Shut Down Youth Prisons

Via Racewire:

Tell the State Commission on Juvenile Justice: Shut It Down!

On September 25th, the State Commission on Juvenile Justice — the agency in charge of setting the direction for the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) — will consider following the Little Hoover recommendation and closing the DJJ. The Commissioners need to know there is public support for this plan.

Please take a moment to tell your story or describe why you support shutting down the DJJ

This is definitely extremely important – and prison justice is definitely related to education justice.

For more information on the criminalization of youth – and especially its relation to how (the lack of) access to free education and learning tools is used to continue to keep historically oppressed people behind bars and dependent on the prison system – check out the HBO documentary Juvies. (I used this movie to introduce teenagers at North Star: Self-Directed Learning in Hadley, MA about the prison system and youth to great success. I’ll be blogging about this shortly.)

More info: The Real Cost of Prisons Project. Get Involved: National List of Books to Prisoners Programs

North Star Is A Place For Liberated Learners

I teach (and by default learn) at North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens, and it is one of my favorite places to be. The excitement and enthusiasm for learning and do-ing there is infectious and inspiring. Based in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, it is a community learning center for teens who have left school for one reason or another. Recently an article about it was published online, so I thought I’d share it with you here. Here’s an excerpt:

Elizabeth arrives at 9:00 and together we go upstairs to the tiny room with comfortable chairs, a bookcase, art postcards on the walls. We walk past a few other teenagers who are curled up reading, or sprawled out on the couches getting the morning sleep that they missed at home because they wanted to grab the ride that would get them here early. We smile good morning at the small group about to begin its arcane discussion of Logic principles. It’s still quiet here at this hour, but there’s a nice feeling of easing into the day.

Elizabeth and I talk for a few minutes about where she is in the story she’s writing and what might happen next. She spends some time writing a new scene, offers to show me what she’s written, and we talk some more.

The day continues like this, with me welcoming one teenager after the other into this small, comfortable room. There’s Christopher, who has hated school since kindergarten and whose writing and reading aren’t at grade level; here he dictates his writing, and listens as I read aloud, finally getting a chance to absorb a book that challenges and moves him. There’s Josephine, who doesn’t just talk about writing a novel but actually works on it several hours a day; there’s Jackie, who declares that she isn’t good at anything academic but will offer astute observations and analyses if you toss the right questions her way. And once a week, in a larger room across the hall, there’s the workshop of young writers, ranging in age from 14 to 17, who come together to write.

This is my particular corner of North Star, a resource center that offers an alternative to middle and high school for teenagers in Western Massachusetts. As its literature says, North Star makes homeschooling a viable option for any interested teenager in the geographic area…

Read the full article here.

Teaching Imperialism, Colonialism, and Racism in United States History: A Board Game About Columbus

Edit: Oops, apparently there was a broken link on this post. It has been fixed now.

The history of Columbus is a turbulent one – and the way we are traditionally taught (and teach) about him is a way built into imperialism, racism, and is European-centric. Our nationally-supported tale of Columbus ignores his impact on the Native Americans he encountered and builds up a false mythology around him that we still worship today. Below is a board-game I crafted in order to help combat this. It is important to note that this game still has some problems and that it should not be regarded as an attempt to be the only way to teach about the history of Columbus. This game is still from the perspective of Columbus and Europeans, as most history of Columbus are, but that is because this game/learning tool is based off of the question: “We have a national holiday named after Christopher Columbus, which means we are supposed to view Columbus as a hero and that we should emulate his actions. So, what were his actions and would we want to live up to them? Would he be a hero to us? To all people?” This does not mean that this learning tool is an endorsement of Columbus – far from it. It just asks learners to take on the role of Columbus and see if his actions and impacts would be what they would view as heroic and good. However, I’m currently attempting to develop a teaching/learning tool that tells the same tale of Columbus’s arrival while the learners take on the role of the American Indians.

