tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post8047567605671551481..comments2024-01-04T05:57:26.735-06:00Comments on Education Policy Blog: Hosted by the Forum on the Future of Public Education: FEBRUARY DISCUSSION FORUM: Empowerment and the Failure of Progressive EducationCraig A. Cunninghamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18160288758906798678noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1401179449739015802010-02-01T00:18:50.057-06:002010-02-01T00:18:50.057-06:00Yes yar this is a complex discussion but interesti...Yes yar this is a complex discussion but interestingUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11479898274035941729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-16229466212662268472009-11-10T15:46:23.285-06:002009-11-10T15:46:23.285-06:00This is a rather complex and heady discussion.
T...This is a rather complex and heady discussion. <br /><br />The problem with "organizing" is that organizing is a human exercise, and as such, is inherently flawed and will be tainted to serve the agenda of either a minority or majority interest, unconsciously or willingly. It is by nature that organizing or collectivism is doomed from the very clap of the gavel.gwinnett county private schoolshttp://www.cornerstonecougars.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-760603010281054762009-02-02T08:06:00.000-06:002009-02-02T08:06:00.000-06:00Thanks for this post and mentioning as failure of ...Thanks for this post and mentioning as failure of Progressive education. At present education has became a great business to turnover money for most of them and very few are there working sincere to educate here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-54316468493546570912008-04-14T11:55:00.000-05:002008-04-14T11:55:00.000-05:00I can tell you what we did. We basically put toget...I can tell you what we did. We basically put together a three component certificate with some extra electives. <BR/><BR/>Part 1 is an overview course about community organizing. It would be best to have more than one, but we've started with one.<BR/><BR/>Part 2 is an external training course. By requiring a course from an external group that is focused on teaching organizing, we acknowledge that you can't learn everything that's important about organizing from a University. We mostly focus on Midwest Academy, although this costs $$ which creates a problem for our students. Most of the major organizing groups have training courses, as do other institutes like the Center for Third World Organizing. You can find them on the web. <BR/><BR/>Part 3 is an internship with a community organizing group. This is linked to a critical paper, and would be linked to an actual capstone class if we had enough students.<BR/><BR/>One key thing is that you need to figure out what "counts" as community organizing for your program. For our program, you need to be engaged with a group that is trying to get people to contest power collectively. This definition eliminates most "organizing" that goes on in a wide range of non-profits. Organizing in non-conflict oriented groups generally involves more "by your own bootstraps" efforts or efforts to find people in power to collaborate with. These groups can't afford to antagonize the powerful. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't teach people how to contest those who oppress them. If powerful people were going to do things for us out of the goodness of their heart, they already would have. And the idea that communities are going to be able to reconstruct themselves without any outside help (or without stopping outside harm) is a fantasy, however vibrant and important these efforts might be.<BR/><BR/>You would need to decide what, exactly, will count as a "real" organizing internship, and this decision would then reverberate back through your curriculum.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-45061839859699264382008-04-14T10:40:00.000-05:002008-04-14T10:40:00.000-05:00Hi,I am working on a two year community organizing...Hi,<BR/><BR/>I am working on a two year community organizing certificate for a community center.<BR/><BR/>If you were working on this, what content would you include?<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the feedback,<BR/>SH<BR/>shco@dca.netAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-37525773785556935472008-03-17T09:05:00.000-05:002008-03-17T09:05:00.000-05:00After reading through all comments here, I'm back...After reading through all comments here, I'm back to my earlier question: what's the relation between power over (intellectual power, physical power, economic power) and power with (the power of organizing and, done well, educating)?? <BR/><BR/>Aaron, quick point about teaching math but not being a mathematician or teaching organizing and not being an organizer . . . I'm not sure that's right. A teacher has to have a sense of the practice that he or she is teaching (and all knowledge/subject matter is essential a matter of practice). For my money, the failure of many teachers is that they don't have a sense of the practice underlying the knowledge they are teaching (including "basic skills"). I don't think my point is exactly the same as Dan's Shulman point, but I'm not sure.