I was struck by reading one of my old journals in which I quote a book by a Brazilian teacher, Paulo Freire. Though written in 1960, it captures the events Egypt and what we're facing here in the USA. I think this excerpt from his book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is a powerful indicator we Kossites are on the right side of history... with the PEOPLE. See more below the People's fold...(eww)
"If children reared in an atmosphere of lovelessness and oppression, children whose potency has been frustrated, do not manage during their youth to take the path of authentic rebellion they will either drift into total indifference, alienates from reality by the authorities and the myths those authorities have used to "shape" them; or they may engage in forms of destructive action.
Young people increasingly view parent and teacher authoritarianism as inimical to their own freedom. For this very reason, they increasingly oppose forms of action which minimize their expressiveness and hinder their self-affirmation. This very positive phenomenon is not accidental. it is actually a symptom of the historical climate which characterizes our epoch as an anthropological one. For this reason, a humanist cannot see the youth rebellion as a mere difference between generations. Something deeper is involved here. Young people in their rebellion are denouncing and condemning the unjust model of a society of domination."
I get to our middle school each day at 5 AM and leave at 5 PM at the earliest. Though I am definitely here longer than others, I know that many teachers put in this time with their families standing by at home. We work hard and care deeply in the best ways we know how. Not all of us get it all the time, but we care deeply. There is no other profession (save surgery) where you are supposed to get it right every time. But surgeons never work on more than one patient at once. They don't get 30-40 patients at a time, and then an hour and a half later, get another group of patients. Now, I'm not saying what we do is like performing surgery. It's not. But what we do as teachers is another kind of important. We have to study, assess, diagnose, plan our actions, "cut" the minds of a student open, work through what are often deeply-scarred parts of their mind and soul, rearrange those parts, get those parts to work together in a way that expands and enhances democracy, and then "sew" the student back up again.
Each day, 120-260 students come into our classrooms and we are expected to perform these miracles while implementing (at least in my district) over four dozen separate and often conflicting programs- simultaneously while performing this surgery. I am in only my third year of teaching. I am not going anywhere because I would DIE for these brilliant young minds. But many people are soon leaving this profession. Few are signing up to take their place.
Our youth are getting angrier. Do our leaders (corporate elites) want them completely inefficient via their indifference? Do they want them to engage in forms of destructive action? Or do our leaders want to rescue their own hides- and help educators perform our daily miracles by standing outside the classroom walls? It was their ideas that pushed us into this deep hole. I don't think their ideas will help dig us out.