Saturday, May 30, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter
By OLYMPIA SNOWEWashington
It is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way.
When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection. I also noted that we were far from the heady days of 1998, when Republicans were envisioning the possibility of a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin. (Recall that in the 2000 election, most pundits were shocked when Republicans lost five seats, resulting in a 50-50 Senate.)
I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate — with a corresponding shift of the Congressional majority and the White House to the Democrats.
It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.
Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.
I have said that, without question, we cannot prevail as a party without conservatives. But it is equally certain we cannot prevail in the future without moderates.
In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.
How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious from the results of the last two elections. We should be reaching out to these segments of our population — not de facto ceding them to the opposing party.
There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we encountered an electoral backlash.
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
I couldn’t agree more. We can’t continue to fold our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden our appeal. That is the political road map we must follow to victory.
Monday, April 13, 2009
burn the brainwashing books
So here's a follow up to the earlier post about Project 912 and Glenn Beck. This type of conversation raises some important questions.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
American Media...the School of Democracy Depends on You!
So just a quick note about something that struck me today. Nothing new, really. Just saddening. For democracy to function properly (as if one can say that there is a way for democracy to be), we need a free press. Here's a really great op-ed piece from The Nation that has shown up in papers across the country. We really don't have that with corporate media. I'm not trying to make that point. What struck me is the reality that what we call "news" is something we should question. Take a quick look...
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| The Poisonous Queen | ||||
| ||||
When the G-20 is getting together to talk about how fucked up the world economy is, we talk about...dresses? Shirts? Changing clothes on a long flight???? Now this is news. Right on, American media. Thanks for keeping me abreast to what's important around the world.
There are some very important questions that must be asked of what the role of media is in our society and how it can serve it's role in democracy while also fitting into the capitalistic model that talks incessantly about wardrobe changes rather than regime changes.
Friday, April 3, 2009
local democratic movement? naw, just a hell of a way to get ratings and to piss people off and get them scared about abstract concepts
Political satire is one of the best ways to demonstrate the absurdity of what happens in our country. Case in point. Glenn Beck is doing something very smart (for himself) and something very destructive (for both sanity, reason, and the US). Take a look at this clip and you will be able to see the ability of someone in a public position to use and abuse his position in mainstream media to create a world that isn't based on reality, but rather espouses an idea that is helpful to him professionally (and financially) rather than being altruistic towards his fellow citizens. In fact, as Stephen Colbert wonderfully exposes, his tears and emotion on camera are just that...on camera.
But the power of media demonstrates how someone like Beck can command a presence on television and have people buy into his idea of what will "change" the United States. If fact, I truly doubt he would want much change since he's positioned himself (and his rating) in opposition to the destructive powers that are killing America, presumably one liberal at a time. So take a look at the video.
Powerful and tearful stuff, eh? Yeah, I thought so too. There's something to say about crying on television about how deeply you feel about the people who responded to 9/11 while being interviewed elsewhere (Beck has to hate that radio clip is out there) and telling a very different story of how one truly feels. I think of a line from Thomas Merton. He wrote, "But how does one stop to separate the truth from the half-truth, the event from the pseudo-event, reality from the manufactured image?" I ask this question, too. This is especially applicable today when people such as Beck have a national platform to stay whatever the hell he wants to say. And I would guess that elicits quite the response from the folks watching his show on Fox News.
So I took at look at Beck's "The 9/12 Project" website. I was curious. This is what I found. Here are Beck's 9 Principles.
Funny, Beck and I both think very highly of Jefferson, but this is a vary narrow way of looking at a very important figure in American democracy. I especially like that Jefferson shows up on a list of apparently the nine principles when, in fact, Jefferson would question both the intrinsic goodness of the US in addition to God's centrality in our lives. Don't forget Jefferson rewrote the New Testament to get rid of the miracles and things up that alley. You should get it from your local public library or get yourself a copy here. But who am I to question someone on television and who has the audacity to make the definitive list of the nine principles for righting America (pun very clearly intended)? I mean, I'm just a normal, average, everyday citizen. I'm nobody special. Oh yeah, but I'm exactly the type of person (sans political view) that Beck is looking for. Well shoot, let's keep looking around his website and see what we can find.
Ah yes, Mission Statement. I've been a part of writing these things. It can get rather interesting to say the least. But they do give a good sense of what you're trying to do. So here is Beck's:
Ok, let's begin!
Why can't we, in the words of Parker Palmer, be open to the uncomfortable tension in our lives and think beyond quick and destructive responses to issues within our community? I'm all with Beck in regards to the idea of citizens understanding themselves as political actors with agency in this country. I do, however, fundamentally disagree with what he does and what he says.
But the power of media demonstrates how someone like Beck can command a presence on television and have people buy into his idea of what will "change" the United States. If fact, I truly doubt he would want much change since he's positioned himself (and his rating) in opposition to the destructive powers that are killing America, presumably one liberal at a time. So take a look at the video.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The 10.31 Project | ||||
| ||||
Powerful and tearful stuff, eh? Yeah, I thought so too. There's something to say about crying on television about how deeply you feel about the people who responded to 9/11 while being interviewed elsewhere (Beck has to hate that radio clip is out there) and telling a very different story of how one truly feels. I think of a line from Thomas Merton. He wrote, "But how does one stop to separate the truth from the half-truth, the event from the pseudo-event, reality from the manufactured image?" I ask this question, too. This is especially applicable today when people such as Beck have a national platform to stay whatever the hell he wants to say. And I would guess that elicits quite the response from the folks watching his show on Fox News.
So I took at look at Beck's "The 9/12 Project" website. I was curious. This is what I found. Here are Beck's 9 Principles.
| 1. | America Is Good. |
| 2. | I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life. |
| God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the external rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address. | |
| 3. | I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday. |
| Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington | |
| 4. | The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government. |
| Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson | |
| 5. | If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. |
| Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson | |
| 6. | I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results. |
| Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson | |
| 7. | I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable. |
| Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington | |
| 8. | It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. |
| On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington | |
| 9. | The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me. |
| Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson |
Funny, Beck and I both think very highly of Jefferson, but this is a vary narrow way of looking at a very important figure in American democracy. I especially like that Jefferson shows up on a list of apparently the nine principles when, in fact, Jefferson would question both the intrinsic goodness of the US in addition to God's centrality in our lives. Don't forget Jefferson rewrote the New Testament to get rid of the miracles and things up that alley. You should get it from your local public library or get yourself a copy here. But who am I to question someone on television and who has the audacity to make the definitive list of the nine principles for righting America (pun very clearly intended)? I mean, I'm just a normal, average, everyday citizen. I'm nobody special. Oh yeah, but I'm exactly the type of person (sans political view) that Beck is looking for. Well shoot, let's keep looking around his website and see what we can find.
Ah yes, Mission Statement. I've been a part of writing these things. It can get rather interesting to say the least. But they do give a good sense of what you're trying to do. So here is Beck's:
Mission Statement
Posted by the912project on March 24, 2009 ·
This website is a place for you and other like-minded Americans looking for direction in taking back the control of our country. It is also a place to find information that will assist you in navigating the rough waters we face in the days, weeks and months ahead.
We suggest that you start in your own homes. Talk to your family about the Values and Principles. Discuss the importance of what the Founders designed for America.