<BR/><BR/>Of course, it's a matter of em-PHA-sis, not an either/or, but the real question is what's worrying you? What consequences does conflating the two (academicizing and organizing?) have that ought to be avoided?<BR/><BR/>I think I think we're all in agreement that reflection on practice (the stance of the academic) should not be utterly divorced from the actual practice (the stance of the organizer) or from the teaching of the practice (the stance of the educator). So the next question is should all three functions reside in one person?? And if that's implausible and/or impossible, what are the habitual modes of communication that must be in place for the needed cross-fertilization? And that's really what you are trying to lay out, isn't it?<BR/><BR/>And of course, we should ask: Is what's true for the teacher (ought to have a reflective stance and a sense of the practice as well as pedagogical focus) also true for the organizer and the academic (that is blend the three perspectives)? Is it only the teacher who needs to cross lines or do all three roles need the cross-fertilization? (You can probably guess my answer to that, and I think I know yours by the kind of frustration you express about pushing the academy, etc.)<BR/><BR/>Still, you know first hand, as many of us do, the costs -- in personal time, in "career building", in intellectual and emotional "schizophrenia" -- when one tries to integrate roles that are demanding in themselves . . . when a balkanized professional environment tends to keep each of us in separate boxes. <BR/><BR/>What I find powerful in what you are doing/writing is the call to recognition and communication, but I don't think it's a situation that can be "fixed" (both in the sense of setting it right and in the sense of setting it in stone). Which is not all bad because it continually gives us something all to talk about and work on :-)Barbara Stengelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00750720938489052189noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-17887990282620500432008-03-15T14:02:00.000-05:002008-03-15T14:02:00.000-05:00OK, I think we should all post at once about one o...OK, I think we should all post at once about one of Aaron's blogs and see if we can drown him out just through sheer numbers. <BR/><BR/>Just a joke. <BR/><BR/>Aaron, <BR/><BR/>Your reply was helpful and I don't think we are talking past each other at all. In fact, I think we have the same worries about what the academy can't accomplish, what it's unintended consequences might be, as well as is its potential. I think I just take a slightly more conservative and long-term stance on its power of social change.Dan W. Butinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08543447769350980289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-74794693207588917322008-03-14T17:11:00.000-05:002008-03-14T17:11:00.000-05:00Horton was an organizer and an educator, and he re...Horton was an organizer and an educator, and he realized the necessity of understanding the difference between the two in order to know what he was doing. <BR/><BR/>In either of those roles, however, I think it safe to say that Horton always preferred leading his horse to water, rather than to drown him by trying to make him drink. <BR/><BR/>As for not wanting to work with MLK, it was soon after completing a workshop at Highlander that Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to giving up her seat for a white man in December 1955.James Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-23192733850295311412008-03-14T15:46:00.000-05:002008-03-14T15:46:00.000-05:00Jim, I also like the Horton/Freire book, and have ...Jim, I also like the Horton/Freire book, and have taught it frequently.<BR/><BR/>Horton's distinction between organizing and education is quite subtle, depending a lot on his sophisticated and individual definitions of these terms. In general, I'd argue that his preference for what he calls education puts him right at the center of progressive visions of "power." He doesn't ever want to have to tell other people what to do, and is willing to sacrifice pragmatic achievements to maintain the relative purity of his dialogic space. He doesn't want to work with MLK, he wants to create largely Deweyan freedom schools. But I think there is a great deal of evidence indicating that the Horton approach, <B>by itself,</B> never would have produced the kind of change that made the civil rights movement important.<BR/><BR/>At the same time, many of Horton's key students went on to be "organizers," and he celebrated that. He didn't necessarily oppose the necessity of organizing, he just didn't want to do it himself--at least that's what he sounds like he's saying sometimes.