Camden’s Blog

I LOVE the Alice Walker quote “ Keep in mind always the present you are constructing.  It should be the future you want.”  It is a wake up call that we cannot be bystanders.  Lipton and Oakes shape this chapter with a warning “Navigating toward socially just teaching and education requires a full and unblinking understanding of the present – the status quo”.  The injustices that permeate our education system are firmly implanted and unless we commit ourselves to consistently digging up the weeds and trying new crops and methods of growing, we will be ever stuck with the status quo that does little to build a just future.  We are making progress with programs like ours in and new teacher programs in universities across the country that are making positive steps at providing coursework that looks a multicultural, socially just teaching.  But there is a lot more for us all to do within our classrooms and out of them.  Everyone is different, have different career decisions to make and different outside influences but we all need to be active.  It’s our profession and we need to insist on our voices being present and heard.  I consider it our biggest challenge – why are we unable to unite our voices into a deafening choir that heralds respect in compensation, equity in schools, democracy in school culture and acknowledgement of our deep profession expertise?  It is just simply wrong that we do not have a teacher’s union in this state.  It doesn’t surprise me that the Secretary of Education, Roderick Paige called the NEA a “terrorist organization” for criticizing NCLB.  It seems the very nature of NCLB to oppress teachers by blaming them in the name of accountability for being unable to triumph in a game that is designed for teachers and students to lose.  A game they have absolutely no voice in at that.  Lipton and Oakes do provide us with some ideas for activism.  It’s a little like going Green, you have to start somewhere and every little bit helps.  It’s about changing your mindset and then moving on to changing others.  I am inviting myself, and anyone who reads this to try all of Lipton and Oakes ideas.  Start by reaching out and starting a conversation with a teacher you do not know.  Remember all those summer reading books we are going to read?  Get a few others to read it with you and get together to discuss it.  I am going to do it with my two walking partners.  Mentor a new teacher at your school, informally need be.  Ask your principal if you can do a staff development on social justice.  Have a conversation about race – MSN just sponsored a documentary called Meeting David Wilson perhaps you can get a copy.  Or use Paul Gorski’s power point.  I plan to do one of those if my principal will let me.  Join national forums, foundations, projects etc.  Most of all become active. Committing to a hopeful critique is often difficult for me but I believe it is possible if you pay attention to Lipton and Oakes next suggestion of finding satisfaction in the Everyday.  This attitude replenishes and will sustain a hopeful outlook if given a conscious effort.  Frederick Douglass said it best “Power never concedes anything without a demand.  It never did and it never will.” – no bystanding!

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