Hold or attend a weekly meeting in your neighborhood or town. Communication with your neighbors is vital to the process of protecting our country. Gather in living rooms, coffee houses or restaurants. Share your thoughts and ideas.
Visit this website often. Make use of the resources that are linked here. Share the ideas and resources that have worked in your home or town.
This is a non-political movement. The 9-12 Project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created.
That same feeling – that commitment to country is what we are hoping to foster with this idea. We want to get everyone thinking like it is September 12th, 2001 again.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you watch the direction that America is being taken in and feel powerless to stop it?
- Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?
- Do you read the headlines everyday and feel an empty pit in your stomach…as if you’re completely alone?
If you’ve answered YES, then you’ve fallen for the Wizard of Oz lie. While the voices you hear in the distance may sound intimidating, as if they surround us from all sides—the reality is very different. Once you pull back the curtain, you realize that there are only a few people pressing the buttons, and their voices are weak. The truth is that they don’t surround us at all.
We surround them.
At the origin of America, our Founding Fathers built this country on 28 powerful principles. These principles were culled from all over the world and from centuries of great thinkers. We have distilled the original 28 down to the 9 basic principles.
So, how do we show America what’s really behind the curtain? Read the nine simple principles. If you believe in at least seven of them, then we have something in common.
Welcome.
Tim's responses to Mission StatementOk, let's begin!
- First, the site says it's "a place for you and other like-minded Americans looking for direction in taking back the control of our country." I guess I'm out. Oh well. Way to move beyond the polarization of formal politics. So I guess that rhetoric about doing something citizen-based was just for Republicans. Is it kinda like house parties that were so successful for Obama's successful presidential run that was based on his days as a (gasp!) community organizer? I didn't think community organizers did real work. Didn't someone say that once? In front of the RNC? Oh well, that's no longer news. Let us continue.
"We suggest that you start in your own homes. Talk to your family about the Values and Principles. Discuss the importance of what the Founders designed for America." I don't have a family, let alone a home, but I find it interesting that one of the most complex times in American history can be so clearly laid out as suggested here. There are many who continue to question and try to figure out what the hell those founders were really saying and what they meant. So saying very clearly that there was a design is a bit...umm...naive?
"Communication with your neighbors is vital to the process of protecting our country." Who are we protecting ourselves from? I'm guessing guns are involved here and don't even think about getting your pink commie hands on my Glock, Brady Bill. Guns don't kill people, people kill people (but guns sure help, take a look at the beauty of the Second Amendment here).
- "This is a non-political movement. The 9-12 Project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created." Ok, so I have considerable issues here. First, nothing is apolitical. I don't get the feeling Beck has ever read much of Harry Boyte's writing or much of anything else of substance. I know, blanket statement. But, I don't think he has. Or, he's just hell-bent on doing his thing and disregards reality. But as Colbert demostrates, Beck's position after 9/11 wasn't exactly compassionate toward those who actually experienced the loss of that day. I think there is much to be said about the impact of 9/11. Actually, if you want to think about how 9/11 could actually positively impact our lives, take a look at Parker Palmer's "The Politics of the Brokenhearted: On Holding the Tensions of Democracy" by clicking here.
"We want to get everyone thinking like it is September 12th, 2001 again.Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you watch the direction that America is being taken in and feel powerless to stop it?
- Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?
- Do you read the headlines everyday and feel an empty pit in your stomach…as if you’re completely alone?
If you’ve answered YES, then you’ve fallen for the Wizard of Oz lie. While the voices you hear in the distance may sound intimidating, as if they surround us from all sides—the reality is very different. Once you pull back the curtain, you realize that there are only a few people pressing the buttons, and their voices are weak. The truth is that they don’t surround us at all.We surround them." Ok, really. This is a long one, but I think the questions raised here are vitally important to think about. Who are these people taking over the US? It seems that the people who have been leading this country untill very recently were the elected officials Beck supports politically. I'm confused. Maybe I'm missing something? I don't know. This "noise" Beck talks about is interesting to me. Isn't he part of the noise we create on 24 hour news channels that really are just platforms for folks to stand and talk for an hour or so with nifty graphics? Again, I may be off. I don't know. But apparently there is going to be war or something since we're surrounding each other. Or is this just to perpetual fear...fear of the unknown, of the other, or the "anything different from exactly who I am and what I think" mentality. America is foundationally based on the idea of plurality and diversity, so why are we hunkering down and getting ready to wage wage against "them"?
Why can't we, in the words of Parker Palmer, be open to the uncomfortable tension in our lives and think beyond quick and destructive responses to issues within our community? I'm all with Beck in regards to the idea of citizens understanding themselves as political actors with agency in this country. I do, however, fundamentally disagree with what he does and what he says.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Community Matters
Nicholas Longo's central premise in Why Community Matters: Connecting Education with Civic Life is that communities must be educative, and more precisely, that this education must lead to citizens becoming more aware of their place and role as co-constructors of more democratic societies. He expresses what he considers “the most fundamental of challenges: educating for democracy.” (ix). He begins by noting that education has become confused with schooling and he builds an analysis by way of case studies of diverse initiatives throughout the twentieth century, each aiming for civic education to go beyond the schools.
Longo's analysis of historical and contemporary institutions is focused on the fundamental role community life must play in educating for democracy and he emphasizes the urgency of developing an “ecolog[ical] approach to civic learning” (14). This organic model of civic learning and education beyond the parameters of schooling is central to the thesis that communities have an important role in shaping democracy through education. Central to his argument is recognizing the power communities have to allow personal and civic growth. Longo argues for structures that reinforce interdependence and interconnectivity in creating networks for civic learning. Creating networks like this must reinforce power-sharing rather than power-appropriation in order for educative transformation to take hold. This form of civic education is what Longo advocates as he draws upon historical cases that emphasize these principles. Other ways Longo describes this form of civic education include: co-creation in education for democracy, empowering the citizen, strengthening human dignity, collaborative and transformative learning and reflective practice. As the cornerstone of his conceptualization, Longo asserts the importance of people being invited into the democratic process is inextricably linked to the educational goals of a community.
This reading got me thinking so I went searching online for more information. I’m struck by a line I read on the website for “The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.” It states:
Established near Monteagle in 1932 by the Tennessee-born Myles Horton and a young Georgian named Don West, Highlander's programs were based upon the conviction that education could be used to help ordinary people build upon the knowledge they had gained from experience and work collectively toward a more democratic and humane society. This approach made the adult education center a source of inspiration and the most controversial school in modern Tennessee history.
I’m thinking particularly about the controversial notion of the Folk School. Why is there such unease around the questions raised and issues addressed at Highlander? What’s so dangerous about people engaging one another and learning democratic education (73)? Is this not a democratic state? This leads me to another interesting bit I read online. I think of an op-ed piece in The New York Times today. To quote from “Feeling Too Down to Rise Up” by Sudhir Venkatesh:
These days, we are hearing a lot about “populist rage,” but so far no riots have broken out in front of the Treasury Department or the A.I.G. headquarters. The pundits assure us that Americans are furious, disgusted, mad as hell, but cabinet officials and chief executives haven’t been confronted by throngs of angry citizens. In fact, the only mass disturbance to make news lately was at an “America’s Next Top Model” audition, where three people were arrested on charges of “inciting a riot” — the cause of that uprising, for the record, was not the financial crisis.