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-30304628349066911192008-03-14T15:39:00.000-05:002008-03-14T15:39:00.000-05:00Hi, Dan. Thanks for your willingness to keep push...Hi, Dan. Thanks for your willingness to keep pushing me!<BR/><BR/>In terms of your earlier post, I think we mostly agree. I don’t expect radical changes in the field, but I do think that small changes can make a difference. I’m not really trying to convince more established scholars, but instead open a door for new folks. So in that sense, when I’m playing that role, I do think it will be a slow process. In fact, I’m pretty certain It’ll fail. But that’s the luxury of having a faculty position. <BR/><BR/>I wasn’t suggesting a simple binary between the “streets” and the academy. I was only trying to point out that different academic activities are more or less distant from practice. And if little practice is going on, the influence of the meta meta practice won’t be that great. Women studies dropped practice in favor of meta meta analysis, in my understanding. Maybe that was a mistake. Certainly many have noted that this pull away from practice had a crucial impact on the field of women’s studies.<BR/><BR/>I’m not sure I really get your Shulman argument. I do research, and I also teach, and I’m also developing curriculum for others to teach organizing and I want others to create new programs where it is taught. I’m not an organizer. But I know enough to teach my part in a collaborative effort to educate organizers (that include internships and other outside training by organizers). If I teach someone to be an organizer, and they go out and organize, then, well, that’s had a social justice impact, right? If they don’t, they don’t. <BR/><BR/>I think part of our difference of opinion may come, in part, from our different positionings. My sense is that you treat your academic identity as your primary public identity. In general, I also do, but not in every public space I participate in. <BR/><BR/>For example, when I started working with MICAH, the community organizing group I work with, I never emphasized my professor identity, although people knew, and I had the luxury of not needing to do “research” in any formal way because I was a theory head. The point is not that my professor identity didn’t matter, the point is that it wasn’t primarily the way I presented myself or, I think, how I was received. At times, my academic skills were useful, but less often than you might think (more lately as I’ve slowly learned how to translate).<BR/><BR/>When I met with officials about getting health services for MPS schools I think they knew I was a professor, but, again, that’s not what got me in the door, and I didn’t really emphasize it. What they cared about was my relationship with MICAH, and what we wanted to do. They never mentioned my professor identity.<BR/><BR/>On the blogosphere, my experience is that what is valued is actual product. No one particularly cares “who” you are. You can find out that I’m a professor if you read my bio on OpenLeft, for example, but it isn’t otherwise a part of my online identity. The key theoretical writer on Open Left is actually editor of an alternative newspaper in CA, but I had to dig around on the Internet to figure that out. In fact, I think being an academic can be a drawback in these spaces. So, no, I’m not sure it made a big difference that I was an academic that some people were drawn to that particular piece. Certainly it wasn’ t what got them to read it in the first place. That’s part of what makes participating in blog discussions so odd for an academic. Everyone is essentially equal based on what they say, and the “autodidacts” may come off better than traditional academics. <BR/><BR/>If I can influence the larger dialogue in the organizing community about how we generate more organizing, that goes much farther than just accretion. We are actually at a moment where people with $$ are trying to figure out where to put it and, I think, at a real crisis point in the economy and in our society. <BR/><BR/>Finally, I think the key danger in what I’m arguing for is that of “professionalization,” that the academic will colonize the community. In this case, however, this danger is complicated by the fact that, first, there isn’t that much organizing going on to colonize relative to the challenges we face. Second, in a sense “organizing” has already been “professionalized” by the large community organizing groups, often in a negative way. I think that the academy could actually play a role in bringing more critical dialogue to strategies and practices that seem in some cases to have become too narrow (e.g., the meta meta role). Third, I don’t think “organizing” will ever be really professionalized in the sense that a group emerges that “certifies” organizers. In any case, right now we don’t have a way of broadly educating people about organizing even on a very basic level and that is more of a problem than dangers of too much codification at the moment.