We live in the best of times in which we are able to learn about the world and its incredible diversity of cultures/beings/places/perspectives in a way never historically possible. We live in the worst of times when we are able to isolate ourselves completely from anything different from our own narrow view/conception of the world/reality. The choice is yours!
[MB 11/16/23 - I have been deeply troubled about the current and ongoing Israel/Palestine war. I do trauma research and can see how this is not going to be solved until there is a new way of thinking & discussing this issue (a benign word for a horrific situation). This morning one of the intellectuals I study posted a statement as an introduction to a later more complex Q and A session on the historical and current conflict. I was stunned by its simplicity for those that are aware of peace activism, and complexity for those trapped in a hate filled cycle (personally and collectively). Gabor Mate is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, lost much of his family at Auschwitz, and a major figure in trauma research.]
Edwards, John, et al. "The Selling of ADHD: Diagnoses, Prescriptions Soar After 20-Year Marketing Effort by Big Pharma."Democracy Now (December 17, 2013) ["Taken at face value, the latest figures on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest a growing epidemic in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 15 percent of high school children are diagnosed with ADHD. The number of those on stimulant medication is at 3.5 million, up from 600,000 two decades ago. ADHD is now the second most common long-term diagnosis in children, narrowly trailing asthma. But a new report in The New York Times questions whether these staggering figures reflect a medical reality or an over-medicated craze that has earned billions in profits for the pharmaceutical companies involved. Sales for ADHD drugs like Adderall and Concerta topped $9 billion in the United States last year, a more than 500 percent jump from a decade before. The radical spike in diagnoses has coincided with a 20-year marketing effort to promote stimulant prescriptions for children struggling in school, as well as for adults seeking to take control of their lives. The marketing effort has relied on studies and testimonials from a select group of doctors who have received massive speaking fees and funding grants from major pharmaceutical companies. We are joined by four guests: Alan Schwarz, an award-winning reporter who wrote the New York Times piece, “The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder”; Jamison Monroe, a former teenage Adderall addict who now runs Newport Academy, a treatment center for teens suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues; Dr. Gabor Maté, a physician and best-selling author of four books, including “Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It”; and John Edwards, the father of a college student who committed suicide after he was prescribed Adderall and antidepressant medications at the Harvard University Health Services clinic."]
Maté, Gabor. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books, 2010. ["In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction, explores addiction as a symptom of distress, from the pain of individual trauma and family history to the spiritual emptiness pervading our entire society. Dr. Maté weaves brain science, case studies, personal testimony, and social critique into a powerful and kaleidoscopic look at one of our culture’s most perplexing epidemics. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is a best-selling book that won the 2010 Hubert Evans Award for Best BC Non-Fiction Book."]
---. "More Compassion, Less Violence Needed in Addressing Drug Addiction. Democracy Now (June 6, 2011) ["In part two of our interview about a new report declaring the so-called “war on drugs” a failure, Dr. Gabor Maté notes that “where violent suppression of drug activity increases, so does killings and violence related to drug use.” The Canadian physician and author also relates the study’s findings to his own work in a drug addiction treatment clinic in Vancouver. “The causes of the addiction in their life have to be understood and addressed, and they have to be treated with compassion,” says Maté."]
---. "On Israel/Palestine."Science & Nonduality (October 28, 2023) ["Dr. Gabor Maté shares his reflections on Israel/Palestine including recent tragic events on and following October 7th, 2023."]
---. "On “The Myth of Normal,” Healing in a Toxic Culture & How Capitalism Fuels Addiction."Democracy Now (November 24, 2022) ["In an extended interview, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté discusses his new book, “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.” “The very values of a society are traumatizing for a lot of people,” says Maté, who argues in his book that “psychological trauma, woundedness, underlies much of what we call disease.” He says healing requires a reconnection between the mind and the body, which can be achieved through cultivating a sense of community, meaning, belonging and purpose. Maté also discusses how the healthcare system has harmfully promoted the “mechanization of birth,” how the lack of social services for parents has led to “a massive abandonment of infants,” and how capitalism has fueled addiction and the rise of youth suicide rates"]
---. "The Myth of Normal: Dr. Gabor Maté on Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture." Democracy Now (September 16, 2022) ["In an extended interview, acclaimed physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté discusses his new book, just out, called “The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.” “The very values of a society are traumatizing for a lot of people,” says Maté, who argues in his book that “psychological trauma, woundedness, underlies much of what we call disease.” He says healing requires a reconnection between the mind and the body, which can be achieved through cultivating a sense of community, meaning, belonging and purpose. Maté also discusses how the healthcare system has harmfully promoted the “mechanization of birth,” how the lack of social services for parents has led to “a massive abandonment of infants,” and how capitalism has fueled addiction and the rise of youth suicide rates."]
---. "On the Stress-Disease Connection, Addiction and the Destruction of American Childhood."Democracy Now (December 25, 2012) ["From disease to addiction, parenting to attention deficit disorder, Maté’s work focuses on the centrality of early childhood experiences to the development of the brain, and how those experiences can impact everything from behavioral patterns to physical and mental illness. While the relationship between emotional stress and disease, and mental and physical health more broadly, is often considered controversial within medical orthodoxy, Maté argues too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption, that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness, addictions and disorders, and in their healing."]
