Yesterday, ICE murdered another innocent bystander, Alex Pretti. He was a US citizen
Earlier this week, they took a 5 year old hostage in order to detain his parents. They are legally allowed in this country.
Last week, they murdered Renee Good at point blank range outside of her home.
These aren’t isolated incidents- it’s a call for those of us who are pushing the education revolution forward. Check out this conversation where Andrew discusses what this means for our work in education- how our human nature is NOT violence and competition, the role of education in creating emergent transformation toward equitable interdependence, and what we must be willing to lose to actually change these systems we find ourselves in.
Please share your additional comments, thoughts, and ideas of how we can come together in interdependence and solidarity. Our young people need our collective courage now, more than ever.
Thanks to all those who attended live, it was great to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Quotes and other resources I shared in the podcast:
I LEAVE YOU FINALLY A RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. The world around us really belongs to youth, for youth will take over its future management. Our children must never lose their zeal for building a better world. They must not be discouraged from aspiring toward greatness, for they are to be the leaders of tomorrow. Nor must they forget that the masses of our people are still underprivileged, ill-housed, impoverished and victimized by discrimination. We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends. (Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, 1999, p. 62)
“The schoolchild who is continually discouraged and repressed comes to lack confidence in himself. He suffers from a sense of panic that goes by the name of timidity, a lack of self-assurance that in the adult takes the form of frustration and submissiveness and the inability to resist what is morally wrong. The obedience forced upon a child at home and in school, an obedience that does not recognize the rights of reason and justice, prepares the adult to resign himself to anything and everything. The widespread practice in educational institutions of exposing a child who makes mistakes to public disapproval, and indeed to a sort of public pillorying, instils in him an uncontrollable and irrational terror of public opinion, however unfair and erroneous that opinion may be. And through these and many other kinds of conditioning that lead to a sense of inferiority, the way is opened to the spirit of unthinking respect, and indeed almost mindless idolatry, in the minds of paralysed adults toward public leaders, who come to represent surrogate teachers and fathers, figures upon whom the child was forced to look as perfect and infallible. And discipline thus becomes almost synonymous with slavery.” Maria Montessori, Education and Peace, pg 16
“Two paths lie open in the development of personality - one that leads to the man who loves and one that leads to the man who possesses. One leads to the man who has won his independence and works harmoniously with others, and the other to the human slave who becomes the prisoner of his possessions as he tries to free himself and who comes to hate his fellows.” Maria Montessori, Education and Peace, pg 53
“Nowadays it is considered antiquated and out of fashion to talk of morality or religion. In fact, in these times it is felt that, in order to respect the opinions of adults, one should give no opinions to children. How strange and illogical to think that in order to respect the feelings of adults we must deprive the children of a very necessary help. Now I feel certain that the child himself can be a great assistance to us in understanding this question of morality. That is why I say that the life of the child and the adult are two different things that can help each other. Without doubt we can, for what the child has shown us, consider morality in relation to social life. For the meaning of morality is our relation with other people and our adaptation to life with other people. Therefore, morality and social life are very closely united.” Maria Montessori, “Moral and Social Education” in Citizen of the World, pg 19
“The need that is so keenly felt for a reform of secondary schools concerns not only an educational, but also a human and social problem. This can be summed up in one sentence: Schools as they are today, are adapted neither to the needs of adolescence nor to the times in which we live. Society has not only developed into a state of utmost complication and extreme contrasts, but it has now come to a crisis in which the peace of the world and civilization itself are threatened. The crisis is certainly connected with the immense progress that has been made in science and its practical applications, but it has not been caused by them. More than to anything else it is due to the fact that the development of man himself has not kept pace with that of his external environment. While material progress has been extremely rapid and social life has been completely transformed, the schools have remained in a kind of arrested development, organized in a way that cannot have been well suited even to the needs of the past, but that today is actually in contrast with human progress. The reform of the secondary school may not solve all the problems of our times, but it is certainly a necessary step, and a practical, though limited, contribution to an urgently needed reconstruction of society. Everything that concerns education assumes today an importance of a general kind, and must represent a protection and a practical aid to the development of man; that is to say, it must aim at improving the individual in order to improve society.” Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, pg 56