<BR/><BR/>We may be talking past each other a bit here. I’m not certain.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-14279620101329049672008-03-14T08:45:00.000-05:002008-03-14T08:45:00.000-05:00Horton, who toured with Alinsky at one time, has a...Horton, who toured with Alinsky at one time, has a nice distinction between educating and organizing in We Make the Road by Walking (pp. 115-122). <BR/><BR/>Freire chimes in, too. <BR/><BR/>This remarkable little book is available online. What a clear, deep spring it is--as spiritual as politics gets.James Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-35865670757946780302008-03-14T07:41:00.000-05:002008-03-14T07:41:00.000-05:00Hi Aaron, Good for you about the potential funder....Hi Aaron, <BR/><BR/>Good for you about the potential funder. I hope it works out. But that, I think, demonstrates my point. To put it crassly, if an organizer with no academic affiliation had posted it, it might have had a lot less traction. <BR/><BR/>Lee Shulman pointed out in 1986 that we in teacher education do not just teach content, or just pedagogy; we also, and most importantly, teach pedagogical content knowledge. We teach the “meta” part of understanding how math or ecology or, in this case, community organizing is done such that we can understand, teach, and, ultimately, do it better. That is what makes us teacher educators or math educators or whatever educators. Because we do the “academizing” of the topic we are studying. I am in no way suggesting that this makes us cool or activist or social justice inspired. That is what I meant with my Fish reference and I agree completely with your reply on that point. <BR/><BR/>But what you are still doing – with the reference to Beloved – is suggesting some kind of binary between the academy and “the streets” and that the outside needs to come inside in order to truly make a difference. I don’t buy it. This was Martha Nussbaum’s attack on Judith Butler – “The professor of parody” Nussbaum titled the article – was all about; and it was inaccurate. I’ve written about this in the context of service-learning; put briefly, such a perspective conflates the academic with the non-consequential and it presumes activism as always liberal and always liberatory. But that’s a whole other argument. Ultimately, I think I am simply trying to nudge out of you a little bit of acknowledgment that we as academics have a specialized role to play. We can also cross-over into other domains and fields; but we can only do so because of our status as academicians. If we lose that aspect of our profession, we lose our ability to do everything else you want to do as well.Dan W. Butinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08543447769350980289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-55186633751473506952008-03-13T23:06:00.000-05:002008-03-13T23:06:00.000-05:00Hi, Dan. We teach math, but are not mathematicians...Hi, Dan. <BR/><BR/>We teach math, but are not mathematicians, we teach ecology but are not ecologists. Why cannot we teach organizing although we are not organizers? Further, what creative ways might we link classroom teaching to actual organizing experiences? How might we blur the boundaries between the academy and the community without denying the power and potential blind spots and tensions between both. <BR/><BR/>I am an educator and a scholar and an administrator (regretfully) and also a leader in a local community organizing group. I am trying to shift the academy (probably unsuccessfully) and I am trying to change the way organizers and funders of organizers think about organizing, and I am working within my local organization to fight for specific improvements, and I am trying to help grow a department that embodies some of what I think foundations of education could become.<BR/><BR/>I want to accrete change, and I want to jolt scholars into being self-critical (whether they end up agreeing with me is up to them), and I want to change the field's sense of itself, and I want a few schools to teach their kids how to organize, and I want to change the way we think about community school engagement, and I want to improve the way organizing happens in urban America, and those are just my public goals. The point is not that I have the answers, but that I think I can push others to think differently.<BR/><BR/>Interestingly enough, I cross-posted a recent post, "core dilemmas of community organizing" on some other blogs. It was promoted to the front page of OpenLeft, and rescued on MyDD a day or so ago. Tonight I heard that a significant funder read it on OpenLeft and thought it was insightful and is interested in talking with me. <BR/><BR/>It's about the "ands" Dan, not about the "ors". We can play multiple roles and should. <BR/><BR/>Yes, there are issues about moving back and forth across academic borders. So be it. This is the reality. Drawing the boundaries so strictly in the way you seem to be doing (and maybe I've misread you) simply denies the real complexity of the multiplicity of the positions we all occupy.