---. "Obama Admin Should Heed Global Panel’s Call to End "Failed" U.S.-Led Drug War." Democracy Now (June 6, 2011) ["A high-level international panel has concluded the so-called “war on drugs” has failed and that governments should consider legalizing substances, including marijuana. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is comprised of 19 members, including several former heads of state. The Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House has refuted the findings of the commission’s report. We speak to Dr. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician and bestselling author of four books, including In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. “On any level you care to name, the war on drugs is a failure,” Dr. Maté says."]
---. "Roots Run Deep: Gabor Maté."Sounds of Sand #61 (November 16, 2023) [MB: This is one of the most profound intellectual and spiritual statements (on a communal level) I have come across and so important to all aspects of our lives (beyond the specific subject being discussed). It is an introduction to a longer Q & A. In a more general sense, Gabor Maté over time has radically changed the way I think about the world and despite never meeting him has helped me to recover (always a work in progress) from my own trauma:"No statement, no words can speak to the immense human suffering, the devastation and the horrendous humanitarian crisis intensifying in the Middle East. The current tragedy is awakening existential fear, acute grief and deep despair. Unspeakable atrocities have left many in a state of deep shock and in need of support. Gabor Maté, M.D. is a renowned speaker, and bestselling author who is is highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress and childhood development. Rather than offering quick-fix solutions to these complex issues, Dr. Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories, and his own insights and experience to present a broad perspective that enlightens and empowers people to promote their own healing and that of those around them."]
Maté, Gabor and Alan Schwarz. "On 'The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder.'"Democracy Now (December 18, 2013) ["In part two of our discussion with physician Gabor Maté and New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz, we discuss how attention deficit disorder manifests in children and adults, and how past abuse of drugs used to treat its symptoms helped lead to the passage of the Controlled Substances Act. Maté notes that medication is not the solution for everyone who shows symptoms, even if they are properly diagnosed."]
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia: Jaromil Jireš, 1970) Film Description: "A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders serves up an endlessly looping, nonlinear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape. Ravishingly shot, enchantingly scored, and spilling over with surreal fancies, this enticing phantasmagoria from director Jaromil Jireš is among the most beautiful oddities of the Czechoslovak New Wave." -- Criterion Collection "Beautiful and strange from beginning to end, Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a film like no other. It’s fairy tale, horror movie, and coming-of-age story all at once, like Alice in Wonderland with medieval and religious overtones." - Peter Hames "The glittering surfaces of classic fairy tales often mask undercurrents of emotional torment, spiritual foreboding, and moral transgression." - The Criterion Channel
Ganja and Hess (USA: Bill Gunn, 1973) Film Description: "In this once-lost masterpiece of independent horror, the blade of an ancient African knife spreads a vampiric contagion to research assistant George (director Bill Gunn), whose bloodlust soon infects Dr. Hess Green (Night of the Living Dead's Duane Jones) as well. When Hess is enraptured by George's beautiful wife, Ganja (Enter the Dragon's Marlene Clark), he attempts to conceal his terrible secret... but at a high price." "Ganja & Hess is the phantasmagoric outpouring of a singular artist whose voice cannot be easily categorized. Written and directed by Bill Gunn, the 1973 film has a loose affiliation with vampires and Blaxploitation while confronting mainstream ideas about racial representation, sexuality, and cinematic tradition. For years, the film existed in relative obscurity, severely re-edited and distributed as a throwaway hunk of schlock entertainment. But a twenty-first century restoration by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation has led to a full appreciation of this surreal, visceral, yet intellectual work of filmmaking. Without question, Gunn’s individualism drives this picture. Ganja & Hess is thoughtful, full of haunting, uncanny imagery and formal experimentation, and wholly unconventional in its making. It offers a potent blend of alienation, desire, and self-possession that feels like a personal statement. However, its fluid exploration of these themes is rooted in the senses, sometimes better felt than reasoned or summarized. Gunn’s moody and rebellious work of independent cinema is not unlike its characters, marked by its fragmentation, layers, and deviations. No matter how unpolished it sometimes seems, its urgent filmmaking supplies a charge that makes the experience vital and unforgettable." - Brian Eggert Resources for after you watch the film:
Bram Stoker's Dracula (USA: Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) Film Description: "Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins star in director Francis Ford Coppola's visually stunning, passionately seductive version of the classic Dracula legend. In BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, Coppola returns to the original source of the Dracula myth, and from that gothic romance, he creates a modern masterpiece. Gary Oldman's metamorphosis as Dracula who grows from old to young, from man to beast is nothing short of amazing. Winona Ryder brings equal intensity to the role of a young beauty who becomes the object of Dracula's devastating desire. Anthony Hopkins co-stars as the famed doctor who dares to believe in Dracula, and then dares to confront him. Opulent, dazzling and utterly irresistible, this is Dracula as you've never seen him."
Nadja (USA: Michael Amereyda, 1994) Film Description: "This ultra-hip, post-modern vampire tale is set in contemporary New York City. Members of a dysfunctional family of vampires are trying to come to terms with each other, in the wake of their father's death. Meanwhile, they are being hunted by Dr. Van Helsing and his hapless nephew. As in all good vampire movies, forces of love are pitted against forces of destruction."
