The Taste of Another’s Thoughts
We need unapproved thoughts just now. The approved thoughts, the right answers, the canned responses and parroted arguments are the things that have landed us in our present predicament.
Education
You Can’t Talk about Teacher Strikes without Talking about the Fossil Fuel Industry
But beyond illuminating the often dismal conditions under which teachers in this country are often forced to work, the walkouts in Oklahoma and West Virginia illuminate something else — what happens when states prioritize tax breaks for fossil fuel companies over education.
This isn’t just About Pensions Anymore – There is a Revolution Afoot!
The pension thing was the straw that broke the camel’s back, apparently, and it has triggered the greatest wave of staff-student mobilization the sector has seen in decades. What did they think lecturers would do while on the picket lines for three weeks? Chat about the weather? Snack on cucumber sandwiches? And what about students? Were they going to stay at home and sleep?
A California Trend Worth Catching: College for All
At a time of extraordinary wealth inequality, taxing wealth to pay for higher education is a powerful idea. If the California initiative passes in November, it will serve as a model to the nation for how to both reduce concentrated wealth and expand college opportunity.
Learning with our Senses
I wonder if the process of learning and discovering with our senses isn’t really what makes us human, what makes our life worthwhile. Perhaps this is how as humans we evolved our ‘big’ brains, our specialized neural networks. Maybe in exploring the word with our senses and trying to make sense of it all, we developed language in order to tell stories, we developed writing in order to keep records, and in the process we advanced our social group from tribes into culture and from culture into civilizations.
Realize that We are the Change: Harlem Grown
Hillery founded Harlem Grown to address the health and academic challenges facing public elementary school students in Harlem. In 2011, he began volunteering at a local elementary school and witnessed first-hand the lack of resources allocated to the schools and the poor nutrition of students. He transformed an abandoned garden, essentially a junkyard, into a thriving community garden.
The Population Problem: Not as Bad as You Might Think
It turns out women around the world are on board with zero population growth! It turns out zero population growth is not all that difficult or expensive to achieve!
School Days in 2040: Beatriz’ Day at the Freire School of Activism
At this school students are activists first, students second. They’re learning by doing and, in the process, bringing about positive social change in their city, their country, and their world.
School Days in 2040: Lakshmi’s Day at Bunker Hill High
In this third story from the blog series School Days in 2040, Erik Assadourian explores a high school in India specializing in training future social entrepreneurs, farmers, and even midwives.
School Days in 2040: Saikou’s Day aboard the Tigerfish Floating School
While floating schools certainly aren’t solving the climate crisis in The Gambia and the many other coastal countries where they’ve emerged, they’ve proven to be an ingenious adaptation—one that Saikou feels lucky to be part of.
School Days in 2040: Rima’s Day at École Gardiens de la Foret
What might education look like in 2040 if it were to be truly Earth-centric?
The Open Source School Redefines Education in Italy
Threading elements of the great educational experiments of Bauhaus and Roycroft Community models together with Pierre Levy’s modern definition of “collective intelligence,” La Scuola Open Source (The Open Source School) embodies the principles of the sharing movement.