We're Not Even At Equality Yet | The Jose Vilson #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER #BLACKMINDSMATTER

We're Not Even At Equality Yet | The Jose Vilson

WE’RE NOT EVEN AT EQUALITY YET

A jury of Derek Chauvin’s “peers” found him guilty on all counts of murder: unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Millions reacted to this conviction in their homes, in the streets, on social media, on their own, in the company of others, or perhaps not at all. As the judge read the charges, perhaps many reacted with a sense of excitement, but folks in my circles reacted with a sense of relief and exasperation. George Floyd isn’t back so we’ll never get justice, but accountability was crucial here. Surely, this trial and the conviction would send a signal to the world that we’d find some form of accountability for these agents of the state whenever they performed as judge, jury, and executioner on a person’s life.

Then we found out that a police officer killed Ma’Khia Bryant only 800 miles away from when the conviction came down a short time after.

Therein lies the structural and deeply personal part of this conversation we need to keep having in America. Too many of us believe that simply changing the faces and phenotypes of the people entrusted to keep the social contract is enough. Too few of us see the ruse. In my heart of hearts, I do believe that much of the work we must do to make a better world rest in us doing so collectively, regardless and because of these differences that stratify us. However, the persistent lies and obfuscation we see play out in front of us lead me to believe we need a more urgent conversation than incremental solutions. Concurrently, words like CONTINUE READING: We're Not Even At Equality Yet | The Jose Vilson

Why I'm Opting My Son Out Of Standardized Testing (And You Can, Too) | The Jose Vilson

Why I'm Opting My Son Out Of Standardized Testing (And You Can, Too) | The Jose Vilson

WHY I’M OPTING MY SON OUT OF STANDARDIZED TESTING (AND YOU CAN, TOO)

Recently, my son revealed the difficulty in observing his ninth birthday. Usually joyous occasions, this past birthday was mired in nervousness over the perpetual, coordinated assaults on American ideals of democracy. Just as he was finishing online class, government representatives over 200 miles away openly opined on election malfeasance on the US Senate and House floors to the delight of former President Trump’s glee. A few minutes later, the news reports would show the waves of insurrectionists cruise into this usually impenetrable building like knives through unrefrigerated butter. His stubborn parents shook off the nonsense to center him, even as, in the back of our minds, we worried whether the insurrection at the Capitol was the first of a continuous set of actions between that moment and the inauguration of President Biden.

He’s sitting there, smile in tow, brimming at another year around the sun even as he observes the world we’ve brought him into. What, to this nine-year-old, is a learning loss?

He’s learned a lot this year. He learned how to create his own school schedule, how to advocate for himself and his learning, how to flip between several different computer programs, how to use Zoom and Google Meet depending on the Department of Education’s policies, and how to work independently while his parents navigated their own set of works. He learned how to put on his own mask, wash his hands for 20 seconds, and stay physically distant from strangers who he senses do otherwise. He’s got a larger vocabulary and can read our expressions well. He’s got a way with puns and jokes beyond what I had at his age. His CONTINUE READING: Why I'm Opting My Son Out Of Standardized Testing (And You Can, Too) | The Jose Vilson

Karen Lewis Taught Me | The Jose Vilson

Karen Lewis Taught Me | The Jose Vilson

KAREN LEWIS TAUGHT ME

“José Luis, I’m writing your foreword.”

That’s how it went. My publisher and I were brainstorming names for who would best introduce my first solo project This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education to the world. For what it’s worth, Haymarket Books let me have my vision for the book, but they nudged me in ways I didn’t know I needed. As we approached the editing phase of the book, the publisher saw how the book needed to meet the moment. So one thing lead to another and President Lewis and “Coach” John Lewis sat in [an undisclosed location] with my family (Luz and Alejandro). We made the usual introductions between family, then she stated matter-of-factly that she would have the first word in my book. I looked at Luz, then Alejandro, then Coach, then back to Karen.

I must have giggled a bit and said “Sounds like a done deal.”

By then, I had gotten used to her directness, the warm demander so lauded by Black women education scholars past and present. There I was, an up-and-coming national voice in the movement against the corporatization of public schools facing the local legend turned national hero. Our main order of business took about 30 seconds without much fanfare. Because she said so.