The texture of discontent (or lack thereof) can say a lot about a nation, and that Americans today are less likely to rebel may not be an entirely positive sign.
It certainly doesn’t mean we have more love, patience or tolerance for one another. Indeed, it may mean just the opposite, that we tend not to trust one another and that we are more alienated from our neighbors than ever before. The lack of direct action could signal the weakening of a social contract that keeps people meaningfully invested in the fate of our country — which may, in turn, be hindering our ability to resolve this crisis.
Before blogs and radio call-in shows, people joined forces and turned to the streets as their most effective means of expression; a unified, angry crowd was often sufficient to win concessions from employers and governments. And so most rebellions of the 20th century were over bread-and-butter issues like unsafe work conditions, wages and high prices for basic commodities. Even “race riots” were usually motivated by competition between ethnic groups over access to jobs and housing subsidies.
I pair this with the quote from the Tennessee Encyclopedia because I hold a belief that the powers that be in this country want desperately for us to be more concerned about something happening in popular culture rather than issues that really impact our lives. Last year, the Republican vice-presidential candidate made a mockery of the work of community organizers. Why have we lost a sense of agency in regards to ourselves as citizens? The Hull House and Highlander utilized the talents of “an amazing assortment of community leaders” (73). These individuals worked with and spoke for those marginalized in their respective communities and sought to make substantial social change. I will state it more clearly, I think there are many in this country who don’t want a populist movement to occur, especially in regards to education. Why? It seems there is a sense of potential loss for the fortunate (social status, income, etc.) and maintaining an unequal system is a way to keep down those who might rise up through a “different kind of politics – a politics centered on citizens” (117). This is why the education Longo describes is so important. But more important than the desire to suppress citizens is the reality that they themselves don’t know the stories of the Hull House, Highlander, or the West Side Neighborhood Learning Community as historic and living examples of education happening in communities that is transformative for both individuals and communities. Civic learning must take place in school, but the larger community must be a vehicle for such learning. Schools are but a part of this education. The section “Lessons Learned” in the concluding chapter provides a framework for communities comprised of bold citizens to commit to democratic education by partnering with innovative civic institutions to bring about needed change when thinking about education and how it’s understood within communities. There must be a public buy-in to rethinking education. Strong relationships in the community are essential to this being realized. And foundationally, it must be remembered that democracy is “dynamic, ever changing, and messy” (135).
“Culturally Negotiated Pedagogy: Its Role in Reclaiming Education for our Democracy”
Introduction: Naming a Culturally Negotiated Pedagogy
“This book, however, is not about the long past, but about present day Eskimo cultures struggling to maintain their identities and traditions and adapt to changing circumstances in ways that will allow them to keep their self-respect. They are not asking the larger society to go away or to forget them, but rather to allow them to adapt in ways congenial to their outlooks and traditions. There is, after all, a difference between being forced to adapt and being willing to adapt.”
~Seymore B. Sarason, Foreword, vii.
I quote at length this passage from the Foreword because it captures, for me, the essence of Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup’ik Eskimo Examples and the lived experience of the Yup’ik and their desire to find a way to value their own traditions and ways of knowing and learning while not trying to be isolationistic in how they interact with broader society. In this work, Jerry Lipka defines and utilizes a theoretical framework that he calls a culturally negotiated pedagogy. This concept helps to elucidate how communities and schools can collaboratively work with one another to foster and support a stronger sense of local community based on a particular pedagogy. Lipka looks at (more accurately works and partners with) the Yup’ik community in Alaska, a people who have been marginalized even within their own communities through colonizing social institutions, including the school experience. There is a desire to educate Yup’ik children in a tradition that recognizes the social and cultural, as well at educative, aspects of the Yup’ik culture that had been nearly eradicated in a desire to “Americanize” the youth by removing them from their home culture. The work of Lipka demonstrates how schools can fit within the larger community not as an island removed from that culture, but rather as a place that is more congenial to students as they experience education. While it can almost be assumed, this type of work is connected strongly with a theory of place, rooting the educational experience within the Yup’ik community. This is especially important as the culturally negotiated pedagogy proposed by Lipka draws heavily from the Yup’ik way of life, which is intimately connected with the land and worldview of that community. In this paper, I will seek to articulate Lipka’s theory of culturally negotiated pedagogy and will also raise the question of place and politics within this framework. In doing so, I hope to understand more fully the ways that Lipka’s work with the Yup’ik community can have an impact of many other school settings, as well as more informal educational settings.
Creating Culturally Responsive Education
Lipka begins Transforming the Culture of Schools with the concept of culturally responsive schooling. He writes, “We believe our story goes well beyond documenting individual narratives and provides insights for others involved in creating culturally responsive education that fundamentally changes the role and relationship between teachers and schooling – and between the community and schooling” (Lipka, 3). He goes on to note that the work is of creating culturally responsive education is not a one-time fix and more accurately is understood as a long-term struggle and is, “not simply about conflict between school and community, but it shows cycles of conflict, resolution, shifting power, and changing roles and relationships” (Lipka, 6). The type of work requires constant negotiation and renegotiation and requires both insiders (Yup’ik) and outsiders (Lipka and others) to effectively coconstruct curricula and pedagogy thus transforming asymmetrical power relations (Lipka, 8).
It is this idea of creating culturally responsive education that fundamentally changes the role and relationship between teachers and schooling – and between the community and schooling – that Lipka sees as a possible theory employable in other contexts, well beyond the Alaskan context. His theory of a culturally negotiated pedagogy serves as the underpinning for this statement about culturally responsive education. The roots of this theory that influence this framework can be found within the colonizing aspects of the dominant American culture. Lipka writes that, “The process of cultural conflict and cultural adaptation that [the Yup’ik teachers] experienced and describe…begins to reverse the historical processes of education and colonization and to slowly replace it with a process of democratization by which underrepresented minorities’ access to the profession is increased, and their culture is included in the processes and content of schooling” (Lipka, 5). Without this type of school reform “…the powerful forces of assimilation – resulting in language and cultural loss and community alienation from schooling – will continue unabated” (Lipka, 5). The work of Lipka is based on the notion that there does not have to be a choice between assimilation and education and that “basing curricular and pedagogical decisions on not only Western knowledge, but on Yup’ik ways of knowing and ways of interacting, creates new curricular and pedagogical possibilities” (Lipka, 5). This both/and approach is foundational to his culturally negotiated pedagogy.
For cultural negotiation to occur, there must be shift within the community. Lipka references others who have done this type of work which involves insiders in decision-making processes and the necessity of a shift of what constitutes “legitimate” knowledge. Additionally, Lipka refers the to the work of others to develop a working definition of culture. He describes both deficit and difference models and notes that his own definition of culture is not ossified or static; culture reflects the changes in the larger context surrounding the Yup’ik and their response to the larger societal changes. This evolving culture is at the intersection and of the distinct cultures experienced in this context and accordingly Lipka’s cultural frame of reference is, “neither Yup’ik culture per se nor Western culture and schooling. It is the culture formed between the two at the meeting place called school, and, hence, an evolving culture of “school and community” (Lipka, 23). Ideally, the culture of school and the culture of the community are mutually reinforcing, but as Lipka notes, “in Alaska we have a situation in which the relationship of the culture of the school and the culture of the community do not reinforce one another. Quite simply, each represents a different cultural realm with different worldviews and different ways of relating – each has distinct purposes associated with their enculturation process” (Lipka, 24).
