On the Teach-In, teaching #NAWD & some history

…a revisited and only moderately updated 2011 newsletter article that, given distribution and placement, I should have blogged here in the first place. So now, thanks to #NAWD and revived Teach-In interest, I'm getting to it. Defend Public Education emerged in 2009, grew, peaked in 2011 and then seemed to fade into Occupy ~ now in eclipse as well. The teach-in / walkout connection is clearer now. 

Not all walkouts are strikes, nor are all labor related. Social injustice, not labor, is the real connection. Students are among likeliest out-walkers. Google walkout and you get more students than unions. Considering workplace inequities, labor practices are a natural target. The last major U.S. walkout was by students in Wisconsin in 2011. 

By way of the sit-in (which also connects to occupy), there's a clear walkout/teach-in connection. I'm somewhat puzzled by the paucity of meaningful online material on both but chalk it up to Eli Pariser's filter bubble. We are not encouraged to remember these connections. Somewhat more history follows below. For the complete newsletter, see the link at the bottom of the post. A more extensive collection of resource links is being bundled and will appear later -- but still in time for teaching-in later this month.

March 2011 was a month of action, in part planned by Defend Public Education and other groups as a coordinated series of actions supporting public education continuing and expanding on those of October 7, 2010 and March 4, 2010. This round, Wisconsin upped the ante. March actions, spreading into April and beyond, moved from previously planned to reactions supporting a broader cause. The massive attack on collective bargaining, public services workers, and public services was not limited to public education. Proposed legislation called for cutting public services drastically and, as part of budgetary package, dismantling or severely restricting collective bargaining.

In March we watched the actions on TV, followed it live online, web streamed and tweeted, and participated when and where possible. Protest manifested in petitions, rallies, marches, demonstrations, and teach-ins, with one California campus holding a "ramen-in."

(Update Notes)
The best covered and recorded, at least in terms of what has lasted, yields results to searches, 2011 Teach-In would have to be the April 5, 2011, National Teach-In on Debt, Austerity, Corporate Greed and What Can Be Done. Like the Defend Public Education page (which would have made a splendid model for NAWD), the event website is gone. The FB Event page infested with spam and bad links. Teach-In coverage remains on The Guardian and elsewhere as well as on a full set of YouTube videos. And now here too.

(back to the original article)

Conferences Coming & Going: #LeftForum, #4C12, #SXSW, etc

A Rite of Spring Stravinsky would not recognize, conferences are how academics celebrate its coming. No excursions to Ft Lauderdale or other beaches.


March opened with NEA Higher Education Conference and AWP 2012, both in Chicago. Only the former participated in Occupy Chi / National  Day of Action for Education. L.A. followed with ACE 2012 annual meeting for higher ed administrators, university presidents and their ilk. Edu-geeks frolicked at SXSWedu in Austin, regular SXSW continues through March 19.  For the weekend the determined (perhaps demented) conference goer has CCCC in St Louis and Left Forum in NYC.

 

Reading Room: In defense of public education

Public education, higher, middle and lower, is under siege. I'm old enough to remember reading "Why Johnny Can't Read" (Time, 1955), but the current fever pitch reaches new levels: rants, critiques, conflict and conflicting solutions multiply. Johnny still can't read, yet there is still no agreement on the why or the how. If that was a problem in middle school, imagine Johnny in college now because, ready or not, everyone is supposed to go.

New this round are two game changers.  One is disruptive innovation in the form of advances in communication technology, learning analytics and sophisticated algorithms for learning software touted as capable of supplanting teachers or at least reducing the number needed. The other is the economy shrinking education funding. See the connection?

Enter conflicting solutions and the players bearing them ~ the tech team vs the traditionalists or New School vs Old School.

Today, April 13: Class Action Day

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Several states saw actions today as part of the Class Action Day for Higher Education called for by the California Faculty Association and  which has spread to some extent in other areas. My thanks to Wes Strong of Defend Public Education for supplying this list and promising further reports and updates as he gets them.

• California and a few other states (listed below) 
• New Jersey Posting

Whither U: Education in the Time of a 2-tiered System

These tiers are not about tenure (for a change) but not unrelated: the reference is to the increasingly tiered economy, global and domestic and its implications for higher ed. 

Posts in progress, "year of the dangerous meme" and "grow your own" are in drafts. Not the usual ~ after all there are so many calls in so many disciplines and Penn to meet your notification needs, but I have a call to post, plus personal but education related notes on experimental open online courses I am taking, a busman's holiday but covering developments that could change higher ed as we know it. MOOCs may not have that MLA cachet but they make Digital Humanities and HASTAC look retro. 

There's NFM news too, a few items not in time to make the Newsletter, which should be appearing in a few days. I'm one of the BoD you'll meet in this issue's "Meet the NFM Board" feature. Eventually, you'll meet all of us. In the meantime, catch up on back issues in the Newsletter Archives while you are waiting. Otherwise, as a former student at the American University at Cairo, I am consumed with following #Egypt. Back to the newsfeeds...

The Rise of the New Global Elite

Chrystia Freeland, The Atlantic, February 2, 2011.

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This is going to have to be fixed before education is fixed. Because education can't fix this: 

Oct. 17th Global Day of Action for Education

Reposted from the Defend Education Announcement List, info@defendeducation.org. We're not involved but in my opinion should be aware and informed ~ even members who don't support involvement for whatever reason. You can subscribe to updates or join the Defend Education group / mailing list online at Defend Education (which also organized and sponsored March 4th and October 7th Actions that included / represented faculty and staff as well as students). Follow on Twitter by searching hashtags #globalEdu or #ondaGlobal

Reclaiming the University: video & so much more

The Community College Summit is over, and yes, follow-up + comments, commentary, response statements, links, transcripts (if available) are on the blogging agenda. However, today, the day after the Summit, overrepresented by administration, pols and corporate interests but underrepresented by faculty, is Oct 6, the day before tomorrow... and

Tomorrow is Oct 7th, the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. So it's back to U... and defending it. Students and faculty working together... Admin, for-profit mouthpieces and corporate reps will be conspicuous by their absence.

UMN March tuition hikes and furlough protest

From the U Minn faculty blog FERPE (Faculty for the Renewal of Public Education) post, Reclaiming the University video:

"Did you miss the FRPE/EAC event, "Reclaiming the University: Fulfilling Our Promise to Students and the Public," on September 30? Luckily, a student volunteered to videotape the event and has posted the files on the web, both as a streaming video and as a direct download."

While you are there, put FERPE on your rss reader and don't overlook their Reclaim the U! statement of purpose in the sidebar to the right of the main message area.

Now back to October 7th, Bob Samuels a posts for the occasion, "October 7th: Get Out The Vote And Support Higher Education" today ("say no to privatization and yes to public education"). I 

"On October 7th, people throughout the country will be demonstrating to support public education. This date also marks one of the last days people can register to vote for the November election, and so many groups are calling for joint activities to support officials who will defend public education."

FERPE will be out tomorrow. So will others from "sea to shining sea," from California to New York State. What about you?

Check out the October 7th twitter page at http://twitter.com/forpublicedoct7. Post your action updates to twitter and use any of the following tags to have your post syndicated on the national website: #oct7, #oct7th, #october7th, #pubed. (@NewFacMajority has been using#Oct7 but will now add others)