<BR/><BR/>And by the way, what would have happened if women's studies programs kept trying to teach people how to organize in addition to how to analyze Beloved? <BR/><BR/>And about the Fish article. You made a similar point earlier. What Fish was talking about, if I remember correctly, was not trying to change the moral practices and beliefs of our students. But as I said then:<BR/><BR/>"It's important to understand that I'm not talking about morality or "therapeutic" education, here. Community organizing and effective social action involves a range of pragmatic skills and concepts. These are mostly neutral. In fact, the right wing uses many of them much more effectively than the left, although they often focus on different ones given their different set of values. The KKK uses social action tactics too. The point is not to make sure other people necessarily engage in social action. The point is to make sure they are exposed to the history, concepts, and skills that might allow them to if they wish. What they do with these, we can't control. (Although what would I do if a KKK member showed up in my organizing class. . . . ?)"<BR/><BR/>It's a set of concepts and practices. Like math, like psychology, like social work. . . . these can be taught. How to teach them best? That's a different question.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1158126206928300282008-03-13T21:24:00.000-05:002008-03-13T21:24:00.000-05:00Interesting concept: social justice by accretion. ...Interesting concept: social justice by accretion. Is it an oxymoron?Craig A. Cunninghamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18160288758906798678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-31029610676121178032008-03-13T20:57:00.000-05:002008-03-13T20:57:00.000-05:00Hi Aaron, OK, so I am waaaay late with this postin...Hi Aaron, <BR/><BR/>OK, so I am waaaay late with this posting; though, to make myself happy, I can argue that if this was a journal article, my reply would be incredibly prompt. Ahh, the power of technology.<BR/><BR/>What I love about your work and argument (in general and here in specific) is that you flip the entire paradigm of what education is and should be. To me it slams home with your statement that “The focus of progressive education research is on making our classrooms places for holistic learning and collaborative engagement. And these are quite wonderful goals. But they have little or nothing to do with empowerment.” For if one truly takes that perspective seriously, one has to reconceptualize what the classroom looks like and what curriculum and instruction do. It reminds me of John Taylor Gatto’s teaching (not critical theory writing, mind you, but his actual teaching when he was a classroom teacher). <BR/><BR/>Let me, though, focus on what I see as a problematic conflation in your argument. Specifically, it seems to me you conflate “progressive education” and “progressive education research.” For your arguments and your indignation rest on and in the inequities faced daily by the marginalized and excluded kids. Yet, as you are very clear to state, you are an educational researcher. So unless you are about to quit and become a classroom teacher or community organizer, you need (it seems to me) to embrace your position in the academy. I know you do, I know you do. Don’t get me wrong. You talk about faculty lines and starting PhD programs, etc, etc. But you want to save the world or at least change how community organizing is done in Milwaukee to make it a better place for all. But if you are truly an academic, you cannot have it both ways. Your status and positioning and power are, by definition, coterminous with your title. No title of associate professor and chair, no power. Or to be more precise, a different power that does not reside in the role. <BR/><BR/>So what does this mean? Stanley Fish put it provocatively a few years ago in a Chronicle commentary (“Aim Low”) when he argued against “civic engagement” for undergraduates: stick to the practices in your own shop and do them well. I don’t want to tangent into Fish’s arguments, but the point for me is that you can do a damn lot of good by creating exactly what you are doing: tenure-track lines; social foundations that includes rather than implicitly excludes the community; collaborations with non-profits; etc. This is change (and, dare I say it, social justice) through accretion. Slow, tedious, political, academic. But, damn it, accretion it is. The exemplar for me is women’s studies, which, through “disciplining” feminism, created an “academic home” for ideas and perspectives truly excluded in the academy prior to their work. <BR/><BR/>Anyway, to sum up, I say embrace your positionality. Embrace that you are a scholar who