In the development of his theoretical framework, Lipka emphasizes the realty that neither the Yup’ik nor the dominant Western culture are monolithic (Lipka, 30) and that there is no one way to envision schooling. Rather a synthesis of multiple cultural conceptions of schooling can be important and this requires work on the part of the community to, “determine the meaning of schooling” (Lipka, 31). This position requires communities and schools to negotiate the different components of the schooling experience from this culturally negotiated framework as an alternative to the “culture versus power” dichotomy and the dilemma of resolving modern and traditional tensions in regard to issues of the, “what (content), how (processes), and the why (meaning and purposes) of schooling” (Lipka, 31). This is not an easy process and Lipka notes that it is a struggle to achieve this new synthesis. This process requires a both/and conception of school as well as for culture and power. Culture and power can been seen as either/or, but in this case it is more useful to consider a both/and view with both contributing to the circumstances surrounding the cultural negotiation of schooling. Contrasting with deficiency or difference theories, Lipka’s culturally negotiated pedagogy creates space for “public debate and rational decision making” (Lipka, 31).
Lipka does not see this as a quick fix or an immediate panacea, but it does encourage discourse among indigenous and minority teacher groups and their communities and that “discourse across cultural boundaries will slowly evolve a shift in context, content, and values of schooling. In this way, schooling can to some extent become a community institution, without…undermining the community it ostensibly serves” (Lipka, 31). This discourse about the content, purpose, and process of schooling is a necessary step for a community to take to open address shared or discordant views about schooling. This has implications well beyond formal education settings, and especially for communities who engage in discussion or deliberation about other important social institutions in their communities.
This process of engaging in discourse requires participation on the part of all involved – teachers, parents, and community members – to define the content and process of schooling as it relates to students. Culturally responsive education is “derived from the experience of indigenous and nonindigenous educators in various contexts, suggests that indigenous people are evolving their cultures, coevolving the culture of school, and increasingly making their schools community institutions” (Lipka, 31). This demands that a school is not an island within a community, but rather it is a shared space (or even the center of the community).
If Dewey and others are right in arguing that the school is a miniature version of society, then schools must demonstrate the need to negotiate and synthesize the larger communal voice, especially if different cultures exist within that environment. And it important to note that culturally responsive education does not simply “add” Yup’ik culture to the current educational structure, but rather it challenges and negotiates what appropriate schooling would be when a genuine exploration of the opportunities for drawing upon Yup’ik culture are integrated into the curriculum. Lipka writes that, “To reform schooling in such contexts includes evolving new sets of relationships, culturally negotiated pedagogy between school and community and intentionally affecting the regularities of schooling, its values and content” (Lipka, 33). This is translated into the inclusion of those who were previously marginalized from the decision-making process, and, in this case, the elders and teachers from the Yup’ik community. The inclusion of these persons creates some of the new relationships requires from this larger shift and these relationships allow for the exchange of information and the discussion of the concept of schooling to include voices who had previously been outside of the conversation. This steps allows the boundaries and rigidities of school to being to shift and the negotiations about education can begin to address more institutional issues that furthered the disconnect between community and school.
A (Contentious) Sense of Place and Community: Reclaiming Schools and Communities
Thinking about Yup’ik community, the image that comes to mind is a people deeply committed to their traditions and way of life, drawing heavily upon a holistic worldview that connects the different aspects of life in a way differently from the typical disconnected Western individualistic sense of self and place. There is a rich literature that looks at the notion of place and how that impacts one’s life and one’s larger sense of identity within a community. John Inge (2003) writes that, “…place is very much more significant than is generally recognized. That we all need ‘a place to stand’ goes without saying, but most people do not perhaps stop to reflect very deeply on what effect such places have upon them and why”(ix). Additionally, a place is not a passive identity. Rather, a “place” is composed of persons who collectively create a community. This recognition of community is important, especially when thinking about such work as Lipka’s because it draws so heavily from the lived experience of a people together. And the work to reclaim a culture that has been dismissed and relegated to an inferior social position is challenged because of the institutions that have sought to impose the dominant (White American) culture even when initiatives have been taken to seek to reclaim a place for the Yup’ik culture.
Having a strong sense of community is not something easily accomplished, even for a community that has a common experience as the Yup’ik people do. Rather, it is something that must be proactively done, a conscious act to create a sense of place with other people. Claude Whitmyer writes that, “Making community is a process that requires dedication. It is simply not enough to be inspired by or feel passion for the idea of community. Except for the very small, ad hoc groups you might join from time to time, almost every other community experience will involve long hours and hard work” (Whitmyer, 34). The Yup’ik community is challenged because of two often conflicting notions of “culture” in their lives: one based upon their traditional Yup’ik culture and the other which dominates the school and is based on the mainstream American consumeristic and individualistic culture. Because of this latter culture, Lipka’s work was a “slow process of reconciling cultural differences and conflict between the culture of the school and the culture of the community” (Lipka, 3).
And while Lipka’s work dealt with a very particular community in Alaska, the theory of a culturally negotiated pedagogy has a place in environments that would not typically be addressed by such anthropological and ethnographic work. Schools are related to community well-being and vitality, and therefore, the connections between a school and its community can lead to mutual benefit. In addition, in a pedagogical sense, content that could be “brought to life” by the particular community and context could create interest in subject matter for students others disinterested because the educational system has been neutered from having a strong sense of connection to its own community. Again, the image of the island comes to mind.
The implication for Lipka’s theory for American communities is a reclamation of schools by communities. As with the Yup’ik community, the elders and others were not able to participate in the decision-making processes in the schools and thus the entire educational enterprise was separated from those who sent their children there and those who supported the schools through their role as taxpayers and citizens. And while Lipka’s portrayal of a disconnect between White school administrators and indigenous teachers and a larger public depicts well the reality of today’s schools, it is important that administrators not be only seen as evildoers within a community. As David Mathews (2006) notes, “Most teachers and administrators would deny that they want to keep community members out of the schools or that they are indifferent to people’s concerns. They would insist that they spend considerable time listening to their fellow citizens. Even so, professional educators have difficulty conceiving of a responsible public because they have little or no experience with such a citizenry. And the experience they do have with citizens makes them wary” (10). Mathews goes on to note that, “Maybe educators don’t see a responsible public capable of taking collective ownership in education because, in fact, there isn’t one” (11). This is an example of why the Yup’ik have an opportunity that many communities are not afforded. There is a strong collective identity and being able to draw upon the community’s traditions within the school environment is essential for connecting the school and the learning that goes on within its wall to the community outside of them.
A major challenge to reengaging communities to be more connected with their schools is the push for uniformity at both state and national levels. With the strong push for standardization in testing and accountability (with many good reasons to protect against disparity in educational opportunity, etc.) or at least the perception of such expectations from state and federal government, Lipka’s theoretical framework of culturally negotiated pedagogy becomes not only relevant, but arguably essential.