I should note a couple more things. First, this game was designed to be counter the traditional tales of pro-imperialism, pro-colonialism, pro-racism, and so on that compile the regular histories told of Columbus. It was also designed to show the impact of Columbus’s arrivals and actions on the rest of the world (including the Americas) and not just Europe – again, a habit of traditional history-telling. However, there was a couple of pit-falls that I fell into when I crafted this activity that I realized too late. The game does not provide a space to show learners how they can go on and continue their learning on the subject elsewhere. This makes the game semi-dogmatic. I have constructed a follow up activity to this game that can be used for that purpose, and that helps teach learners how to challenge and think critically about dogmatic histories – I will post this shortly.

On to the game – (OR You can download the maps, instructions, and game pieces HERE and the cards for the game HERE).

Activity: The Arrival of Columbus and The Importance of it Today

• Goal of this activity: To understand what the arrival of Columbus to the Americas meant to the entire world and the lasting impact it has had on us today, through an experiential process.

• Materials Needed: A board, paper, scissors, glue, writing utensil, change

• Participants: 1-4 per game board (or can make several boards and do it with more participants).

• Time Needed: 70-90 minutes

Slow-Posting This Week

Hey there, everyone. I just wanted to let you know that there’s going to be very slow posting this week. I’m in the middle of moving and I’ve just started an 8-day job that’s almost all day long, so I’m not going to have much extra time on my hands. However, you can look forward to book discussions on A People’ History of the American Empire and The Mismeasure of Man coming as soon as possible!

UPDATE: So, it turned out there was no posting for this week. Sorry, the job was a lot crazier than I suspected. But we’ll be back in full swing starting Tuesday, September 2nd.

The Passive Teacher vs. The Undogmatic Teacher

As summer winds down and I’m gearing up to start teaching again, I’ve begun to think more about what it means to be an undogmatic teacher. In the past we’ve brought it up on this blog, but while re-reading portions of John Holt’s Instead of Education and listening to “I Want To Do This All Day” (in this case specifically track 14) – I feel I have in the past partially fallen into the trap of being passive in an attempt to not force my views on those I’m teaching.

Now, what I mean here by a passive teacher (specifically in the radical learning movement) is a teacher who is just there for the pickings: who simply answers the questions/demands of the learners, who doesn’t think up ideas and try to work on projects/goals alongside students, who simply shares information and hides their views on such matters, who doesn’t ask anything of their students, and who doesn’t establish personal guidelines on how they work alongside individuals and groups. This can often be misinterpreted for being undogmatic. Yet, in reality, it is a passive approach to teaching and does not impart motivation onto the learners for taking their learning into their own hands – nor does it respect them as free, naturally learning people who can make their own rational decisions. (And it probably subconsciously teaches them that.) This is the same trap that the federal school system falls into, but instead of forcing students to follow unexplained and arbitrary rules, this approach implies that nothing is expected of the learners and that they have full control over the teachers (and thus by default, other people in their lives). This also ultimately leads to boredom and a lack of cooperation in learning.

“I Want To Do This All Day” – A Radio Documentary About Free Schools and Radical Learning

I Want To Do This All Day is a radio documentary about free schools and radical learning spaces in the United States. I’ve read a lot on the topics of free schools and radical learning, but this is by far one of the best discussions on these topics that I have ever been privy too. Not only is it an incredible illustration of what free schools and radical learning centers are, but it’s also a bold critique of what they could still be.

Here’s a description from their website:

In March and April of 2006, we visited 23 free schools, community centers, after school programs, summer camps, skill shares, charter schools and private schools. We interviewed students, parents and teachers about their experiences with creating and sustaining radical learning spaces. We define this as non-compulsory, non-coercive physical spaces set up for various types of learning and projects. The documentary outlines a history of both conventional and radical education, explores peoples definitions of learning, highlights some interesting spaces as examples, identifies major themes common between spaces, and addresses the role of these spaces in the wider movement for social change.

