“The achievement gap is visible because of these awful tests,” says a young thoughtful black teacher. One email reads, “Opting-out of high-stakes testing is an act of civil disobedience.” Another email points to the raging incoherence of a struggle for human dignity played across the currents of issues that are and are not divisive and urgent One union says this One policy center that A group with trust in its name shouts Others respond And I have my own doubts Listening to multiple claims on movements and civil rights from voices left, right, black, white, and brown This is NOT a Test The Test Both good books and surely this is a test But not the kind that’s easy to scan Or to assign a letter grade to Or even to write an important book about It is a test of courage and creativity […]
Speaking Up
I like to ask people “What percentage of the educational landscape do you think you have a strong sense of?” I also like to ask myself. One of my favorite answers went something like, “43% but each time I think I understand more I only extend the range of what I realize I don’t know.” One of my favorite answers went something like, “43%, but each time I think I understand more I only extend the range of what I realize I don’t know.” That’s my way of saying what you read below comes with full awareness of its limitations and problematic omissions. It is just my most recent effort to struggle for a way of making sense of what I’m seeing. ———————————————– The change to Republican control of Congress has put national education policy back front and center where it is difficult to read what will happen beyond possible […]
I was sunshine. Growing up, I have so many memories of ways people would be buoyed by my enthusiasm, comment on my smile, remark on my positivity. And I was also boxed in and blinded. There was so much I could be happy about. When I think about it, it isn’t that there wasn’t hardship. There were car accidents, fights, church splits, and death. But I was pretty unflappable. With hindsight, what I knew about the world and experienced was limited. I usually say I grew up with unconditional love in a box. And then, I began to question and to be confronted about my beliefs, my identity, my faith, my abilities, my personality, and my privilege. And I also began to love the search, the unwinding, the people I met who were not like me, and even – over time – what my own pain and suffering opened up […]
I love the tone and maybe half the content of Paul Krugman’s provocative and trending post, “Knowledge Isn’t Power.” It is refreshing because he attempts to unwind real diversions and names a kind of national pundit syndrome that maybe really should make a diagnostic manual between naivety and narcissism. And (speaking of narcissism) I can’t help but like the way his naming of the education-centric story mirrors the one I tried to layout in this TEDx talk. But as a student of our national discourse on education committed to addressing inequality of opportunities and outcomes, I come to different conclusions. Krugman isn’t wrong on his title. And he isn’t wrong on his statistics about the growing concentration of wealth not mapping to educational outcomes. But he’s wrong to limit the power of education to create power. Just as he rejects conventional wisdom of the pundit class, we also need to […]
I first read, “Naming the Problem” by Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol last summer, but I keep coming back to it. While it is focused on health care, there are so many lessons and nuances within. For me, it stitches well with the poem “Pushing Through” by Rainer Maria Rilke: Pushing Through It’s possible I am pushing through solid rock in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone; I am such a long way in I see no way through, and no space: everything is close to my face, and everything close to my face is stone. I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief– so this massive darkness makes me small. You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in: then your great transforming will happen to me, and my great grief cry will happen to you. The connection I find between them is in the struggle to see clearly […]
“What a place! Tall trees, birds, the fog rolling off in the morning.” That is the first line on the first page of the notebook I took with me to a “Spirituality and Social Change” gathering in California in 2002. In the aftermath of 9/11, I had the opportunity to sit, eat, yoga, and learn with Sat Santokh, Ram Dass, Van Jones, Julia Butterfly, John Vasconcellos, Aya De Leon, Michael Lerner, and more. I arrived relatively unaware of who those people were and really just following the nudge of my partner Hollie and mother-in-law Jackie who had really encouraged and supported me to attend. Looking back I see those days as pivotal and powerful in my own learning journey. Here’s some of the gems so far: From Sat Santokh’s opening meditation Open yourself to the world – when you close is when you are numb. Feel tears, pain, and fear […]
I was holding a small group breakout session in Puerto Rico with educators and organizers when it happened. Domingo challenged the entire premise of the conversation by saying in accented English far better than any Spanish I still possess, “I don’t think democracy is the right word or even the right concept. And I’m not sure I want, no offense Scott, to hear you talk about it coming from the United States. You have used democracy as a weapon to colonize and to control – and I’m skeptical about linking it to the kinds of educational practices we want and need. It could be dangerous.” And while I tried hard to listen and not be defensive and also keep Domingo and others engaged, inside his words rang many bells. In that moment I was the director of an organization that positions democracy as a foil to looking at failed education […]