This note has been in my drafts for ages. I started writing it after posting my Statement of Academic Intent.
A recent conversation with some close friends has prompted me to polish and publish it. As briefly as possible, I'm going to explain the title.
-----------------------------------------
Before I explain "what" I intend to do, I'll explain "why" I intend to do it.
I can still vividly remember my 2nd year Social Justice and Peace Studies class, the Service Learning Project. After taking on what the professor referred to as "the most challenging" position, I became a co-facilitator at Changing Ways. I supported a group of men in their development of non-violent approaches to relationship conflict and to accountability.
But that's not important. What's important was what happened in the actual Service Learning Project classes at King's. Every class was a seminar with students leading one every week on some topic assigned by the professor or about their placement. Every sociopolitical problem, every issue brought forward in that class, ultimately resolved in a need for some kind of education or consciousness raising.
Reiterating what I've suggested in many other notes, the world is not what it could be. Human capacity is far beyond most of our current understandings of what we are and what we can become. Much of the world is suffering, and not just people in this generation, but potentially people in many generations to follow. If you want a further explanation of the former, I laid it out here.
What's more, we have the means available to reach our full potential as a species, education or, more specifically, edification. And we have the institutional structures at our fingertips to affect it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And this brings me to the "what."
Well, I'll start from my incendiary statement that I made almost 1 year ago: "[politically correct] it - M.Ed. then march on high school - The greatest tragedy of modern civilization is that we put a price tag on edification." That statement preempts how I will become a teacher, in order to become an effective administrator, in order to eventually become a part of education governance.
To the best of my abilities, I will reform the public education system. I know that to many educators, this sounds very cliche. But it's the best method I've encountered to do what my profile has stated for years, that of "expanding my consciousness and the consciousness of others as fast and efficiently as possible in order to bring about sustainable sustenance and self-actualization for all life and all life not yet lived."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The what inevitably leads into the "how," and the how is more complicated.
As I stated to my friends, in order to create systemic change in a democracy, you have to convince the public. I've experienced many different initiatives that aspire to do just this, including one of my own, Students Teaching Students. The trick, and ultimate paradox, to convincing the public is to make them value the best education system possible, before they have the experiences necessary to value it. But this paradox can be overcome; there's mountains of evidence. Take the expansion of public education to this day. Back in the early 19th century, most people thought universal primary education in the West would be an impossible feat. Guess what?
In other words, we're already on the way to this "New World Order," to use a phrase that will get conspiracy theorists wringing their hands. But there's many ways each individual can contribute to it. And to my knowledge, to this day, reforming the education system remains the best method available to achieve it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm happy to hear alternatives, and until I hear a better one, look for me in our schools and eventually in the Ministry of Education.
No comments:
Post a Comment