Obuchowski, David. "Pain And Joy: A Life With NADJA Part One."Fangoria (May 24, 2021) ["The first of a five-part essay examining the making of Michael Almereyda's NADJA and the author's personal connection with that film." - each additional part is linked at the bottom]
The Addiction (USA: Abel Ferrara, 1995) On the streets of Greenwich Village, a NYU philosophy student (Lili Taylor) finds herself the victim of a vampiric encounter, inaugurating an insatiable craving for blood that drives her to the depths of junkiedom and existential despair. Shot in moody black-and-white chiaroscuro, Abel Ferrara’s harrowing metaphor for addiction swirls through existential philosophy, Catholicism, and gangsta rap into a potent, art-damaged reflection on guilt and redemption. "When faced with the visual representation of the extreme horrors of the 20th century, what does a filmmaker do with these images?" - Scott Macaulay
A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders serves up an endlessly looping, nonlinear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape. Ravishingly shot, enchantingly scored, and spilling over with surreal fancies, this enticing phantasmagoria from director Jaromil Jireš is among the most beautiful oddities of the Czechoslovak New Wave. -- Criterion Collection
Aron, Hadas. "Free Speech #56: The Populist Attacks on Academia."Think About It (May 21, 2019) ["Why do populist movements, which exist on both the left and the right, attack universities? Is there any justification for their suspicion of elites who tell us what's true, how to live our lives, and how to solve our problems? What's the relation between populism, academia, and the idea that everyone's opinion should matter, regardless of their education, birth and academic degrees? Hadas Aron is a political scientist who studies populist movements in various countries to understand the underlying problems and tensions that drive such movements. We talked about the attacks on academia, how best to understand them, and whether there are some issues that are non-negotiable even in the most robust and raucous political disputes."]
Barlow, Maude, Richard Grossman and Thomas Linzey. "When Lawmaking Becomes Rebellion (Water Privatization, Democracy School and the Corporate State)."Unwelcome Guests #307 (May 21, 2006) ["A new populist alliance of long time environmental activists and rural folk in central Pennsylvania has grown out of a struggle to ban toxic agribusiness operations that have targeted the area as the next profit opportunity. This movement is taking a new approach that is spreading across America via a project of public education and organization called democracy schools, that are teaching direct action lawmaking to challenge corporate supremacy and to create rights under law for people and the land."]
Benton, Michael Dean. "The Power of Stories."The Ryan Watts Life Coaching Podcast (September 4, 2023) ["Great conversation about the psychology of our personal narratives and beyond. Michael Benton is an associate professor of humanities and film studies at Bluegrass Community and technical College in Lexington, Kentucky. Narrative Psychology focuses on how we perceive the events of our lives through stories. One of the most powerful ways we can experience transformation is by changing our stories. This can be done in many ways."]
Berkshire, Jennifer and Jack Schneider. "The Los Angeles Teacher Strike: Back to the Future of Education Reform."Have You Heard #58 (February 1, 2019) [MB - Wondering why teachers are going on strike across the USA? - here is a great, quick introduction to some of the major reasons for these strikes told through the successful Los Angeles Teachers Strike.]
Berkshire, Jennifer, Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi. "The Charter School Scam."Citations Needed #1 (July 12, 2017) ["... the media hype surrounding the privatization of education."]
Berkshire, Jennifer, et al. "Rethinking Schools in the DeVos Era."Open Source (September21, 2017) ["Betsy Devos’s “Rethinking School” tour can feel like a mission to dismantle the whole system, public schools first. Choice, charters and change are DeVos’s keynotes, along with a call for more and more crushing competition. We wondered if this this just another race to the top that will ultimately leave most children behind, or if something new is happening. According to DeVos, her plan might be the only thing new thing in the last century of education history. On her school tour she likes to say schools haven’t changed in the last 100 years: "For far too many kids, this year’s first day back to school looks and feels a lot like last year’s first day back to school. And the year before that. And the generation before that. And the generation before that. That means your parents’ parents’ parents .. It’s a mundane malaise that dampens dreams, dims horizons, and denies futures." We’re trying to offer a counter to DeVos’s vision of public education and it’s discontents. We got schooled on an alternative set of solutions by some educators we like a lot. Jack Schneider gets us started. He’s a school parent in Somerville, and professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He’s on his own mission to “rethink schools,” particularly the metrics we use to measure their worth. He highlights Somerville High School as a case study: a diverse, working-class school thriving despite the odds, but still coming up short in the tests. Jennifer Berkshire—who, along with Jack, co-hosts the education podcast Have You Heard?—gives us the close-up on DeVos. In her reporting, she’s profiled DeVos as one of the leading crusaders in the “holy war against the welfare state” . But she still sees hope in the rising, grassroots resistance to DeVos’s program, which is now one of the most unpopular parts of the Trump platform, even in the red states. Malcolm Harris, the 29-year-old author of Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials, accounts for the new pressures placed on the millennial generation of students. “We are poorer, more medicated, and more precariously employed than our parents, grandparents, even our great grandparents,” he writes. The disease, he says, is neoliberalism and unfettered capitalism. It’s a deeper rot that cannot be solved simply through social democratic reform or technocratic tweaks, and it still needs something more than a political revolution to create real change. Finally, Charles Petersen, an editor for N+1 and PhD candidate in the American Studies program at Harvard University, outlines a deeper history of competition in American education. His ideological frame is not neoliberalism, per se, but the myth of meritocracy itself."]