Of course, she also pushed me to do the work of making the book meet her expectations for greatness. I didn’t have plans to let her down even before her provocation, but now I felt the duty not just of the movement at the time, but of ancestors from centuries CONTINUE READING: Karen Lewis Taught Me | The Jose Vilson

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

Before You Must Go (The Whole Trump of You) | The Jose Vilson

Before You Must Go (The Whole Trump of You) | The Jose Vilson

BEFORE YOU MUST GO (THE WHOLE TRUMP OF YOU)

By the time this publishes, you’ll officially only have four hours left in your presidency. “Good riddance” isn’t strong enough.

For you and your cabal of fascist, racist, sexist, imperialist, homophobic, classist, seditious sycophants, I would wish your souls the agony you’ve bestowed upon the world over multifold. When the substitute teacher across the hall from me yelled your name in triumph at my Latinx and Black kids, you smirked that your name could inspire such terror. When another adult used your name in an assembly to let students know to fear him, he got explicit permission from your own ill-wrought bullying and calls to violence. When an administrator clamps down on some of the strongest advocates for kids because of their explicit anti-racism, they’re using the loopholes and laws already in our policies to displace the already marginalized, creating conditions in schools where justice feels further and further away.

Yes, having that much power revealed much of who you always were, a cultish following flanking you through every move. Every time you lied about a pandemic, every family you intentionally separated, every bit of land you stole from Native American/indigenous peoples for profit, every woman of color you targeted with a tweet or a snide comment were a framework for the millions of lives you’ve made worse for having put your hand on a Bible you never read on Capitol steps you allowed your followers to smear with feces. Time went four years forward, yet seemingly a century back.

You and your administration bragged about not starting any new wars abroad, but the walls rose against the United States to keep us CONTINUE READING: Before You Must Go (The Whole Trump of You) | The Jose Vilson

Biden must build a more equitable US education system: To A Greater Glory [National Catholic Reporter] | The Jose Vilson

To A Greater Glory [National Catholic Reporter] | The Jose Vilson

TO A GREATER GLORY [NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER]

In my latest op-ed, I wrote an article as an open letter to the Biden administration that harkened back to my Jesuit education (Nativity Mission, Xavier High). Here’s a little bit:

In this way, I’m asking us to live out our stated values politically and spiritually. If God truly lives within each of us when two or more of us are gathered, then we need to make the spaces where we gather our youth the spaces we know serve them. If we know that Jesus of Nazareth arose from squalor, then we have a duty to make our schools in our poorest districts the envy of the world in honor of the poor.

We should eradicate child poverty measures where we see them and address structural racism, xenophobia and other forms of identity oppression in our policies and practice. Yes, we can do so with culturally responsive and sustaining practices, professional development around trauma-informed learning and teaching, lowering caseloads for guidance counselors, social workers and other in-school mental health professionals, and, yes, making every public school a great school.

To read the rest, click here.

To A Greater Glory [National Catholic Reporter] | The Jose Vilson

On This Insurrection, and The Next | The Jose Vilson

On This Insurrection, and The Next | The Jose Vilson

ON THIS INSURRECTION, AND THE NEXT

I wasn’t supposed to ever forget the day because it was my son’s ninth birthday. In the middle of a pandemic, we still thought it best to keep this tradition. On the news, anchors kept reiterating that the day’s proceedings wouldn’t normally get this much attention if not for the president’s consistent obfuscation about the proceedings. One by one, he and his cronies started speaking on a podium in DC in a small picture-in-picture set-up on the bottom right corner with no audio, but the events of the day weren’t supposed to get much coverage other than a demonstration and a confirmation.

Then, the insurrection struck. Just then, the America so many of us knew came into HD view. Rogue recusants made their way with ease up the Capitol steps. The crowd thought to have dissipated after Election Day had intended on discrediting the process by any means necessary. The idea that the United States of America had ostensibly descended into a “third-world banana republic” – whatever that means – seemed to flummox many of the anchors and correspondents witnessing the red caps slide through Capitol Rotunda. The “blue lives matter” chants were not to be found as they trampled and passed by Capitol police while flashing badges of their own. As the velvet ropes widened, it became more evident that many of the police in charge of maintaining security would watch along with us, unabated and unconcerned about drawing guns the way they had at the Black Lives Matter protestors all summer.