The documentarians fill this dialog with their own voices, songs, the voices of students, radical teachers, change-makers, and more. They also don’t hesitate to point out something that we’ve been discussing on this blog: the need for free schools (and other radical-learning centers) to be more dedicated to those who are not of privileged backgrounds (track 13 discusses this in length) – this includes those who have mental disabilities. However, it also discusses in length some free schools that were specifically designed for people of non-privileged backgrounds (The Albany Free School, The Met School, and The Making Changes Freedom School).

There’s a lot in this radio documentary: from the history of compulsory schools (an amazing and brief track), to discussions with current participants in the radical learning movement, from problems in the free schooling movement, to what they could adopt from public (federal) schools, to what radical learning is, to what radical learners are doing, from how radical learners/teachers are shaping our world today, to how radical learning can become a sustainable movement, and so much more. Below I’ve listed the tracks of the radio documentary, but check back soon and there might be a .zip file to download that contains all of the tracks.

1. Setting Up
2. Unraveling Radical Learning
3. Problems in Education Today
4. History of Compulsory Schools
5. Redefining Learning
6. Reinventing Education
7. The Albany Free School
8. Olympia Community Free School
9. Making Changes Freedom School
10. Not Back To School Camp
11. The Met School
12. Purple Thistle Center
13. Themes in the Movement 1
14. Themes in the Movement 2
15. Motion and Change
16. Wrapping Up

After the jump is a much more in-depth explanation from their website.

Recognizing Days of Anti-Oppression in U.S. History

There are many days in our calendar when the United States has an official or unofficial day of remembering important people in the development of the United States. There are some good (read: Martin Luther King, Jr.) and some bad (read: Christopher Columbus) that we are asked to remember and celebrate. However, the histories of these figures are usually distorted into two-dimensional memories. In our national celebration, we are taught that Christopher Columbus “discovered” the “new world” and that he “made all of this possible.” If it is mentioned at all, it is only mentioned in passing, that Columbus’s arrival to the Americas marked the beginning of an orchestrated genocide, slavery, and oppression of entire peoples (in addition to the spread of diseases that some historians estimate killed up to 90% of American Indians that were inhabiting the continents). As well, Martin Luther King, Jr. is painted as a pure pacifist who gave great speeches and put on some marches – instead of a community organizer, an educator, an agitator, whose views and rebellions took different shapes and tones throughout time. In short, we are left with historical figures without any histories – just figures that were stagnant in history. Often (but of course not always) these people are told in cut and paste stories. Their complex histories, the nuances, the controversies and conflicts, the true impact of their actions, the movements that they were part of, and so much more are all lost in the attempt to tell a singular, national story.

The Modern Learning Exchange

Ever since I read about the Learning Exchange in John Holt’s Instead of Education, I have been fascinated with the idea. The Learning Exchange was started during the 1970’s by two folks in Evanston, Illinois (close to my home town) who had been greatly influenced by Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society.

The premise of the Learning Exchange was simple, but very promising. It was based off of the idea that information generally controlled by “higher institutions” is also held amongst ordinary everyday people, but just that there is no structured way for people to share this information – and thus the monopoly of knowledge remains within the institutions. The folks who started the Learning Exchange thought that if such a structure were put into place, where ordinary people could share knowledge and teach one another, the people would take advantage of such a possibility. And they were right.

The Learning Exchange began with the notion that everyone has something to teach and something they want to learn. They worked by asking people to offer something they could teach and something they wanted to learn (a pair). For the sake of this, let’s say an individual wanted to learn biology and knew/could teach Spanish. This individual would call the Learning Exchange’s toll free number and see if there was a match (someone who knew Biology and wanted to learn Spanish). These two individuals would be put in contact with one another and then would teach/learn their knowledge. Extremely simple, but it exploded all across Chicago.

Audio Links for 08/08/08

Here are some pretty cool audio links that I’ve been listening to over the past couple of days:

• Creating a Learning Co-Op from the Radio Free School. You can download or stream it here (to download for mac computers: ctrl+click and choose save file as).