is not an organizer who is committed to community organizing through his academic work. Of course there is overlap; of course it is not either/or. But to conflate “education” and “educational research” ultimately denies you the only power you have. As an academic making dramatic and important changes over the long term. <BR/><BR/>Thanks for the post. <BR/><BR/>DanDan W. Butinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08543447769350980289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-18118460315809991232008-03-10T08:07:00.000-05:002008-03-10T08:07:00.000-05:00I think the next forum person should feel free to ...I think the next forum person should feel free to post. <BR/><BR/>I would love to hear from those who didn't have time to respond, although I understand that this was a bit much to digest. It's something I'm planning to write up more formally, and if there are those that think I'm totally off base, it would be nice to hear it here.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-76935456590111660702008-03-03T10:23:00.000-06:002008-03-03T10:23:00.000-06:00This is long, complex, and deserves to remain at t...This is long, complex, and deserves to remain at the top of the page...Is there a way to bump this up...and perhaps shorten the intro so new material remains visible on the page?philiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07461587137265412721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-29749934854296377302008-03-02T23:53:00.000-06:002008-03-02T23:53:00.000-06:00I'm here from OpenLeft...Just skimmed this but fou...I'm here from OpenLeft...<BR/><BR/>Just skimmed this but found it most interesting. Will be back soon with something, hopefully cogent, to say.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14729969243960279886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-50764564408697346052008-03-01T06:09:00.000-06:002008-03-01T06:09:00.000-06:00Thanks for your comment, Duane.I agree that we sho...Thanks for your comment, Duane.<BR/><BR/>I agree that we shouldn't romanicize organizers, and I have been quite critical myself elsewhere on this blog. But they represent a tradition that is crucial to understand and build upon, one that educators know little or nothing about.<BR/><BR/>The racial issues of the progressives has emerged even more strongly in recent scholarship. <BR/><BR/>I would say, however, that in terms of "who" we want others to be, progressive educators are still very "assimilation" minded, in that we want kids to embody the culture of middle-class professionals, and denigrate other cultural models.<BR/><BR/>I agree that educators shouldn't be "leaders;" instead it's their job to do what they do best, provide contexts in which their students can learn skills for leading and organizing themselves. How exactly they could do this remains to be seen. But I also think Schools of Education could do more than teach teachers, as I've said. We can and should work more with community adults who could learn to be organizers and leaders.<BR/><BR/>Part of the problem is that there isn't much "struggle" going on in many parts of our country. I think we can help provide a context for (critically) transmitting some of the lessons of the past, providing a base for others to begin to struggle without having to recreate the wheel. Part of this would involve linking university-based learning with non-university learning (e.g., Midwest Academy, union organizer training, etc.) and internships, so that we can bring the best of all three together. That's what our tiny community organizing certificate at my University tries to do. <BR/><BR/>These are not easy questions to answer. But few scholars in education are even asking them.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-77926713252833872342008-02-29T23:39:00.000-06:002008-02-29T23:39:00.000-06:00As I understand it, after a great deal of reflecti...As I understand it, after a great deal of reflection, one of the key differences between the progressives of Dewey's time, and our time, was their view of race You can read about this in the way the Progressive Party split over race,<BR/>In Dewey's era, the lower working class were largely European immigrants. For all of his positive contributions, he was seeking to create a new American. Today, as a consequence of the civil Rights movement, Multicultural Ed, and the new patterns of immigration, this largely assimilationist pattern is not usually a part of the "progressive" agenda. I have spent over 28 years in the socialist movements, and years as a factory worker and then union organizer, before becoming a teacher and then a professor.