Changing Our Minds

Cowardice asks the question – is it safe?
Expediency asks the question – is it politic?
Vanity asks the question – is it popular?
But conscience asks the question – is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Take a look at these 15 Sexist Vintage Ads and ask yourself how popular cultural values are spread among us of all genders--even today. The question, for those like me who want the cultural change toward more socially progressive and environmentally sustainable values with which to live everyday lives and to dream personal dreams, is how our public media/education does acculturate us and form us in subliminal ways. In what ways a… Continue

Just got to a book last night which has been on my "anti-library" shelf for several months--Peter Senge's The Necessary Revolution (2008)--which I highly recommend. Here's an article from Business Week's "Innovation" section which reviewed the book last summer and spurred me to acquire a copy of it.

The following paragraphs from the book's first chapter, "A Future Awaiting Our Choices," provid… Continue

I just started reading Howard Zinn's You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (1994) and stumbled upon a couple of paragraphs that raise questions in my mind about teaching and activism. Here are those paragraphs copied from page 7:

When I became a teacher I could not possibly keep out of the classroom my own experiences. I have often wondered how so many teachers manage to spend a year with a group of students and never reveal who they are, what kind of… Continue

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gat… Continue

Washington, D.C.
March 4, 1865

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of… Continue

(See this Wikipedia article for brief historical background to the writing of this letter by Martin Luther King, Jr.)

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secret… Continue

President-Elect Barack Obama visited The Washington Post editorial board yesterday (1/15/09) for an interview, an important part of which had to do with education and public service. (Because the embed code provided by the Post doesn't seem to launch the audio of the interview [see below], here's a link to the Post webpage where it does work.)

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GlobalPost.com is a start-up organization attempting to fill the lack of first-hand, first-class, international reporting in American news media in the digital age. Here are two paragraphs excerpted from GlobalPost's mission statement:

We, the Founders of GlobalPost, are also acutely aware of the fact that quality journalism in America is threatened more profoundly today than at any time in our history from an unprecedented combination of forces: the… Continue

A new posting at the TED Blog announces Sir Ken Robinson's new book titled The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and provides a link to an earlier TED video of his. I continue to listen to what has been Robinson's clear voice on creativity and human being. Awakening students' passions of mind and heart in learning/doing is as revolutionary and fundamental an aim as I can imagine for constructing an educatio… Continue

Are you folks aware of The River City Project? Although I have no hands-on experience with it, it seems worth investigating. I learned about it in a Tweet on Twitter about fifteen minutes ago from Scientific American magazine, which lead me to their online article which includes it in a discussion of lear… Continue

Emmy Werner, an eminent American development psychologist, wrote a wonderful book a couple of years ago, titled In Pursuit of History: Coming of Age in the American Revolution, which captures the challenging and courageous lives of children in a time of war and social transformation--largely in their own words! For anyone specifically seeking a new way to engage students in t… Continue

I've grown very curious about how American politics has played out over the time since WW2 that I've been alive. Although a student of politics during my college days, the recent U.S. Presidential election campaign re-engaged me in reading and thinking about American politics and how it might be a subject for exploration constructively even by students of elementary school age.

I've just begun reading Rick Perlstein's… Continue

I woke up this morning with "making things" (which led to "making sense" and "making lives") on my mind. Is it just me that wonders why fewer of us create the world actively which we inhabit, but instead comply with training to follow directions and expectations--passively and unpoetically and logistically--which command servitude of us that at bottom is our now accustomed view of how the world works? Even the sentences we speak like the things in our lives that as time passes go unnoticed and a… Continue

Karen Armstrong was one of three persons awarded a 2008 TED Prize for a very big wish for changing the world. She stated her wish this way: “I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by a group of leading inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect.” (See this archive of… Continue

a very short story for Christmas
(written on December 23, 2008 by Skip)

Mom sat us around the table
and opened a can of baked beans
which we quickly emptied
in a barrage of cold spoons.

Our chilly kitchen darkened
when the sun went down
on our playing ball in the yard
behind our building and
Mom called out the back window
for us to come in to eat.

It was a December meal like most others,
familial as we mumbled through mouthfuls of beans
about Mrs. Jackson’s cat who’d caught a rat
under the sm… Continue

IBM's Smarter Planet Series is now into its third conceptual presentation, Traffic: Roads to a smarter planet. The Series started with Planet: A mandate for change is a mandate for smart, which was followed by Energy: Smarter power for a… Continue

I noticed in the news feed located in FL's lower left panel an article in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle about Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University education professor, who'll head President-elect Barack Obama's transition team on education policy. Connie, you recently asked who may become the new administration's Secretary of Education; I suspect Professor Darli… Continue

Here's what a great organization and a source of much progressive thinking and activism in the U.K. has to say about itself:

For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action.

We encou… Continue

In this video titled "Introducing School ReDesign" AfterEd previews its "new reality style show where educators and architects design the school of the future." The idea that architectural design can impart educational meaning to the space in which we learn is based on its powerfully metaphorical as well as motivational effects on us. I posted an earlier video in this blog about the "green" architecture of Si… Continue