This is a very interesting discussion with the author of Creating a Cooperative Learning Center, Katharine Houk. I’d never heard of this book before, but now I’m very intrigued to read it. The interview is a brief overview of the author’s story of how she, other unschoolers, and homeschooling families developed a cooperative learning center in New York, how it functions, and how it has developed over time. The book apparently is the same thing (but more in depth) and plus materials and guidelines on how to set up the cooperative learning center, how to organize it, how to advertise for it, and lot’s of other day-to-day stuff you need to do. Seems very cool – I plan on checking it out. Has anyone else ever heard of it?

• Voices from a People’s History of the United States – performed at Mount Holyoke College with Howard Zinn. Download: Part 1, Part 2. (Same downloading instructions for mac).

Now, this is a really awesome performance from readings of the book Voices from a People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, students of Mount Holyoke college, and other community members of Western Massachusetts. Not only is it a phenomenal history lesson, but an amazing and moving thing to hear. Listen to it while riding a bike, or driving, or walking, or working, or whatever – but I really recommend it. (Also: it was a benefit for Jobs with Justice – so I feel like I should plug that).

Making Free Schools Reliable Tools Not Just For The Privileged: Part 2 (More Questions and Solutions)

So, I’ve been having some trouble writing this specific post – not because I don’t have anything to say, but because there’s so much to discuss on this topic, and I just didn’t know where to begin. Because of that, I’m not going to try to address everything regarding these issues just with one post (I think that would be foolish to attempt, anyway). Instead, I want this to become an ongoing discussion on this blog. Last week, I asked: “[H]ow can free schools (or the acts of unschooling and free schooling) be developed so that they are not just useful for the privileged – and be made accessible and useful for all people?” I also asked what issues of privilege do free schools face. Commentors (commenters?) had some wonderful feedback and brought up some great points. Here are some highlights:

Lydia said:

in answer to your question, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the most obvious- making the free school actually free of cost. but also making them seem really legitimate. maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like a person of a higher class might not hold something like a diploma in as high regard as a person of a lower class, maybe because they don’t need it as much to access things like jobs or status.

Grace brought up:

I would say that there are a few obstacles to implementing free-schooling programs in communities that are under-privileged (I hate that word). The biggest obstacle to free-schooling in general (as far as I can tell from my conversations) is a lack of confidence and trust on the part of many parents. They either lack the confidence to facilitate such an educational choice, or they lack the trust that would let them allow their children to pursue their own education. Most parents just don’t believe that self-education is something that will happen without prompting (usually in the form of cajoling and/or blackmail). [...]

I guess my first thought would be some kind of collective/communal alternative education center. Sharing solves a lot of problems. People could donate some of their time and money, and by pooling resources their children could opportunities for free education. The first obstacle would be convincing people that their children could truly benefit from such an education, as compared to the more usual school approach

Cvslevy had this to say:

I want to second the idea that lack of confidence by parents is a major challenge— especially in poor and working class communities. As someone who has spent time working with adult education on the West Side of Chicago, I know this well.

What these parents have observed and experienced is that for their children to overcome the burdens of race and/or class , they need to become better educated and work harder than their counterparts in more affluent communites who have the whole range of options in front of them.

For white and/or more affluent people, the opportunities are there for the taking. That is part of what is meant by “privilege.”

It appears that there is a general theme for today: People from privileged backgrounds already have loads of options open to them, and a degree (high school, college, etc.) is not necessarily a deal-breaker for them to get the kind of job, experience, or life they’re looking for. A diploma, “official” education, or a degree is the norm and their world of options are not necessarily limited by not getting these. This is not true for folks who are not of the same privileged background. The large numbers of people who are oppressed via either institutionalized and cultural racism, class barriers, sexism, and all the other oppressions that are so (historically and presently) ingrained into our systems of living, governance, and development do not have the same access to such “standards” of the privileged (the diplomas and degrees).