Bey, George. "Redefining success: Archaeology as a way to embrace the world."Ted Talks (February 3, 2015) ["George Bey is an anthropology professor and associate dean of international education at Millsaps College. Bey led efforts to establish 4,500 acres of wilderness in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula as an archeological and biocultural reserve to study the archeological remains of the ancient Maya civilization of Kaxil Kiuic. In 2012, discoveries made by Bey and his team were featured in a 2012 National Geographic documentary, “Quest for the Lost Maya.”"]
Blanc, Eric, et al. "Teachers at the forefront of a resurgent progressive labor movement."Best of the Left #1250 (February 15, 2019) ["Today we take a look at recent teachers union strike in the Los Angeles school district and see it as another event in an emerging pattern of progressive uprisings that have been stirring for the last decade, fighting back against the status quo, the neoliberal instinct to privatize everything for the ultimate benefit of billionaires."]
Brooks, Kendra and Helen Gym. "Major Education Victory in Philadelphia as Parents, Teachers & Activists Reclaim Control of Schools."Democracy Now (December 13, 2017) ["We look at a major education victory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where parents, teachers and activists mounted a successful campaign to reclaim control of their local public school system after then-Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker declared it financially distressed in 2001. Under the plan, dozens of Philadelphia public schools closed, and the city saw a spike in charter schools. Community groups responded by forming a coalition to pressure Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney to return control over the School District to local voters. Last month, Mayor Kenney heeded organizers’ demands and called for the dissolution of the commission. This came as the city also elected civil rights attorney Larry Krasner as district attorney, who campaigned in part on ending the school-to-prison pipeline. We speak with Helen Gym, a longtime community activist and now a Philadelphia city councilmember, and Kendra Brooks of the “Our City, Our Schools” coalition as well as Parents United. She is the parent of two children who attend Philadelphia district schools."]
Brown, Raymond, et al. "How Black Students Helped Lead the 1968 Columbia U. Strike Against Militarism & Racism 50 Years Ago."Democracy Now (April 23, 2018) ["Fifty years ago today, on April 23, 1968, hundreds of students at Columbia University in New York started a revolt on campus. They occupied five buildings, including the president’s office in Low Library, then students barricaded themselves inside the buildings for days. They were protesting Columbia’s ties to military research and plans to build a university gymnasium in a public park in Harlem. The protests began less than three weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The 1968 Columbia uprising led to one of the largest mass arrests in New York City history—more than 700 people arrested on April 30. It also inspired student protests across the country. Today, we spend the hour looking back at this pivotal moment. We are joined by Raymond Brown, former leader of the Student Afro-American Society; Nancy Biberman, a Barnard College student who joined the protests as a member of Students for Democratic Society; Mark Rudd, chair of the Columbia University chapter of SDS during the student strike; Juan González, Democracy Now! co-host who was a Columbia student and strike organizer; and Paul Cronin, editor of the new book “A Time to Stir: Columbia ’68.” We also feature excerpts from the 1968 documentary “Columbia Revolt” by Third World Newsreel."]
Cole, Josh. "Raymond Williams and Education - A Slow Reach Again for Control."infed (2008) ["For Raymond Williams, adult education as a means of expanding democracy meant all involved would be educated—including the educators. Anticipating Paulo Freire’s great work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (published in 1968), Williams argued in the early 1960s that the educational process cuts both ways. The adult instructor has much to learn about herself and her discipline from her students. Ideally, through adult education, instructors and students would ‘meet as equals’ in the classroom, and share fully in the process of democratic learning. (This is not to suggest that Raymond Williams assumed that students automatically knew more about a teaching subject than their instructors—his was not an uncritical version of ‘student-centred learning’–rather, he simply took it as given that the instructor is not beyond reproach: the educator “may not know the gaps between academic teaching and actual experience among many people; he may not know when, in the pressure of experience, a new discipline has to be created.” Interaction with adult students could give educators that experience) (Williams 1993: 225)"]
Costello, Maureen. "Hate at School: October 2017."Teaching Tolerance (November 3, 2017) ["We tracked 90 hate incidents at schools in October alone—and that’s only what made the news. Just as important is the way schools respond, and in most cases, those responses don’t measure up."]
Crump, Benjamin and Tamara Lanier. "The World Is Watching: Woman Suing Harvard for Photos of Enslaved Ancestors Says History Is At Stake."Democracy Now (March 29, 2019) ["Who has the right to own photos of slaves? We speak with Tamara Lanier, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Papa Renty, the enslaved man whose image was captured in a 19th century photograph currently owned by Harvard University. She is suing the school, accusing it of unfairly profiting from the images. We also speak with her attorney, Benjamin Crump."]
Demby, Gene, Kara Frame and Maria Paz Guttierez. "Housing Segregation is Everything."Code Switch (April 11, 2018) ["Housing segregation is in everything. But to understand the root of this issue, you have to look at the government-backed policies that created the housing disparities we see today. Gene Demby explains how these policies came to be, and what effect they've had on schools, health, family wealth and policing."]
