Can communities of resistance and transformation be born from the social context of school?

Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter 2003 by Gibson, Rich

In schools, the Achilles heel of the resistance movement is the class, gender, and race supremacy that has become the natural backdrop of U.S. society, hubris and inequality so pervasive that it is the norm. The citizens of LaJolla, who fought to opt their children out of the abusive San Diego Blueprint, did not do that thinking they were forging a form of racist separation, class separation, but that is a significant part of what they did. Union meetings rarely include parents and kids. Divide and conquer is an old ploy, and we should remember the old answers: solidarity, inclusion, equality, and democracy, in the name of freedom and love caring communities of all for all (Pang, 2001).

Real school reform, which will allow reason to transcend irrationalism built into the social structure, and equality to overcome inequality, democracy to go past authoritarianism, necessitates deep social transformation.

To do that requires three things that cannot be built into external educational regulations or their mates, the Big Tests:

1. The Critique of Tyranny and its transformation is ages old, but the metaphor of the Master and the Slaves is a lighthouse for understanding what it is people need to know, and how they need to come to know it, in order for all to be free (http://www.pipeline.com/-rgibson/gibson.htm).This is not only a study of contention, opposition, but a study of overcoming, transcending, transforming; that is, how we can start with what is and get to what ought to be. This goes to the question of how we keep our ideals and still teach within a society that suggests that may be impossible (Gibson, 2002 a online at http://www.pipeline.com/-rgibson/ AlienationRG.htm).

2. Wisdom, the grasp of the whole, totality, and the potentially profound understanding of the relations of people to each other and their universe the vast possibilities when people's interactions are mainly friendly, cooperative. Wisdom is understanding the whole, its relations to the composite parts, and humbling action - since knowledge is partial, but not so partial it is paralyzing. Anatol Lunacharsky, leader of the revolutionary Soviet education system in a brief period before Stalin acceded to power, suggested that a good Soviet citizen would be one who could "play one instrument very well, but who could hear and understand the whole orchestra too." The task of intellectuals has, for too long, been to only construct reason. Now we must consciously think about connecting reason to power. But in daily life, making friends and keeping them over time is a radical notion now (Lunacharsky, 1971, p23).

3. Courageous action. Fear is commonplace in schools now. It is reasonable to be afraid of job loss, the impact of tests, mindless nationalism, etc. How can we get beyond this fear? Courage is not standing in the school house door, berating the tests and the regulations - and getting fired.

Courage is not merely making an ethical point, but getting enough power, and then using it, to make change. Part of the answer to the question that faces so many educators now, "How do I keep my ideals and still teach?" is found in gathering the power found in competent teaching, close ties with colleagues, parents, and students, and the courage of returning to work another day.