<BR/>I agree that a loose affiliation with social justice allows for a "liberal" view of reform. <BR/>On a parallel point, I know personally two, outstanding, nationally recognized organizers from the Alinksy and Midwest Academy tradition. Later in their lives they moved from organizers to public school teachers. <BR/>From my own experience and theirs, we need to not romanticize the role of organizers or community organizers. <BR/>Another role for Ed schools or any university would be to guide " professionals" to be allies of working class and people's movements. How can we be allies? We are not the leaders. <BR/>My own personal experience is having worked with Miles Horton, Paulo Friere, Cesar Chavez and many current public intellectuals such as Cornel West. <BR/>I think our task is to figure out how to participate in the struggle rather than assume that we are leaders of the struggle.<BR/>Duane Campbell <BR/>www.talkingunion.wordpress.com<BR/>www.choosingdemocracy.blogspot.comDuane Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01437689584657643858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-19576983068074214172008-02-29T12:01:00.000-06:002008-02-29T12:01:00.000-06:00Interesting question. Of course in an abstract se...Interesting question. Of course in an abstract sense, again, it's always both/and. <BR/><BR/>But, and I'm not sure I've framed it quite this way before, I think that power is more zero-sum as you move down the social scale. Ask any union organizer whether she things power is zero-sum, for example. <BR/><BR/>It is our privilege that makes us think that the world can operate in a non-zero-sum way. We sit among relative equals and can pull something together. But when you have little power, and people with power don't really want to cooperate, well, you are back to zero-sum.<BR/><BR/>Alinsky said that nobody ever GIVES you anything worth anything. Critical Race Theory pretty much says the same thing. The kind of problems inner-city youth face will cost $$ to solve. They will require someone to give something up. And nobody wants to give anything up--especially if it may mean that their own kids will have less of a chance to succeed. <BR/><BR/>The myth of a non-zero-sum world is a comforting myth for the privileged, because it paints a picture of a world where the oppressed can be helped without them having to give anything up.<BR/><BR/>Education itself, as others have pointed out, is the epitome of non-zero-sum thinking. Let's not change the economics of society, let's just educate people and then everybody can succeed. It's a lie. <BR/><BR/>Look, I'm pissed that I got only a 2% raise this year, even though I am upper middle class in terms of income in this city. I feel poor and that is patently rediculous, but there you are. <BR/><BR/>And I don't want to send my kids to a crummy school, and I can get my kid into a better school, and I did, and that probably means some less privileged kid won't get in. If you forced me into a crummy school, then I'd need to work to help fix it, and I could because I'm privileged. Although I'd probably just make sure there was tracking so that my kid did okay and the "low achievers" stayed out. But I don't have to go there, and so I won't have to help. And I'm too busy. Bummer for them.<BR/><BR/>That's zero-sum. <BR/><BR/>But progressive education (and all those happy kids shows I now have to watch) are all about how the solution to everything is that we should all get together and cooperate. That's a lie for kids on the bottom. It's a destructive lie. Because nobody with privilege has any interest in "collaborating" with them. Nobody even wants to talk with them.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-45275414997441033112008-02-29T07:56:00.000-06:002008-02-29T07:56:00.000-06:00I probably should not have thrown that "teaser" in...I probably should not have thrown that "teaser" in -- and I don't have time to develop it now so I promise to come back to it.<BR/><BR/>What I want to comment on quickly is your point (made more clearly here than in your original post and that reveals what your central argument with the last century progressives might be) that power really IS a zero-sum game (Dewey and Addams seem to think that it ain't necessarily so and Mary Parker Follett explicitly argues that it isn't constructive to think that way.). You want to say that until you think of power as a zero sum game, the basic socio-political and socio-economic structure stays in place -- is that right?<BR/><BR/>So here's my question: is it either/or?? Power as zero sum (power over) OR power as generative (power with/to)??? Or are BOTH formulations both useful and dangerous??Barbara Stengelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00750720938489052189noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-24376386130776051632008-02-29T07:38:00.000-06:002008-02-29T07:38:00.000-06:00One key issue to understand is that what you want ...One key issue to understand is that what you want to train in the labor/community organizing models are leaders who can be "organizers." In indigenous groups, leaders often play both roles. More formal groups often separate these roles. <BR/><BR/>The job of an organizer, along with keeping an organization going, is to generate new leaders