Progressives Engaged in Struggle Support Network Meeting November 10, 2004 Bellarmine University
This reflection/recap on our last gathering is, again, an evolving document for which I invite feedback/additions/other perspectives.
12 present were present at the meeting as we gathered around the conference room table in Lenihan, sipping on tea and coffee.
We began the evening discussing some of our Network’s provocative experience at the American Educational Studies Association Annual conference. Each participant shared a portion of their experience and/or what they’ve taken away from the conference. Mostly these comments centered on the power of story; caring for our students, ourselves and others; and our very powerful role as healer. Given the broken nature of many of our children today and the diseased culture from which they come, it seems incumbent upon us as professors, teachers, and social workers to begin to privilege our role as healer, to privilege connectedness over competition, and to bring emotion, creativity, and critical inquiry to the same level as rationale, logic, and rehearsed knowledge. To say the least, our Network members who presented represented exactly, as practitioners and theoreticians, Freire’s concept of “praxis.”
We moved on in our discussion to talk about how we work with parents, getting into Freire’s complex idea of Cultural Synthesis. For our work in schools and communities to have any momentum, we will need to work with parents/families. For this movement to take hold, we will need to figure out, as a Network, how we will reach out in order to get this sort of broad-based support. For a little inspiration as far as radicalization (and remember, according to Freire, Organization requires consistency between words and action, boldness, radicalization, courage to love, and faith in the people), Gina and I would highly recommend The Motorcycle Diaries, the story of Che Guevara’s 8000km trip around South America as a young man. His story is so compelling, the scenery so magnificent, and his movement toward revolution so provocative.
We concluded the evening with more good sharing about the incredible work we do with our kids in the classroom and the battles we are fighting in our faculty meetings and professional development seminars.
As we have completed our reading of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, our final two meetings will focus on the future of the PrESS Network.
We’ll decide on meeting dates for the spring semester
We’ll decide if we’ll use a book, again (and which one) as a focusing point for our meetings
And, perhaps most importantly at this stage, we’ll talk about what action steps we’ll take as a Network. Several action steps have already been proposed in the past and new ones have surfaced lately. A short list includes:
Obtaining non-profit status
Creating a web page
Offering PD in schools
i. How to conduct student-led conferences
ii. Workshop material from the School of Unity and Liberation
iii. Social justice clubs
Working with small groups of teachers who may be of like mind with the PrESS Network
Creating our own political (educational) party
Taking on a broad-based action-research study of students in our classrooms, parents, and community members
Joining http://www.fairtest.org/ and creating a KY chapter aimed at transforming standardized testing in KY and nationwide
Creating our own “full-service” school
Inundating Jeff County public schools with members of the PrESS Network
Joining other organized groups to fight local/global injustice
i. Peace Education
ii. Coalition of Immokalee Workers
iii. Other progressive professors/teachers across country/world
Presenting at conferences, publishing our work, writing letters to the editor
i. http://www.rougeforum.com/
ii. http://www.ierg.net/
Inviting the community to be a part of the Network
These final two meetings of the semester will be held:
on December 1 at 8:30 in the conference room of Lenihan Hall
on December 12 at 7:00 in the home of Professor Jon Lee (directions forthcoming)
peace. adam
12 present were present at the meeting as we gathered around the conference room table in Lenihan, sipping on tea and coffee.
We began the evening discussing some of our Network’s provocative experience at the American Educational Studies Association Annual conference. Each participant shared a portion of their experience and/or what they’ve taken away from the conference. Mostly these comments centered on the power of story; caring for our students, ourselves and others; and our very powerful role as healer. Given the broken nature of many of our children today and the diseased culture from which they come, it seems incumbent upon us as professors, teachers, and social workers to begin to privilege our role as healer, to privilege connectedness over competition, and to bring emotion, creativity, and critical inquiry to the same level as rationale, logic, and rehearsed knowledge. To say the least, our Network members who presented represented exactly, as practitioners and theoreticians, Freire’s concept of “praxis.”
We moved on in our discussion to talk about how we work with parents, getting into Freire’s complex idea of Cultural Synthesis. For our work in schools and communities to have any momentum, we will need to work with parents/families. For this movement to take hold, we will need to figure out, as a Network, how we will reach out in order to get this sort of broad-based support. For a little inspiration as far as radicalization (and remember, according to Freire, Organization requires consistency between words and action, boldness, radicalization, courage to love, and faith in the people), Gina and I would highly recommend The Motorcycle Diaries, the story of Che Guevara’s 8000km trip around South America as a young man. His story is so compelling, the scenery so magnificent, and his movement toward revolution so provocative.
We concluded the evening with more good sharing about the incredible work we do with our kids in the classroom and the battles we are fighting in our faculty meetings and professional development seminars.
As we have completed our reading of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, our final two meetings will focus on the future of the PrESS Network.
We’ll decide on meeting dates for the spring semester
We’ll decide if we’ll use a book, again (and which one) as a focusing point for our meetings
And, perhaps most importantly at this stage, we’ll talk about what action steps we’ll take as a Network. Several action steps have already been proposed in the past and new ones have surfaced lately. A short list includes:
Obtaining non-profit status
Creating a web page
Offering PD in schools
i. How to conduct student-led conferences
ii. Workshop material from the School of Unity and Liberation
iii. Social justice clubs
Working with small groups of teachers who may be of like mind with the PrESS Network
Creating our own political (educational) party
Taking on a broad-based action-research study of students in our classrooms, parents, and community members
Joining http://www.fairtest.org/ and creating a KY chapter aimed at transforming standardized testing in KY and nationwide
Creating our own “full-service” school
Inundating Jeff County public schools with members of the PrESS Network
Joining other organized groups to fight local/global injustice
i. Peace Education
ii. Coalition of Immokalee Workers
iii. Other progressive professors/teachers across country/world
Presenting at conferences, publishing our work, writing letters to the editor
i. http://www.rougeforum.com/
ii. http://www.ierg.net/
Inviting the community to be a part of the Network
These final two meetings of the semester will be held:
on December 1 at 8:30 in the conference room of Lenihan Hall
on December 12 at 7:00 in the home of Professor Jon Lee (directions forthcoming)
peace. adam
posted by Jon at 5:25 PM
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