Progressives Engaged in Struggle Support Network Meeting October 24, 2004 Bellarmine Universtiy

This reflection/recap on our last gathering is, again, an evolving document for which I invite feedback/additions/other perspectives.

14 members of the Network were present and were graciously hosted by friend and colleague, Doug Gibson, along with his partners at Austins.

After turning down the AC and ordering, we, once again, introduced ourselves as a couple of new members joined us and a couple of long time members, busy with new positions and everything else that is going on in the world, returned to us. We talked about why we do what we do, as teachers and social workers, and knowingly or unknowingly talked about the change we want to be in the world, foreshadowing Milton’s theorizing regarding our need to revolutionize consciousness.

Our initial conversation focused on the upcoming vote on Tuesday and whether or not the candidates (the only two who have received any coverage) are really all that different when it comes to education. Of course, they both support NCLB—one just favors funding it. Arguments were made that perhaps Kerry could be persuaded that the legislation and the research that went into it are flawed, since he has shown a proclivity to actually think about things and shift his position based on counsel. Additionally, it was suggested that Kerry might assuage some of the peripheral injustices/hardships/issues that directly impinge on our lives as teachers and the lives of the children (and their families) in our classrooms: jobs, health insurance, security, welfare, etc. While the choices may not be all that exciting (between the two candidates), I, along with most, believed the choice to be pretty clear.

We skirted around issues of Freire’s chapter 4, but certainly dealt with the spirit of what he was after in terms of his concept of anti-dialogical action. It was pretty clear that critical thinking is generally frowned upon in schools (and society) today. While those teachers present certainly, subversively perhaps, work to bring critical thinking into their classrooms, it tends to go against the manipulative grain of focusing more on dress codes, whose going to the bathroom, and delivering the core content.

According to Freire, “People are fulfilled only to the extent that they create their world and create it with transforming labor” (p. 126 in my text, in Divide and Rule Section). Sounds like critical thinking and teaching students to “read the word and the world.” However, Freire continues, “Dividing in order to preserve the status quo, then, is necessarily a fundamental objective of antidialogical action. . . The dominators try to present themselves as saviors.” Sounds like bringing freedom to the Middle East or creating NCLB to fix all of the problems of society: jobs, healthcare, etc. Even further, Freire argues, “Since it is necessary to divide the people in order to preserve the status quo and thereby the power of the dominators, it is essential for the oppressors to keep the oppressed from perceiving their strategy. So the former must convince the latter that they are being “defended” against the demonic action of marginals (e.g., Michael Moore, activist judges, MoveOn.org, etc.), rowdies, and enemies of God” (p. 127). They do this through propagating the myths (a list of 15 of them in the Conquest section), delivering “prescriptions” (as Freire calls them), resulting in Gramsci’s “hegemony.”

And, sadly, we still also buy into some of these prescriptions, myself definitely included, because, as the middle class, we are torn between allowing the “dominators” to get away with what they get away with (maybe a $300-$1000 tax cut is pretty good, huh? Or, maybe I’ll be rich someday. Or, how else could we do things? Or, …whatever), and knowing, as part of that way less than 1% of the world’s population—Gramsci’s organic intellectuals or Freire’s revolutionary leaders—that change is necessary, can happen, and may begin with us. It’s a tough spot to be in, but our consistent striving for conscientization, our evolving revolution of consciousness as teacher, mother, father, sister, brother, partner, world’s citizen, etc. is critical to that change we want to be in the world.

We, again, returned to the idea that we need to begin implementing some of these ideas, in the form of our own school, or one that is inhabited by a critical number of us.

This said, we need to begin to look ahead to the remainder of our meetings this semester and beyond.

For our next meeting, November 10, we’ll plan to finish chapter 4 in Freire and discuss his dialogical action. For our next meeting, let’s plan to meet in Lenihan at 8:30. We’ll probably meet in the conference room, here, or a bigger room, if necessary.

For our final two meetings of the semester (December 1 in Lenihan and December 12 at Jon Lee’s house), I would really like to begin looking ahead to our action as a Network: linking up with FairTest and other organizations to challenge NCLB and standardized testing writ large, becoming a non-profit, creating a blog, forming a local educational political party, creating a full service school, letter writing campaigns, conferences, papers, etc.