In many places, school and community may no longer have a shared vision or conception of schooling. Communities have, detrimentally, taken a “hands off” approach to schools. There are number of authors who have sought to explain and provide suggestions to reforming and reclaiming schools and the ways that publics can reengage in the schooling process. In the face of pressure toward a uniform educational model, schools and communities can use Lipka’s approach in order to rely on the strength and support of one another to negotiate a different, shared, concept of schooling. With the help of the community as an active partner, schools can think beyond the stale notions of what school should be and embrace a different way of teaching and learning. By examining and challenging the uniform concept of schooling with a critical look at the local school context, negotiation can begin. A synthesis of the two approaches (the local and the uniform) can lead to a more relevant set of processes relaying more relevant content to students in a particular context. Such a synthesis would include educational standards in addition to local, contextual content, thus exposing students to both the local and global issues that face today’s citizens. The school building can serve as a location for such negotiation to occur, creating a space for public deliberation about the needs of the community and the role of education in preparing students for active participation in the community and beyond. Using Lipka’s model, communities can reclaim their local schools and make them truly local again without compromising the education of their children. Teachers must have the sense that they are able to teach in manners appropriate to the particular composition of their classes while also providing an educational opportunity that is not subpar in any sense.
While Lipka’s theory of culturally negotiated pedagogy is based on his experience with the Yup’ik Eskimos, the application of this theory can be applied to any context where schools have been disconnected from their communities, to the detriment of both. Lipka’s work is clearly rooted in the particular context of the Yup’ik community. Nevertheless, the challenge he puts forth for schools to serve as places of negotiation is an important component that any school should embrace if it is to truly serve its students and its community. As can be said for many projects that focus on indigenous or minority, the theory of a negotiated pedagogy can benefit any school setting. While the Yup’ik community provides a dramatic environment in which to see the role of culture and its impact on schooling, such an environment is not a necessity. In the Appendix to his book, Lipka writes that, “As noted earlier the group was a ‘third way’ for insiders and outsiders to work together, not Western or Yup’ik, but sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes a coevolving of the two into something new. This created the possibility of transforming historical colonial relations into productive, more egalitarian relations” (Lipka, 212). Communities across the United States can become more democratic if they embrace Lipka’s culturally negotiated pedagogy through a process of public discourse, valuing the voices of diverse perspective while strengthening both the schooling process as well as the greater community. As David Mathews suggests, by having the public reclaim public schools communities can reclaim a stronger and more vibrant sense of participatory democracy. And what is the point of education if it does not prepare students to become citizens? I would argue it is of little value to either the individual or the community. Thus, education must have a larger purpose and this is accomplished through contextual learning that seeks to connect the classroom with the world beyond those walls.
Works Cited
Fields, A. B., & Feinberg, W. (2001). Education and Democratic Theory: Finding a Place for Community Participation in Public School Reform. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Inge, J. (2003). A Christian Theology of Place. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Lipka, J., Mohatt, G. V., & Group, t. C. (1998). Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup'ik Eskimo Examples. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated.
Mathews, D. (2006). Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation Press.
Mathews, D. (2003). Why Public Schools? Whose Public Schools?: What Early Communities Have to Tell Us. Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books.
Whitmyer, C. (Ed.). (1993). In the Company of Others: Making Community in the Modern World. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books.
“This book, however, is not about the long past, but about present day Eskimo cultures struggling to maintain their identities and traditions and adapt to changing circumstances in ways that will allow them to keep their self-respect. They are not asking the larger society to go away or to forget them, but rather to allow them to adapt in ways congenial to their outlooks and traditions. There is, after all, a difference between being forced to adapt and being willing to adapt.”
~Seymore B. Sarason, Foreword, vii.
I quote at length this passage from the Foreword because it captures, for me, the essence of Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup’ik Eskimo Examples and the lived experience of the Yup’ik and their desire to find a way to value their own traditions and ways of knowing and learning while not trying to be isolationistic in how they interact with broader society. In this work, Jerry Lipka defines and utilizes a theoretical framework that he calls a culturally negotiated pedagogy. This concept helps to elucidate how communities and schools can collaboratively work with one another to foster and support a stronger sense of local community based on a particular pedagogy. Lipka looks at (more accurately works and partners with) the Yup’ik community in Alaska, a people who have been marginalized even within their own communities through colonizing social institutions, including the school experience. There is a desire to educate Yup’ik children in a tradition that recognizes the social and cultural, as well at educative, aspects of the Yup’ik culture that had been nearly eradicated in a desire to “Americanize” the youth by removing them from their home culture. The work of Lipka demonstrates how schools can fit within the larger community not as an island removed from that culture, but rather as a place that is more congenial to students as they experience education. While it can almost be assumed, this type of work is connected strongly with a theory of place, rooting the educational experience within the Yup’ik community. This is especially important as the culturally negotiated pedagogy proposed by Lipka draws heavily from the Yup’ik way of life, which is intimately connected with the land and worldview of that community. In this paper, I will seek to articulate Lipka’s theory of culturally negotiated pedagogy and will also raise the question of place and politics within this framework. In doing so, I hope to understand more fully the ways that Lipka’s work with the Yup’ik community can have an impact of many other school settings, as well as more informal educational settings.
Creating Culturally Responsive Education
Lipka begins Transforming the Culture of Schools with the concept of culturally responsive schooling. He writes, “We believe our story goes well beyond documenting individual narratives and provides insights for others involved in creating culturally responsive education that fundamentally changes the role and relationship between teachers and schooling – and between the community and schooling” (Lipka, 3). He goes on to note that the work is of creating culturally responsive education is not a one-time fix and more accurately is understood as a long-term struggle and is, “not simply about conflict between school and community, but it shows cycles of conflict, resolution, shifting power, and changing roles and relationships” (Lipka, 6). The type of work requires constant negotiation and renegotiation and requires both insiders (Yup’ik) and outsiders (Lipka and others) to effectively coconstruct curricula and pedagogy thus transforming asymmetrical power relations (Lipka, 8).
It is this idea of creating culturally responsive education that fundamentally changes the role and relationship between teachers and schooling – and between the community and schooling – that Lipka sees as a possible theory employable in other contexts, well beyond the Alaskan context. His theory of a culturally negotiated pedagogy serves as the underpinning for this statement about culturally responsive education. The roots of this theory that influence this framework can be found within the colonizing aspects of the dominant American culture. Lipka writes that, “The process of cultural conflict and cultural adaptation that [the Yup’ik teachers] experienced and describe…begins to reverse the historical processes of education and colonization and to slowly replace it with a process of democratization by which underrepresented minorities’ access to the profession is increased, and their culture is included in the processes and content of schooling” (Lipka, 5). Without this type of school reform “…the powerful forces of assimilation – resulting in language and cultural loss and community alienation from schooling – will continue unabated” (Lipka, 5). The work of Lipka is based on the notion that there does not have to be a choice between assimilation and education and that “basing curricular and pedagogical decisions on not only Western knowledge, but on Yup’ik ways of knowing and ways of interacting, creates new curricular and pedagogical possibilities” (Lipka, 5). This both/and approach is foundational to his culturally negotiated pedagogy.
