In the Beginning...

Created by Shelby Pulk http://society6.com/daytwah/

First and foremost I would like to thank the women at Detroit Minds and Hearts. Without me being able to witness the fruits of their labour as they work towards creating a curriculum for disengaged youth that not only makes them critical conscious, but active citizens in an oppressive system, I would be nowhere near where I am today. So thank you.

I decided to begin this blog as way to begin expressing my struggles and triumphs as an educator, but also as a way to connect everyone together through their educational experiences. As educators in this neoliberal era  we experience times of oppression, belittlement, and deprofessionalization through system mandates. The objective of my current project, Third World Democracy is to build a resource that educates, assists, and connects educators together. The rationale behind the title will be included when the final website becomes live.

To begin I suggest that teachers must be provided with the background knowledge on the history of educational policy and reform that has caused schools to regress and become standard-based reformatories as oppose to the schools of critical thought that they once were.

I am also purposing that it is important to educate teachers on the history of the subaltern (urban population, "common peoples") peoples history. Teach them who they are and how they are marginalized by a system that is constructed to ensure that they will continually fail. Furthermore, they must recognize the importance of helping these people reach a state of empowerment through dialogue and watch as they begin to loosen the shackles of oppression through constructive action within the community. The subaltern have the least to lose and the most to gain during a time of revolutionary reform.

Finally, let's get real here. I can hear my co-workers and other teachers saying, "B***h please, come back down to Earth." I know. I teach. I want a "how-to" plan of implementation during these times of high stakes. Thus, the third portion of my idea includes providing teachers with strategies that are geared towards critical pedagogy and cultural studies that goes beyond identifying the mundane differences that classify people into a culture, but focuses on the commonalities we all face as oppressed people controlled by the forces of capitalism,  globalization, and the new and rapid emergence of the technoculture. It will include ideas for implementing art within a curriculum and the importance of doing so. Finally, the importance of media education, as the youth (and we) need to realize how their behavior (and ours) is controlled by media objectives, and how our identity is shaped by consumer behavior. They need to learn to use these media outlets as ways to present a true representation of themselves to defend themselves against capitalist stereotypes.  

The State curriculum is here and many of us educators gripe about it. However, teachers have become so accustomed to mandated scripted methods of teaching that it is difficult for them to conceptualize without it. Especially new teachers, who know no other way. I understand, because I saw myself falling into the same pattern. But there are ways to teach both what is mandated and what is actually NEEDED to improve the mindset of the citizens we are producing. It can be synthesized.