools as the Commons - Bridging Differences - Education Week

The People Shall ... Reinventing Schools as the Commons - Bridging Differences - Education Week:


The People Shall ... Reinventing Schools as the Commons

Dear Diane,
One more word about The New Jim Crow. Looking back, I wonder how many of my students had someone in their immediate family in prison or on parole or who was an ex-felon, without rights. Probably most. But it was never a topic of conversation. That's the worst of it for me. Schools should be at least the one place where the great questions of life are on the table. And children have such questions as young and younger than 4—the ages I got to know best.
One has to remind oneself that there's a good reason to have public schools despite their many unnecessary faults. (And thanks, Diane, for helping us define public vs. private.) I remember when some of my left-wing 60s colleagues called for abolishing public schools. Better no school than those we have, they said. I was influenced by the fact that I had three kids in those public schools and taught in one myself. No, worse is not better.
But there is a crisis facing the world and haunting America, so to speak. Like the prison crisis for black