For cultural negotiation to occur, there must be shift within the community. Lipka references others who have done this type of work which involves insiders in decision-making processes and the necessity of a shift of what constitutes “legitimate” knowledge. Additionally, Lipka refers the to the work of others to develop a working definition of culture. He describes both deficit and difference models and notes that his own definition of culture is not ossified or static; culture reflects the changes in the larger context surrounding the Yup’ik and their response to the larger societal changes. This evolving culture is at the intersection and of the distinct cultures experienced in this context and accordingly Lipka’s cultural frame of reference is, “neither Yup’ik culture per se nor Western culture and schooling. It is the culture formed between the two at the meeting place called school, and, hence, an evolving culture of “school and community” (Lipka, 23). Ideally, the culture of school and the culture of the community are mutually reinforcing, but as Lipka notes, “in Alaska we have a situation in which the relationship of the culture of the school and the culture of the community do not reinforce one another. Quite simply, each represents a different cultural realm with different worldviews and different ways of relating – each has distinct purposes associated with their enculturation process” (Lipka, 24).
In the development of his theoretical framework, Lipka emphasizes the realty that neither the Yup’ik nor the dominant Western culture are monolithic (Lipka, 30) and that there is no one way to envision schooling. Rather a synthesis of multiple cultural conceptions of schooling can be important and this requires work on the part of the community to, “determine the meaning of schooling” (Lipka, 31). This position requires communities and schools to negotiate the different components of the schooling experience from this culturally negotiated framework as an alternative to the “culture versus power” dichotomy and the dilemma of resolving modern and traditional tensions in regard to issues of the, “what (content), how (processes), and the why (meaning and purposes) of schooling” (Lipka, 31). This is not an easy process and Lipka notes that it is a struggle to achieve this new synthesis. This process requires a both/and conception of school as well as for culture and power. Culture and power can been seen as either/or, but in this case it is more useful to consider a both/and view with both contributing to the circumstances surrounding the cultural negotiation of schooling. Contrasting with deficiency or difference theories, Lipka’s culturally negotiated pedagogy creates space for “public debate and rational decision making” (Lipka, 31).
Lipka does not see this as a quick fix or an immediate panacea, but it does encourage discourse among indigenous and minority teacher groups and their communities and that “discourse across cultural boundaries will slowly evolve a shift in context, content, and values of schooling. In this way, schooling can to some extent become a community institution, without…undermining the community it ostensibly serves” (Lipka, 31). This discourse about the content, purpose, and process of schooling is a necessary step for a community to take to open address shared or discordant views about schooling. This has implications well beyond formal education settings, and especially for communities who engage in discussion or deliberation about other important social institutions in their communities.
This process of engaging in discourse requires participation on the part of all involved – teachers, parents, and community members – to define the content and process of schooling as it relates to students. Culturally responsive education is “derived from the experience of indigenous and nonindigenous educators in various contexts, suggests that indigenous people are evolving their cultures, coevolving the culture of school, and increasingly making their schools community institutions” (Lipka, 31). This demands that a school is not an island within a community, but rather it is a shared space (or even the center of the community).
If Dewey and others are right in arguing that the school is a miniature version of society, then schools must demonstrate the need to negotiate and synthesize the larger communal voice, especially if different cultures exist within that environment. And it important to note that culturally responsive education does not simply “add” Yup’ik culture to the current educational structure, but rather it challenges and negotiates what appropriate schooling would be when a genuine exploration of the opportunities for drawing upon Yup’ik culture are integrated into the curriculum. Lipka writes that, “To reform schooling in such contexts includes evolving new sets of relationships, culturally negotiated pedagogy between school and community and intentionally affecting the regularities of schooling, its values and content” (Lipka, 33). This is translated into the inclusion of those who were previously marginalized from the decision-making process, and, in this case, the elders and teachers from the Yup’ik community. The inclusion of these persons creates some of the new relationships requires from this larger shift and these relationships allow for the exchange of information and the discussion of the concept of schooling to include voices who had previously been outside of the conversation. This steps allows the boundaries and rigidities of school to being to shift and the negotiations about education can begin to address more institutional issues that furthered the disconnect between community and school.
A (Contentious) Sense of Place and Community: Reclaiming Schools and Communities
Thinking about Yup’ik community, the image that comes to mind is a people deeply committed to their traditions and way of life, drawing heavily upon a holistic worldview that connects the different aspects of life in a way differently from the typical disconnected Western individualistic sense of self and place. There is a rich literature that looks at the notion of place and how that impacts one’s life and one’s larger sense of identity within a community. John Inge (2003) writes that, “…place is very much more significant than is generally recognized. That we all need ‘a place to stand’ goes without saying, but most people do not perhaps stop to reflect very deeply on what effect such places have upon them and why”(ix). Additionally, a place is not a passive identity. Rather, a “place” is composed of persons who collectively create a community. This recognition of community is important, especially when thinking about such work as Lipka’s because it draws so heavily from the lived experience of a people together. And the work to reclaim a culture that has been dismissed and relegated to an inferior social position is challenged because of the institutions that have sought to impose the dominant (White American) culture even when initiatives have been taken to seek to reclaim a place for the Yup’ik culture.
Having a strong sense of community is not something easily accomplished, even for a community that has a common experience as the Yup’ik people do. Rather, it is something that must be proactively done, a conscious act to create a sense of place with other people. Claude Whitmyer writes that, “Making community is a process that requires dedication. It is simply not enough to be inspired by or feel passion for the idea of community. Except for the very small, ad hoc groups you might join from time to time, almost every other community experience will involve long hours and hard work” (Whitmyer, 34). The Yup’ik community is challenged because of two often conflicting notions of “culture” in their lives: one based upon their traditional Yup’ik culture and the other which dominates the school and is based on the mainstream American consumeristic and individualistic culture. Because of this latter culture, Lipka’s work was a “slow process of reconciling cultural differences and conflict between the culture of the school and the culture of the community” (Lipka, 3).
And while Lipka’s work dealt with a very particular community in Alaska, the theory of a culturally negotiated pedagogy has a place in environments that would not typically be addressed by such anthropological and ethnographic work. Schools are related to community well-being and vitality, and therefore, the connections between a school and its community can lead to mutual benefit. In addition, in a pedagogical sense, content that could be “brought to life” by the particular community and context could create interest in subject matter for students others disinterested because the educational system has been neutered from having a strong sense of connection to its own community. Again, the image of the island comes to mind.
The implication for Lipka’s theory for American communities is a reclamation of schools by communities. As with the Yup’ik community, the elders and others were not able to participate in the decision-making processes in the schools and thus the entire educational enterprise was separated from those who sent their children there and those who supported the schools through their role as taxpayers and citizens. And while Lipka’s portrayal of a disconnect between White school administrators and indigenous teachers and a larger public depicts well the reality of today’s schools, it is important that administrators not be only seen as evildoers within a community. As David Mathews (2006) notes, “Most teachers and administrators would deny that they want to keep community members out of the schools or that they are indifferent to people’s concerns. They would insist that they spend considerable time listening to their fellow citizens. Even so, professional educators have difficulty conceiving of a responsible public because they have little or no experience with such a citizenry. And the experience they do have with citizens makes them wary” (10). Mathews goes on to note that, “Maybe educators don’t see a responsible public capable of taking collective ownership in education because, in fact, there isn’t one” (11). This is an example of why the Yup’ik have an opportunity that many communities are not afforded. There is a strong collective identity and being able to draw upon the community’s traditions within the school environment is essential for connecting the school and the learning that goes on within its wall to the community outside of them.
