The Rubber Room Movie

Looking forward to watching this...whenever it does come out.

Watch the trailer here.

Education & Conflict

Is any discussion of political issues in schools indoctrination?

Joanne Jacobs highlights the University of Delaware's Residence Life program as having an "agenda" because it will include discussions of: “Stereotyping, Oppression, Prejudice Reduction, Privilege, Heterosexism/ Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Awareness, Racism, Ageism, Sexism, Values Clarification, Multicultural Jeopardy, Classism.”

When we keep the "politics" out of our schools, we silently give a nod of approval to the status quo. Schools aren't places of indoctrination, but places for conversation, interrogation, and transformation. Schools can and should be safe places where we discuss and explore any and all of the above.

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. --Paulo Freire

Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving. --John Dewey

Seattle Teacher Rejects Standardize Test

NPR on the Seattle teacher, Carl Chew, who refused to administer the state's standardized test (WASL) to his students.

"If we are training students for a set of specific skills, and that's all we spend our time on, we are casting them into a dead end."

Beyond Tolerance Workshop: May 31

The New York Collective of Radical Educators is sponsoring a one-day workshop on building communities that support core students and teachers:

NYQueer Presents:

Beyond Tolerance:

Building Communities that Support Queer Students and Teachers

Join students, teachers and community organizers for a dialogue and workshop on challenging heteronormative assumptions and combating homophobia and transphobia in NYC schools.

Saturday, May 31st
9:30 AM to 3 PM

NYU Barney Building
34 Stuyvesant St.

*Lunch and a lite breakfast will be provided.*

NYQueer is a NYCoRE working group focused on gender and sexuality as they relate to school communities. The daily pressures of teaching students at any level (K-12) are such that teachers often feel as if they do not have the time, the support, or access to the resources they need for addressing gender and sexuality in the classroom. More specifically, they are unsure how to challenge heteronormative assumptions and combat homophobia and transphobia.

Recognizing the wealth of resources that both individuals and organizations throughout the city have to offer in this area, NYQueer is planning a one day event that aims to unite students, teachers and community organizers for the purpose of building a stronger solidarity network and increasing awareness about existing resources and possibilities.

For more information and/or to RSVP please contact us at NYQueer@nycore.org.