Diamond, Adele. "The Science of Attention."On Being (2014) ["What Adele Diamond is learning about the brain challenges basic assumptions in modern education. Her work is scientifically illustrating the educational power of things like play, sports, music, memorization, and reflection. What nourishes the human spirit, the whole person, it turns out, also hones our minds."]
Dueñas, Jessica and Kelly Holstine. "We Can’t Back People Who Hate Our Kids: Kentucky & Minnesota Teachers of Year Boycott Trump Meeting." Democracy Now (May 3, 2019) ["We speak with two award-winning teachers who are trying to teach Trump a lesson. On Monday, Jessica Dueñas, the 2019 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, and Kelly Holstine, the 2018 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, boycotted a White House ceremony honoring them and other state winners of the award in protest of the Trump administration’s education policies. But Dueñas and Holstine skipped the event to register their opposition to Trump’s policies on immigration, education and LGBTQ rights, saying many of the White House policies directly impact their immigrant and refugee students."]
Elk, Mike and Jay O'Neal. "From Coal Miners to Teachers: West Virginia Continues to Lead Radical Labor Struggle in the U.S."Democracy Now (May 5, 2018) ["For decades, West Virginia has been at the forefront of labor activism in the United States. As the state’s teachers continue their historic strike, which has shut down every single West Virginia school, we look at the history of the labor activism in the Mountain State. We speak with Jay O’Neal, a middle school teacher and a union activist in Charleston, West Virginia. And we speak with Mike Elk, senior labor reporter at Payday Report. His most recent piece is titled 'West Virginia Teachers’ Strike Fever Starting to Spread to Other States.'"]
---. "'People Have Just Had Enough': West Virginia Teachers Continue Historic Strike into Eighth Day."Democracy Now (March 5, 2018) ["Schools across West Virginia are closed for an eighth day, as more than 20,000 teachers and 13,000 school staffers remain on strike demanding higher wages and better healthcare. The strike, which began on February 22, has shut down every public school in the state. Teachers are demanding a 5 percent raise and a cap on spiraling healthcare costs. For more, we speak with Jay O’Neal, a middle school teacher and a union activist in Charleston, West Virginia. And we speak with Mike Elk, senior labor reporter at Payday Report. His most recent piece is titled “West Virginia Teachers’ Strike Fever Starting to Spread to Other States.”"]
Elk, Mike, et al. "Teachers in Revolt: Meet the Educators in Kentucky & Oklahoma Walking Out over School Funding."Democracy Now (April 4, 2018) ["Oklahoma’s public education budget has been slashed more than any other state since the start of the recession in 2008, and its teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation. Scores of teachers are planning to begin a 123-mile protest march today from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, thousands of teachers continue to protest in Kentucky, demanding a reversal to a provision in a recently passed bill about sewage treatment that gutted their pension benefits. On Monday, every school in the state was closed either due to spring break or in anticipation of a massive rally in the capital of Frankfort, where teachers filled the rotunda of the Kentucky state Capitol, chanting “Fund our schools!” This year’s wave of teacher rebellions began in West Virginia, where teachers won a 5 percent pay raise after a historic strike. We speak to four guests: Oklahoma teacher Andrea Thomas, Kentucky state lawmaker Attica Scott, retired Kentucky teacher Mickey McCoy and labor journalist Mike Elk."]
"Emma González at Home, and a Crown Prince Abroad."The New Yorker Radio Hour (April 6, 2018) ["Emma González is a survivor of the Parkland attack, and a leader of the #NeverAgain movement. She talks with David Remnick about the ways her life has changed since the shooting, and why activism comes naturally to the teens spearheading this newest push for gun control."]
Felker-Kantor, Max. "Dare to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools." New Books in Policing, Incarceration, and Reform (February 17, 2024) ["With its signature "DARE to keep kids off drugs" slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug education program of the 1980s and 1990s. But behind the cultural phenomenon is the story of how DARE and other antidrug education programs brought the War on Drugs into schools and ensured that the velvet glove of antidrug education would be backed by the iron fist of rigorous policing and harsh sentencing. Max Felker-Kantor has assembled the first history of DARE, which began in Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint venture between the police department and the unified school district. By the mid-90s, it was taught in 75 percent of school districts across the United States. DARE received near-universal praise from parents, educators, police officers, and politicians and left an indelible stamp on many millennial memories. But the program had more nefarious ends, and Felker-Kantor complicates simplistic narratives of the War on Drugs. In DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools (UNC Press, 2023), he shows how policing entered US schools and framed drug use as the result of personal responsibility, moral failure, and poor behavior deserving of punishment rather than something deeply rooted in state retrenchment, the abandonment of social service provisions, and structures of social and economic inequality."]
Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. "Generous Thinking."This is Not a Pipe (August 1, 2019) ["Kathleen Fitzpatrick discusses her book Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving The University with Chris Richardson. 'We once, at least for a very brief moment, understood that the purpose of higher education was not just individual in nature but that it served a social good for us to have a broadly educated public equipped with the tools for social mobility.'"]
Gladwell, Malcolm. "Carlos Doesn't Remember."Revisionist History 1.4 (ND) ["Carlos is a brilliant student from South Los Angeles. He attends an exclusive private school on an academic scholarship. He is the kind of person the American meritocracy is supposed to reward. But in the hidden details of his life lies a cautionary tale about how hard it is to rise from the bottom to the top—and why the American school system, despite its best efforts, continues to leave an extraordinary amount of talent on the table."]