A major challenge to reengaging communities to be more connected with their schools is the push for uniformity at both state and national levels. With the strong push for standardization in testing and accountability (with many good reasons to protect against disparity in educational opportunity, etc.) or at least the perception of such expectations from state and federal government, Lipka’s theoretical framework of culturally negotiated pedagogy becomes not only relevant, but arguably essential.
In many places, school and community may no longer have a shared vision or conception of schooling. Communities have, detrimentally, taken a “hands off” approach to schools. There are number of authors who have sought to explain and provide suggestions to reforming and reclaiming schools and the ways that publics can reengage in the schooling process. In the face of pressure toward a uniform educational model, schools and communities can use Lipka’s approach in order to rely on the strength and support of one another to negotiate a different, shared, concept of schooling. With the help of the community as an active partner, schools can think beyond the stale notions of what school should be and embrace a different way of teaching and learning. By examining and challenging the uniform concept of schooling with a critical look at the local school context, negotiation can begin. A synthesis of the two approaches (the local and the uniform) can lead to a more relevant set of processes relaying more relevant content to students in a particular context. Such a synthesis would include educational standards in addition to local, contextual content, thus exposing students to both the local and global issues that face today’s citizens. The school building can serve as a location for such negotiation to occur, creating a space for public deliberation about the needs of the community and the role of education in preparing students for active participation in the community and beyond. Using Lipka’s model, communities can reclaim their local schools and make them truly local again without compromising the education of their children. Teachers must have the sense that they are able to teach in manners appropriate to the particular composition of their classes while also providing an educational opportunity that is not subpar in any sense.
While Lipka’s theory of culturally negotiated pedagogy is based on his experience with the Yup’ik Eskimos, the application of this theory can be applied to any context where schools have been disconnected from their communities, to the detriment of both. Lipka’s work is clearly rooted in the particular context of the Yup’ik community. Nevertheless, the challenge he puts forth for schools to serve as places of negotiation is an important component that any school should embrace if it is to truly serve its students and its community. As can be said for many projects that focus on indigenous or minority, the theory of a negotiated pedagogy can benefit any school setting. While the Yup’ik community provides a dramatic environment in which to see the role of culture and its impact on schooling, such an environment is not a necessity. In the Appendix to his book, Lipka writes that, “As noted earlier the group was a ‘third way’ for insiders and outsiders to work together, not Western or Yup’ik, but sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes a coevolving of the two into something new. This created the possibility of transforming historical colonial relations into productive, more egalitarian relations” (Lipka, 212). Communities across the United States can become more democratic if they embrace Lipka’s culturally negotiated pedagogy through a process of public discourse, valuing the voices of diverse perspective while strengthening both the schooling process as well as the greater community. As David Mathews suggests, by having the public reclaim public schools communities can reclaim a stronger and more vibrant sense of participatory democracy. And what is the point of education if it does not prepare students to become citizens? I would argue it is of little value to either the individual or the community. Thus, education must have a larger purpose and this is accomplished through contextual learning that seeks to connect the classroom with the world beyond those walls.
Works Cited
Fields, A. B., & Feinberg, W. (2001). Education and Democratic Theory: Finding a Place for Community Participation in Public School Reform. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Inge, J. (2003). A Christian Theology of Place. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Lipka, J., Mohatt, G. V., & Group, t. C. (1998). Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup'ik Eskimo Examples. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated.
Mathews, D. (2006). Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation Press.
Mathews, D. (2003). Why Public Schools? Whose Public Schools?: What Early Communities Have to Tell Us. Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books.
Whitmyer, C. (Ed.). (1993). In the Company of Others: Making Community in the Modern World. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books.
making a change
so i'm thinking that this blog is going to change.
sometimes i have great ideas and ambition to do something. but, i'm also a slacker of sorts. so keeping up with a witty blog has proved to be...challenging. especially when i end up just posting cool things i read on facebook.
so i've decided to change what this blog is about.
i'm continuing my journal down the academic path, so i figured i could start to use this space like many people do with their own websites who are in academia. thus, i'm going to put up papers and things of that sort that i'm thinking about. frankly, i don't know of too many folks who check out this spot these days, but it seems this shift might be a way for me to think about things with some input from others. so yeah, that's what i'm thinking. we'll see how it goes.
sometimes i have great ideas and ambition to do something. but, i'm also a slacker of sorts. so keeping up with a witty blog has proved to be...challenging. especially when i end up just posting cool things i read on facebook.
so i've decided to change what this blog is about.
i'm continuing my journal down the academic path, so i figured i could start to use this space like many people do with their own websites who are in academia. thus, i'm going to put up papers and things of that sort that i'm thinking about. frankly, i don't know of too many folks who check out this spot these days, but it seems this shift might be a way for me to think about things with some input from others. so yeah, that's what i'm thinking. we'll see how it goes.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
how about those boots and that horizon?
So here is the new video from the soon to be released U2 album. It's coming soon. March, in fact. So here's a little something to get you ready for it.
U2 - Get On Your Boots
U2 - Get On Your Boots
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
nyc and legos
These are from a blog on the New York Times website by Christoph Niemann. You can check out the original here.
This just made me laugh.This one made me appreciate not being the first to start a new keg.
bagels...
I will take either the daily or the Sunday edition, but there is something special about the Sunday paper. mmmm.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
news! on the internet!
so this video made me appreciate the vast resources i have at my fingertips. amazing, really, when you think about the transformations that have happened in such a short span of time. this is one of the great reasons why our country needs to continue investing in research and the sciences. we must continue to foster (or reclaim) a sense of creativity that makes things like newspapers on the internet possible.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
a model of friendship
so i don't have much to say about this other than watch the video. we have a lot to learn from a retired elephant and a dog.
On Elephant Sanctuary, Unlikely Friends
Jan. 2, 2009(CBS)
When elephants retire, many head for the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn. They arrive one by one, but they tend to live out their lives two-by-two.
"Every elephant that comes here searches out someone that she then spends most all of her time with," says sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley.
It's like having a best girlfriend, Buckley says - "Somebody they can relate to, they have something in common with."
Debbie has Ronnie. Misty can't live without Dulary.
Those are pachyderm-pachyderm pairs. But perhaps the closest friends of all are Tarra and Bella.
That would be Tarra the 8,700 pound Asian elephant. And Bella. The dog.
"This is her friend," Buckley says, scratching Bella's tummy. "Her friend just happens to be a dog and not an elephant."
"Bella knows she's not an elephant. Tarra knows she's not a dog," Buckley adds. "But that's not a problem for them."
Bella is one of more than a dozen stray dogs that have found a home at the sanctuary. Most want nothing to do with the elephants and vice versa. But not this odd couple.
"When it's time to eat they both eat together. They drink together. They sleep together. They play together," Buckley says.
Tarra and Bella have been close for years -- but no one really knew how close they were until recently. A few months ago Bella suffered a spinal cord injury. She couldn't move her legs, couldn't even wag her tail. For three weeks the dog lay motionless up in the sanctuary office.
And for three weeks the elephant held vigil: 2,700 acres to roam free, and Tarra just stood in the corner, beside a gate, right outside that sanctuary office.