In the meantime, if you haven’t checked out the latest issue of Rethinking Schools, I would highly recommend it—lots of good pieces in there. And, we should still talk about the profile of a progressive, considering, if we created or inundated a school with like-minded folks, what would those like minds/personalities/agendas be like?

Adam Renner, Ph.D

PrESS Network Meeting October 6, 2004 Bellarmine University

This reflection/recap on our last gathering is, again, an evolving document for which I invite feedback/additions/other perspectives.

12 members of the Network were present, many, again, worn-out from a long day and a long first six weeks in the schools.

Informal conversations quickly converged into a whole group discussion on the issue of the impending strike. There tended to be some mixed feeling on the strike, not necessarily in terms of issues of occupational justice, but rather the issue of leaving our community of children in the classroom. We also did, though, problematize the issue of occupational justice, sifting through the various public perceptions of teaching, teachers, and education; thinking about how much (and, in some cases, how well) teachers are paid; considering our level of education and the professional status that would be awarded in other professions; and empathizing that health care costs are going up for everyone. Since I still find good benefits (health and retirement) to be part of the implicit social contract with teachers—our negotiation in accepting lower wages given society’s patriarchal control over the profession—I fear an outcome that does not strongly challenge the governor on this issue. Teachers will never recover these benefits if they lose them now. (I’ve included a link here to a recent piece from Rich Gibson of the Rouge Forum: http://www.pipeline.com/~rougeforum/justicedemands.html, regarding teaching and justice. You might find Rich to be a little radical for your taste, but I think he is a pretty engaging guy and have published in his Rouge Forum Newsletter. At the very least, he provides some food for thought.)

We moved from here into a discussion of one of what Freire would term this historical moment’s “generative themes:” governmental spending. This is clear from the presidential debates. One party favors more social spending (in terms of health, education, and welfare) and the other favors more corporate spending (military, corporate tax incentives, and large tax cuts for the wealthy). Our decision in this election (both at the presidential level and at the congressional and local level) will very much be about spending and about how we will support the (to varying degrees) democratic institutions of education, health, and social welfare.

We also dipped into, then, one of my favorite issues: purposes of education. It is pretty clear that the purpose today is an economic one, focused on getting a job. Since we can’t all have big corporate jobs, a system has been created to stratify the workforce. Tracking and de facto segregation of schools (through magnet programs and the like) are pretty clear indicators that economics is the agenda. We also talked about NCLB and critical thinking and wondered to what extent critical thinking still takes place in school (and if it is even valued). What would happen if we educated students to think critically?

Finally, and interestingly, our conversation circled back to the original impetus of the group, suggested by Alex and Jason: maybe we should start our own school. Or, at the very least, we thought about how we could get a critical mass of progressive educators into one school in order to help transform it. We reflected on the possibility of a charter school, but seemed to have general agreement that the best scenario is to do this in the public arena. We also threw in the idea of a full-service school, to which I have included a link (http://www.saee.bc.ca/art2000_2_2.html) that talks to what these schools are up to. To carry forward, it was suggested that we begin discussing the profile of the progressive educator and, in the spirit of full service schools, other community actors (social workers, counselors, etc.). What is the philosophy and pedagogy of the progressive educator? What are the qualities of teachers and other cultural workers with whom you’d like to be engaged in the struggle? Your feedback is strongly encouraged on this strand before we meet again.

Nothing was discussed regarding obtaining non-profit status, but it is something we should continue to look into.

Our next meeting is Sunday October 24. The time and place are yet to be determined, but I will get back to you shortly. We’ve decided to read the first part of Chapter 4 through Freire’s section on anti-dialogical action. We should continue to read Freire, particularly this section of the text, in light of the upcoming election and the tactics of the oppressor to divide and conquer. (And, this tactic is bipartisan.)

We’ll conclude Freire at the 11/10 meeting and then I suggest we use our last two meetings of the semester, 12/1 and 12/12, to begin mapping out an action plan for the PrESS Network.


Adam Renner, Ph.D