Gokey, Thomas and Astra Taylor. "Debt Collective."Team Human #1 (July 29, 2016) ["Joining team human are debt resisters Astra Taylor and Thomas Gokey. Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, writer, activist, and musician. Her films include the documentaries Zizek! and the Examined Life.Taylor’s recent book The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age takes a hard look at the persisting and embedded inequalities in today’s digital media landscape. Thomas Gokey is a visual artist, adjunct professor at Syracuse University, and activist. Gokey’s piece entitled, Total Amount of Money Rendered in Exchange for a Masters of Fine Arts Degree to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pulped into Four Sheets of Paper reimagined his own student debt as art. Both Thomas Gokey and Astra Taylor seized the momentum of Occupy Wall Street to help launch a direct action campaign of debt resistance. Working through the collective force of Strike Debt, Rolling Jubilee, and the Debt Collective, Gokey and Taylor are fighting back against the economic injustice of debt in America."]
Goldstein, Dana. "Nation’s First Teachers’ Strike at Charter Network Begins in Chicago."The New York Times (December 4, 2018) ["Charters are funded by taxpayers but independently managed by nonprofit organizations, like Acero, or by for-profit companies. Educators at Acero earn up to $13,000 less than their counterparts at traditional public schools in Chicago and cannot afford to live comfortably in an increasingly expensive city, according to the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents the striking workers. The chief executive of Acero, Richard L. Rodriguez, earns about $260,000 annually to manage 15 schools, a similar salary to that of Janice K. Jackson, the chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools system, which includes over 500 schools. In addition to higher pay for teachers and support staff, the union is asking that more money be spent on special education services for students and on a program that allows classroom assistants to continue their education and become lead teachers. The union also argues that Acero’s class sizes — up to 32 students at every grade level — are too high."]
Gross, Allie. "Charterize, Privatize, Christianize: The DeVos-Backed Policies That 'Gutted' Michigan Public Schools."Democracy Now (March 13, 2018) ["Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is facing new criticism after she struggled in a recent “60 Minutes” interview to explain why schools in her home state of Michigan are faring poorly under the policies she has championed. DeVos is a billionaire Republican activist and the sister of Blackwater founder Erik Prince. She once served as chair of the American Federation for Children in Michigan, where she promoted school choice and worked to expand the state’s use of private charter schools. Many educators say the results of DeVos’s policies in Michigan have been disastrous. For more, we speak with Allie Gross, a reporter with the Detroit Free Press. She covered education in Michigan as a freelance reporter and was a Teach for America teacher in a Detroit charter school."]
Haber, Jonathan. "Critical Thinking (MIT Press, 2020)."New Books in Education (September 15, 2020) ["In this episode, I speak with fellow New Books in Education host, Jonathan Haber, about his book, Critical Thinking (The MIT Press, 2020). This book explains the widely-discussed but often ill-defined concept of critical thinking, including its history and role in a democratic society. We discuss the important role critical thinking plays in making decisions and communicating our ideas to others as well as the most effective ways teachers can help their students become critical thinkers."]
Hamilton-Diabo, Jonathan, et al. "The Path to Reconciliation in Education and Community Work."Needs No Introduction (June 28, 2018) ["The panel you'll hear on today's program is called Path to Reconciliation in Education and Community Work. Panelists discussed the meaning of reconciliation and the strategies and initiatives that have been undertaken by educational institutions and community agencies toward the deeper integration of Indigenous perspectives, practices, and pedagogies into the curriculum and culture of their organizations."]
Hutt, Ethan L. and Jack Schneider. Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don’t Have To). Harvard University Press, 2023. ["Amid widespread concern that our approach to testing and grading undermines education, two experts explain how schools can use assessment to support, rather than compromise, learning. Anyone who has ever crammed for a test, capitulated to a grade-grubbing student, or fretted over a child’s report card knows that the way we assess student learning in American schools is freighted with unintended consequences. But that’s not all. As experts agree, our primary assessment technologies—grading, rating, and ranking—don’t actually provide an accurate picture of how students are doing in school. Worse, they distort student and educator behavior in ways that undermine learning and exacerbate inequality. Yet despite widespread dissatisfaction, grades, test scores, and transcripts remain the currency of the realm. In Off the Mark, Jack Schneider and Ethan Hutt explain how we got into this predicament, why we remain beholden to our outmoded forms of assessment, and what we can do to change course. As they make clear, most current attempts at reform won’t solve the complex problems we face. Instead, Schneider and Hutt offer a range of practical reforms, like embracing multiple measures of performance and making the so-called permanent record “overwritable.” As they explain, we can remake our approach in ways that better advance the three different purposes that assessment currently serves: motivating students to learn, communicating meaningful information about what young people know and can do, and synchronizing an otherwise fragmented educational system. Written in an accessible style for a broad audience, Off the Mark is a guide for everyone who wants to ensure that assessment serves the fundamental goal of education—helping students learn."]
Immerwahr, Daniel. "'United States' to Imperial America."Empire Files (August 19, 2019) ["The global expanse of US military bases is well-known; but it's actual territorial empire is largely hidden. The true map of America is not taught in our schools. Abby Martin interviews history Professor Daniel Immerwahr about his new book, 'How To Hide An Empire,' where he documents the story of our "Greater United States.""]