"She just stood outside the balcony - just stood there and waited," says Buckley. "She was concerned about her friend."
Then one day, sanctuary co-founder Scott Blais carried Bella onto the balcony so she and Tarra could at least see each other.
"Bella's tail started wagging. And we had no choice but bring Bella down to see Tarra," Blais says.
They visited like that every day until Tarra could walk. Today, their love -- and trust -- is stronger than ever. Bella even lets Tarra pet her tummy - with the bottom of her enormous foot.
They harbor no fears, no secrets, no prejudices. Just two living creatures who somehow managed to look past their immense differences.
Take good look at this couple, America. Take a good look world. If they can do it - what's our excuse?
On Elephant Sanctuary, Unlikely Friends
Jan. 2, 2009(CBS)
When elephants retire, many head for the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn. They arrive one by one, but they tend to live out their lives two-by-two.
"Every elephant that comes here searches out someone that she then spends most all of her time with," says sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley.
It's like having a best girlfriend, Buckley says - "Somebody they can relate to, they have something in common with."
Debbie has Ronnie. Misty can't live without Dulary.
Those are pachyderm-pachyderm pairs. But perhaps the closest friends of all are Tarra and Bella.
That would be Tarra the 8,700 pound Asian elephant. And Bella. The dog.
"This is her friend," Buckley says, scratching Bella's tummy. "Her friend just happens to be a dog and not an elephant."
"Bella knows she's not an elephant. Tarra knows she's not a dog," Buckley adds. "But that's not a problem for them."
Bella is one of more than a dozen stray dogs that have found a home at the sanctuary. Most want nothing to do with the elephants and vice versa. But not this odd couple.
"When it's time to eat they both eat together. They drink together. They sleep together. They play together," Buckley says.
Tarra and Bella have been close for years -- but no one really knew how close they were until recently. A few months ago Bella suffered a spinal cord injury. She couldn't move her legs, couldn't even wag her tail. For three weeks the dog lay motionless up in the sanctuary office.
And for three weeks the elephant held vigil: 2,700 acres to roam free, and Tarra just stood in the corner, beside a gate, right outside that sanctuary office.
"She just stood outside the balcony - just stood there and waited," says Buckley. "She was concerned about her friend."
Then one day, sanctuary co-founder Scott Blais carried Bella onto the balcony so she and Tarra could at least see each other.
"Bella's tail started wagging. And we had no choice but bring Bella down to see Tarra," Blais says.
They visited like that every day until Tarra could walk. Today, their love -- and trust -- is stronger than ever. Bella even lets Tarra pet her tummy - with the bottom of her enormous foot.
They harbor no fears, no secrets, no prejudices. Just two living creatures who somehow managed to look past their immense differences.
Take good look at this couple, America. Take a good look world. If they can do it - what's our excuse?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
bookseller!
So I'm thinking that maybe someone out there needs a book or two that I happen to have. But you'll only know that if you see what books I'm trying to sell. So yeah, here they are. Maybe you want/need one, or you think someone else needs one. Either way, I'd like to encourage these books to find a new home. You can check them out here.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
packing books
"packing books" has been the phrase for a while now. it's nuts. so much stuff. and i only live in a little apartment. what would i do if i actually lived in a grown up house with lots of grown up things? i'd be in serious trouble. that's what. so tomorrow is the day. picking up the moving truck in the morning, spending the day packing, picking up my vespa, dropping off a TON (or close to) of recycling and then possibly getting on the road. we'll see about that. i have no idea how long this is going to take. it could be a while. hopefully with the help of the shaffer clan the process can be rather zippy.
so, for now, i return to packing. goodness.
Monday, December 22, 2008
closing time
so it's almost that time. in just a few days, i will load up many books, blue shirts, ties, and many other miscellaneous items in a big truck and head east. well, east, north, east again, and then a slight northeasterly direction. and then, yes, i will arrive. where? the new digs. ithaca, ny. it's crazy thinking this is all going to be happening very soon. i've been thinking about it a long while now, but it still doesn't quite seem real. you know? strange feeling.
so it's almost time to leave dayton, ohio. i've enjoyed this place very much. i know the roads, the people, the library, the little things that make you enjoy living someplace. it's been a wonderful city to learn to journey around on a vespa. it's been a lifelong dream and i did it...here. i'm glad i did.
for whatever reason, this song popped into my head. so you're getting a little blast from the past. usually i'm more creative and not so stereotypical with such things, but you'll just have to deal.
there will be many things that i will dearly miss about this place. many people have had a special place in my heart and they will remain. i will leave. but i surely hope i don't forget. and that they don't, either. life really is a journey and this is the next page. it's a wonderful book. i'm enjoying writing it as i go. i'll let you know.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Leading with an Open Heart - from Matt Johnson
so i stole this post from my friend matt's blog. it was too good not to share more widely. please read his blog and watch the video. what if this type of leadership was the norm? i believe we would think of life quite differently than we do today. matt's blog is right over there to the right, entitled "Irresponsibly Responsible." it's good. trust me.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Leading with an Open Heart
I read a leadership article a while back that had such a profound effect on how I understand leadership that I see examples of tenets of the article on an almost daily basis. It's called "Leading with an Open Heart," and speaks eloquently about the difficulty we have in our society to forefront the convictions we have in our hearts when practicing leadership. The authors say that, "But to stay alive in our spirit, in our heart, requires the courage to keep our heart open; it requires what Roman Catholics call a sacred heart or what in the Jewish tradition is called an open heart. We can talk about the practical reasons why it's important to keep an open heart -- and there are practical reasons -- but chiefly it is important for your own spirit and identity."
With so much controversy surrounding our world, it's hard to see much evidence of leading with an open heart in our society, especially exemplary examples. But here is one I came across today, and if ever there was an example of someone leading with an open heart in a very public way, this is it:
It's hard not to feel his struggles and convictions when you watch this. Imagine pouring yourself out to a news crew, to face the almost certain risk of losing so many friends, colleagues, and family members' support. Makes me think how much better off we'd all be if everyone practiced leading with such an open heart.
Posted by MJ at 5:21 PM
Monday, December 08, 2008
Leading with an Open Heart
I read a leadership article a while back that had such a profound effect on how I understand leadership that I see examples of tenets of the article on an almost daily basis. It's called "Leading with an Open Heart," and speaks eloquently about the difficulty we have in our society to forefront the convictions we have in our hearts when practicing leadership. The authors say that, "But to stay alive in our spirit, in our heart, requires the courage to keep our heart open; it requires what Roman Catholics call a sacred heart or what in the Jewish tradition is called an open heart. We can talk about the practical reasons why it's important to keep an open heart -- and there are practical reasons -- but chiefly it is important for your own spirit and identity."
With so much controversy surrounding our world, it's hard to see much evidence of leading with an open heart in our society, especially exemplary examples. But here is one I came across today, and if ever there was an example of someone leading with an open heart in a very public way, this is it:
It's hard not to feel his struggles and convictions when you watch this. Imagine pouring yourself out to a news crew, to face the almost certain risk of losing so many friends, colleagues, and family members' support. Makes me think how much better off we'd all be if everyone practiced leading with such an open heart.
Posted by MJ at 5:21 PM
Sunday, December 7, 2008
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