Rebecca Smith, BEA President and VWC USSF delegate
This was easily the highlight of my first day. First off, I have never seen a room occupancy fire code violated so badly – there were so many people in the room we were literally knee to knee on the floor with no more than a few square inches of carpet to be seen!
The facilitators used the popular education model to engage us all as active participants. This was really cool to turn to the people whose knees were touching mine and hear their reasons they chose to teach for social justice. The goals of this workshop were to “examine and reframe assumptions found in traditional scholarship and teaching, to discuss popular education as a pedagogical strategy for creating a climate of social justice, and to explore action steps in classroom and curriculum transformation.”
I learned a new, scary term: Professional Industrial Complex. The facilitators are all university professors, and consider themselves “scholar activists”. They specify these two aspects of their jobs because one cannot exist without the other. In order to teach independently of the corporate, industrial model of education, they need to act as scholar activists, encouraging their students to unlearn misconceptions and rethink what it means to be educated.
Why does popular education work? Here’s what the group shared:
* Popular education is directly connected to community organizing – it’s learning in action.
* is egalitarian, human, and fosters cooperative relationship building through the sharing of personal experiences
* allows us to temporarily live the microcosmic society we envision
* requires support, time, resources, integration of teachers and community
* integrates culture, theater, arts, music
* brings grassroots action to institutions
* teaches us to unlearn misconceptions
I’m now a proud member, and looking forward to participating in the planning sessions for the next World Education Forum.
USSF Report: Project South's workshop, "Critical Classroom: Education for Liberation and Movement Building"
Two Labor Day Weekend Events
Sept 3rd: 6th Annual Burlington Labor Day Parade & Celebration - Starting 10am at Burlington College, 95 North Ave, ending at Battery Park for free hotdogs, hamburgers, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, face painting & fun activities. Speakers include Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch, Jen Henry, RN and president of United Professions Vermont - AFT, Adrienne Kinne of Iraq Vets Against The War & member of her union at the VA Hospital in White River Junction. Sponsors include the Vermont Workers' Center, Student Labor Action Project, Peace & Justice Center - VT Livable Wage Campaign, VSEA, Vermont NEA, Vermont AFL-CIO and many other Vermont unions and community organizations. Music will be performed by Sweet Justice & Wildcat Strikers, the official band of the Vermont Workers' Center. Call James at 802-272-0882 for details.
Sept 2nd: Old Labor Hall Benefit Event - 5pm., 46 Granite Street, Barre Another Is World Possible: Changing around a cycle of endless war, poverty and enviromental destruction. A recent flood caused thousands of dollars in damage to the Barre Labor Hall, a national historic landmark. Join in for good food, good music and discussion w/Bernie Sanders, representatives from the Vermont Workers’ Center and our US Social Forum delegation, Grassroots Global Justice, Iraq Vets Against War Peace & Justice Center, & others to put the “move” in the movement.
Stop The Sale
Workers' Center members Kit Andrews and Tina Scanlon table at the Addison County Fair to Stop The Sale of Verizon. Verizon is trying to sell off its landlines in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine because they do not want to invest in the needed new fiber optic technology. We need your help getting postcards signed to Stop The Sale. Email james@workerscenter.org if you can help us outreach around Vermont. TO learn more go to www.stop-the-sale.org