Jaschik, Scott. "Church and Tenure."Inside Higher Ed (May 5, 2014) ["The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued two unanimous decisions that strengthen the rights of tenured professors at religious institutions."]
"Kindergarten Suspensions: Yes. It's a Thing."Have You Heard #3 (2016) ["Have You Heard heads to Boston for a look at the controversial trend of kindergarten suspension. We go behind the data to bring you the story of a mother and a five-year-old boy who, in his first four months as a kindergartner, was suspended 16 times. Hard to imagine? His mother thinks so too as she struggles to understand how her bright, creative little boy could end up in so much trouble so quickly."]
Knight, Nika. "Back to School."Guernica (September 15, 2014) ["The former assistant secretary of education grapples with the school-reform movement and the systemic issues that plague American education."]
Leary, John Patrick. "'Meritocracy' Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means."On the Media (March 15, 2019) ["This week, fifty people were charged by federal prosecutors in a college admissions scandal. As the public dug into the details of how wealthy parents made payments to help their students get into elite (and not so elite) universities around the country, some of the discussion centered around "the myth of meritocracy" in the United States. The trouble is, the myth of "meritocracy" goes much deeper than this story. The word was actually coined as satire in 1958 by the British sociologist Michael Young, who was criticizing the role that the UK's elite education system had in shaping the hierarchy of British society. This week, Bob speaks with John Patrick Leary about the satirical origins of the word and what it has come to mean in the US. He says there are actually two myths: "the myth that there is such a thing, and the myth that the United States is committed to that imaginary thing." Leary is a professor of English at Wayne State University and author of Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism."]
Lesage, Julia. "The Last Word: AI Musings."Jump Cut #62 (Winter 2023 - 2024) ["Since many of my friends say they know nothing about AI, I am taking this editorial space to reflect on how I began to study AI. Early in 2023, Gary Kafer sent in a review of Kate Crawford’s The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. [Please read Kafer’s piece alongside mine.] It led me to read Crawford’s book, which amplified my concerns about the damage caused by massive digital data gathering. I’d been thinking about AI since the year before when in November, 2022, ChatGPT was released, grew rapidly in its user base, drew many critics, and the nation saw a massive subsequent venture-capital investment in this kind of AI. On a personal level, I saw how ChatGPT suddenly reshaped the work life of many writers and teachers around me, and the strikes in Hollywood made it clear that as a media professional I had to learn more about AI."]
Loewen, James. "Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History (Teachers College Press, 2018)."New Books in History (January 3, 2019) ["In an atmosphere filled with social media and fake news, history is more important than ever. But, what do you really know about history? In the second edition of his book, Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History (Teachers College Press, 2018). Dr. James W. Loewen interrogates what we think we know about our past. Loewen, a sociologist and professor at the University of Vermont, shows readers that history must be reconsidered in order to avoid previously accepted misconceptions. As Loewen demonstrates throughout this valuable text, teachers must look beyond the textbook to discover what really happened and to teach their students how to "do" history. Teaching What Really Happened is an eye-opening book that reinvigorates history and empowers its readers."]
Oliver, Manuel and Patricia Oliver. "Parents of Murdered Parkland Student Joaquin Oliver on Using Art to Demand End to Gun Violence."Democracy Now (August 15, 2018) ["Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, return to class today, amid heavy security, after summer break. It was six months ago Tuesday when a former student, armed with a semiautomatic AR-15, gunned down 17 students, staff and teachers in just three minutes. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. After the horrific attack, many of the students who survived the shooting became leading activists for gun control. Among the students killed at Stoneman Douglas High School was Joaquin Oliver. On Tuesday, Democracy Now! spoke to Joaquin’s parents, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, who have started a new nonprofit called Change the Ref to promote the use of urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to expose the disastrous effects of gun violence."]
Purnell, Derecka. "Radical Political Action."Boston Review (March 7, 2016) ["In the Black Study, Black Struggle forum, Robin D. G. Kelley advocates for a rebirth of grassroots political education. A forum contributor, Derecka Purnell, informed us that some groups of student-activists are already doing exactly that. At Harvard Law School, a group called Reclaim Harvard Law has occupied one of the school's lounges and is holding weekly political education sessions there. Purnell shared with us her list of the texts that have been circulating in the group. It reveals an investment in liberation from not only racial oppression, but from all forms of oppression, including sexual and financial. This is informed by a commitment to "intersectionality," Kimberlé Crenshaw's insight that various forms of oppression are entangled and amplify one another, and thus must be fought in concert. We present this list, in the form it was presented to us, as the current pulse of the movement and a testament to its members' brilliance."]
Roeser, Rob. "Transforming Education."Mind and Life (September 7, 2023) ["Wendy speaks with contemplative educator and developmental psychologist Rob Roeser. Rob has been working to re-envision the educational system for decades, and has been at the forefront of understanding how we can best integrate mindfulness and compassion into school settings. This conversation covers many topics, including: his initial exposure to integrative school systems; educating for life, instead of just participation in the global economy; focus on the body, nature, and our inherent "earthiness"; studying schools in India that integrate meditation; integrating science and viewing contemplative practice as building skills; applying a developmental lens to contemplative education; the key role of educating adults alongside children; changing culture and norms; how social processes drive the development of attention in children; our innate tendencies towards both compassion and othering; attention training as a relational practice; the relevance of a secure base; leveraging developmental "windows of opportunity"; practices that highlight our shared humanity; systems thinking in education; and re-enchanting the gift of learning."]