and help them grow. And generating new leaders is partly about helping them understand how to recruit new supporters. So to some extent, a comprehensive empowerment training program would provide opportunities for youth and adults to learn to become trainers of leaders and formers of organizations. You never have enough leaders, so the aim, in the ideal, is continually an educational one. As one shifts into an organizer role, one increasingly moves into the background, nudging (or challenging) others to take the leader roles. In other words, this is not about finding charismatic controllers, but about nurturing people who can create and support organizations and who can bring up leaders themselves (which, of course, requires people who know how to be leaders themselves). And "leader" in this terminology is not simply the MLK type, but anyone who can contribute to the core functioning of an organization. Leaders include pretty much anyone who shows up to planning meetings. Non-leaders are supporters who come to events. You want as many supporters to turn into leaders as possible. But you need lots of supporters. In theory, it should be a pretty organic process. Of course, in reality it's much more problematic.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-35758321958055693192008-02-29T07:07:00.000-06:002008-02-29T07:07:00.000-06:00Barb, I'm not entirely clear on your last point, h...Barb, I'm not entirely clear on your last point, here. The goal would be to look empirically at what kinds of curricula are empowering. Of course, this doesn't avoid arguments about what this means. From my perspective, the key is acknowledging the importance of a zero-sum view of power, in that power and resources generally needs to be taken from others one way or another.<BR/><BR/>It's not about "unlocking the tower of empowerment" but about moving in some small way, at least, concretely in that direction. <BR/><BR/>One key point is that knowledge about and skills for effective strategies for social action are so lacking in poor communities that even relatively small changes in the number of people who have this knowledge and these skills might make a significant difference. Part of the reason is that the community organizing model is more focused on "leaders" than on making sure every individual has an advanced set of practices to draw upon. <BR/><BR/>But I'd still like to think about how we might be able to sneak some of this material into regular schools. <BR/><BR/>Of course, any set of practices can be coopted or become disempowering by being watered down, etc. But I'm not sure what you are meaning specifically, here.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-39633336470431490212008-02-28T19:40:00.000-06:002008-02-28T19:40:00.000-06:00I've got a million thoughts, Aaron, in response to...I've got a million thoughts, Aaron, in response to your post. Let me throw out just two for now.<BR/><BR/>1) I too could live without reliance on "social justice" as part of the lingo of contemporary progressive education. It seems too often to be used in a self-righteous, self-congratulatory tone as you pointed out. I get Jim's point about the value of goals -- and before it became a slogan, social justice was a pretty great way of articulating a (perhaps the) critical goal of democratic education. It made the case for justice AS social! But it's not advancing much of value at present. It tends to be used as a trump card to win the trick and stop interaction and dialogue, and I'm not thinking much good ever came of that.<BR/><BR/>2) Here's the line that I want to put glitter on: "Empowerment for those on the bottom is a collective and not an individual accomplishment." This I think is the critical theoretical insight in your post and I'm still chewing on it. <BR/><BR/>I remain perplexed by the way we talk about "power" and "empowerment". We make the case, as you do, that it's a relational, collective state of affairs or phenomenon -- but it's really hard to frame language that keeps that recognition front and center. We (I?) keep reverting to a taken-for-granted view of power as an attribute of a person -- and that view allows us to then judge those without power as somehow deficient. I continue to ponder the psychology of that move.<BR/><BR/>That's all for now, but here's a teaser about what I might try to throw into the conversation next. I have a vague feeling that you're putting yourself in a potential dead end by talking about empowerment in the collective and then talking about requiring/stipulating curricula that might themselves become disempowering. I hear what you are saying about valorizing as powerfully educational the organizational responses of the disempowered. But I'm unconvinced that the ameliorating suggestions you are making will unlock the tower of empowerment. (You seem to recognize that at the end.)Barbara Stengelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00750720938489052189noreply@blogger.com