My son, nine years old and a hundred years wise, wasn’t surprised. While no person of color belongs to a tight-knit monolith, our CONTINUE READING: On This Insurrection, and The Next | The Jose Vilson

The Lives That Chose Us (2020 Year-In-Review) | The Jose Vilson

The Lives That Chose Us (2020 Year-In-Review) | The Jose Vilson

THE LIVES THAT CHOSE US (2020 YEAR-IN-REVIEW)

In mid-September, I was knee-deep in a few readings, one for each class I had taken this fall. The readings ranged from dead white men (think Durkheim, Marx, et. al.) to the history of education, all so compelling that, for a time, I could isolate the words on the page from the specter of death, fascism, and impending doom. A global pandemic laid waste to bodies and souls by the thousands around the world. By that time, we crossed 200,000 persons dead. The United States government, specifically the Trump administration, preferred doing nothing to mitigate these passings while the figurehead teed up white golf balls and white blow horns over and again. Governments across the country doubled down on inequity, leaving the responsibility of basic survival to food banks, philanthropy, and hopeful appearances on daytime news programs. Businesses closed, some temporarily, some forever, all while citizens kept their masks off in disbelief that science – and not social media conspiracy theorists – might get us through this.

Schools opened and closed, too. Fighting ensued in either direction because we didn’t clearly map CONTINUE READING: The Lives That Chose Us (2020 Year-In-Review) | The Jose Vilson

Where Did Education Fail Us? | The Jose Vilson

Where Did Education Fail Us? | The Jose Vilson

WHERE DID EDUCATION FAIL US?

In my final reflection for the semester of my doctoral studies (don’t ask me how it’s going), I considered what it meant to get an education. Over and again in this space, I’ve considered how there’s a big difference between schooling and education. Schooling is a set of processes characterized by the desire to show students a given set of ideas and materials. Education is the learning that this process is supposed to produce. But, as is the axiom, just because someone is teaching doesn’t mean another person is learning and, what’s more, just because someone is learning doesn’t mean they’re in a place where schooling is happening.

But it also begs the more onerous question: where did education fail us?

As human beings, we’re naturally curious. From birth, we soak in a plethora of sensory information about ourselves, other people, and our surroundings. For many of us, schooling serves as a deterrent to that rendition of education because we’re introduced to what society means by education: a set of explicit and implied knowledges this society wishes to impart through multiple methods to its youngest children. But, if education starts as a process of discovery and curiosity and constricts to an ever-narrowing list of items so the student can participate on multiple levels of society, then what did this schooling do to get this country – and the world – like this?

Specifically, where did education fail us?

Anti-intellectualism may not be enough to fully describe the breadth of our world’s problems. In this country, the line of thinking asks us to believe in systems – public, private, charter, whatever – that ultimately calcify the inequity our country professes to want to CONTINUE READING: Where Did Education Fail Us? | The Jose Vilson

A New Narrative About The Secretary of Education, Too [Medium] | The Jose Vilson

A New Narrative About The Secretary of Education, Too [Medium] | The Jose Vilson

A NEW NARRATIVE ABOUT THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, TOO [MEDIUM]

For EduColor’s Medium blog, I wrote a bit more about the Secretary of Education using some inspiration from Vanessa Siddle Walker’s The Lost Education of Horace Tate, a must read:

“I’ve witnessed how the narrative of public schooling and education writ large has forced parents to run towards alternatives, even when those alternatives are often used for exploitative and racist means. Some people would have never cared for the collective well-being of public schools without the breadth of reforms put in place by No Child Left Behind/Race To The Top, leaving Black and brown kids with no options while other parents send their children to the one public school in their district that they’ve funneled their tax dollars toward. I’ve witnessed how many folks on “both” sides of the education reform camp have gone out of their way to subvert racial justice even when they ostensibly say that Black lives matter. I’ve made note of when even the most well-intentioned of us who want to bridge the divide inevitably get perceived as mascots even by those who appear supportive.

Years ago, I feared the debate would make religions out of complicated human beings to the detriment of our poorest and ignored students and communities. There are no “both sides” to this situation. There are many.”

To read more, please do follow through and click here. Share and share alike.

A New Narrative About The Secretary of Education, Too [Medium] | The Jose Vilson