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

Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter 2003 by Gibson, Rich

Even that will not block resistance which must rise up as the economy grinds down. It may be that school resistance, which is following the path of the dogmatic regulatory maneuvers that began in the K- 12 world, and is now focused on teacher education programs, will pop up in areas we do not expect: middle class communities, private teacher education programs, charter schools, GED promoters, etc. But if we are to measure where power will most effectively meet power, that has to be seen as the K-12 world, where uprisings of high school students who are offered hope in the form of the military draft, and pre-prison schools, are predictable and supportable. Only a few years ago the kids of Oakland struck their school system under the slogan, "Schools Not Jails," and right now an organization called Californians for Justice is organizing parents,"kids, and teachers all over the state with goals like caps on class size, free books and supplies, a more just tax system, and halting the Big Tests.

Shutting down schools, however, is not the desire of any dedicated educator. But opening new schools crafted along new lines, drawn in the midst of social struggle, makes sense if the new schools run parallel to the closed school. I think closed schools, schools struck by student upheavals, may not be that far off. The freedom schools of Mississippi and South Africa, the schools that rose up in the midst of civil strife, were among the most interesting and innovative of all time. If we have limited people who want to lead resistance, it may be that K-12 schools should be their focus (Perlstein, p249).

Even so, we all will also have to fight where we are. What shall we fight for? Better webs to cooperate on with the spiders? Softer cells, roomier jails, nicer tests, softer regulations? During the 1968 rebellions in France, the students covered the walls of Paris with a slogan: "I Participate. You Participate. He, She, Or It Participate. We All Participate. They Profit." The debate of whether to resist, and how, and toward what end, is being conducted on listserves (like CalCare led by Oakland educator Susan Harmon, a lifelong great teacher and resister), in small education-based papers like Substance from Chicago and the Rouge Forum News, and in academic journals like Teacher Education Quarterly, Phi DeltaKappan, or TRSE. In those debates, people are learning once again how to be critical of one another, as we must, but comradely at the same time - understanding that we have all been wrong about important things (http://www.pipeline.com/-rgibson/ rouge forum/newspaper/index.htm).

As we began, I referred to Jean Anyon's idea that school reform without social and economic reform is like washing the air on one side of a screen door. Now I am going to suggest that reform is most unlikely. Gentler capitalism is not to be had. This is as good as it gets. What is needed is a complete transformation, an overcoming, of capital, utilizing what we have created from capital, the international unity of systems of production, exchange, and technology, and going beyond the aspects of capital that separate us: Racism, nationalism, exploitation, sexism, and irrationalism, a recognizing that as we sit in the midst of capital there will be some things we do not see. However, those who solely seek to reform capital's rule will, built into their actions, serve over time to deepen these problems, not overcome them. Just as one's theory sets up what is observed, so does one's long-term goals fashion what is achieved.