Rosenthal, Shana. "Former Parkland Student: I Interned for Senator Rubio. Now I’m Begging Him to Act on Guns."Democracy Now (February 22, 2018) ["As students protests grow in Florida, we speak to a former intern for Senator Rubio who is also a graduate from Stoneman Douglas High School. Shana Rosenthal just wrote a piece for The New York Times titled “I Interned for Senator Rubio. Now I’m Begging Him to Act on Guns.” In the piece, the 21-year-old reveals she has already been near four mass shootings: at Florida State University, Fort Lauderdale airport and the massacres at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and at Stoneman Douglas High School last week. She attended the CNN town hall last night."]
Scarleteen ["Scarleteen is an independent, grassroots sexuality education and support organization and website. Founded in 1998, Scarleteen.com is visited by around three-quarters of a million diverse people each month worldwide, most between the ages of 15 and 25. It is the highest-ranked website for sex education and sexuality advice online and has held that rank through most of its tenure." For an extensive/detailed explanation of the website's purpose"]
Schaeffer, Jan. "Purple Episode 4: Media to the Rescue?"On the Media (November 26, 2019) ["A 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, showed only 23 percent of eighth graders in the United States attained “proficient” status in civics. A 2011 Newsweek survey found that 70 percent of Americans didn’t even know that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. And only 26% of those surveyed in 2017 by the University of Pennsylvania could name all three branches of government. And no wonder: with STEM curriculum and standardized testing squeezing the school day, civics has become the snow leopard of the social studies curriculum. So if the knowledge vacuum is otherwise filled by misinformation and disinformation, and the result is a loss of faith and trust in democracy itself, who is left to intervene? Jan Schaffer — ombudsman for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, Pulitzer Prize–winning former journalist and founder of The Institute for Interactive Journalism — talks to Bob about what responsibility the media have to become educators, and maybe even re-assurers, of last resort."]
Stevenson, Bryan. "'Talking History is Way We Liberate America': : New Memorial Honors Victims of White Supremacy."Democracy Now (May 1, 2018) ["The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened last week in Montgomery, Alabama—a monument to victims of white supremacy in the United States. The memorial’s centerpiece is a walkway with 800 weathered steel pillars overhead, each of them naming a U.S. county and the people who were lynched there by white mobs. In addition to the memorial dedicated to the victims of lynching, its partner site, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, also opened last week. For more, we speak with Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit behind the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the country’s first-ever memorial to the victims of lynching in the United States."]
---. "'Death Penalty is Lynching's Stepson': On Slavery, White Supremacy, Prisons & More."Democracy Now (May 1, 2018) ["Extended conversation with Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit behind the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the country’s first-ever memorial to the victims of lynching in the United States. The memorial opened last week in Montgomery, Alabama. Its centerpiece is a walkway with 800 weathered steel pillars overhead, each of them naming a U.S. county and the people who were lynched there by white mobs. The memorial’s partner site, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, also opened last week. For more, we speak with Bryan Stevenson, who says that acknowledging history is crucial to facing racism today. “Everybody wants to think that if they were alive during slavery, they’d be an abolitionist,” Stevenson says. “If we’re not prepared to act today, then I don’t think we can claim that we would have acted any differently during slavery and lynching and segregation.”"]
Surface, Bethany. "Top 25 Censored News Stories of 2017 - 2018: #21 Parkland Shooter’s JROTC Connections Spotlight Militarization of Schools."Project Censored (October 2, 2018) ["Florida is “arguably the most friendly state in terms of the militarization of the schools,” Elder said. Its statutes “allow a student who takes four years of JROTC to substitute biology, physical science, physical education and art for this straight-jacketed military indoctrination program.” In an article for World Beyond War, he further noted that, in Florida, JROTC is regarded as an Advanced Placement course for which students earn points toward their weighted GPAs, even though many of the courses are taught by retired soldiers with no teaching credentials and little or no college education. Florida, Elder explained, has simply gone further than other states, many of which allow JROTC participation to substitute for requirements in physical education and American government and civics."]
Teacher Solidarity ["Our aim is to bring together teacher activists internationally by recording their struggles. All over the world teachers are taking action - occupying, demonstrating and striking - against 'reforms' which are standing in the way of truly emancipated and creative education for the world's children. This site has been set up as a result of our book 'The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers and their Unions: Stories for Resistance.'"]
"'These Tests Will Go': The Opt-Out Movement in Urban Philadelphia."Have You Heard #1 (2016) ["Have You Heard heads to Philadelphia to talk to African American parents who are opting their kids out of standardized tests. We listen in as they share their perspectives about a movement that’s been characterized as wealthy, white and suburban."]
Waldrun, Jeremy. "Brave Spaces."The New York Review of Books (June 28, 2018) ["“How can we—those of us who profess to educate—accept the student demand not only as a rebuke, which it certainly is, but also as a gift?” -- Tav Nyong’o"]
