Oakland Teach-In Looks at Budget Cuts and the War
OAKLAND, Calif. - Third period at Paul Robeson High School in East Oakland was pretty much what you might expect on a sunny Thursday afternoon at the end of the term: distracted students, talk of graduation and nearly silent response to teachers’ questions.
Until, of course, the topic turned to the recent cuts in the state’s education budget.
“We don’t have any money because it’s all going to the war,” said Ashley Lawless, a 18-year-old senior who moments before had been obsessively fixing her hair. “And now they’re shutting all this stuff down.”
That kind of angry outburst may have been precisely the point of a daylong act of educational disobedience undertaken on Thursday by about two dozen teachers across Oakland, who set aside their normal lesson plans in favor of topics like the war in Iraq, racial inequality and a recent 10 percent cut in the state schools budget.
Craig Gordon, a social studies teacher at Robeson and the author of the day’s curriculum, said the goal was to raise awareness among students who may not have a firm grasp of the relationship between what happens at home and what happens “out there.”
“I wanted them to actively think about the priorities of society, because they are the ones who are going to be most affected,” Mr. Gordon said. “They are the ones that need to be informed so they can make a decision on whether they want to do something about it.”
The so-called teach-in was just one of a series of May Day events in California, including a work stoppage at several ports and large pro-immigrant demonstrations. Mr. Gordon’s classes were about a third empty because of a walkout by Latino students, some of whom chanted for immigrant rights outside the school’s fences.
For those in school, however, the topics being bandied about were far juicier than the average civics class. Teachers from elementary school to adult education classes allowed students to discuss everything from whether the United States was committing acts of violence against innocent people to whether American businesses were getting rich on the backs of the poor.
One worksheet handed out to students was blunt in its assessment of the current events: “About 1,000,000 Iraqis are dead and 4,000 American soldiers. The war will cost the U.S. about $2.8 trillion. Our schools don’t have money. Many people don’t have health care.”
And while district officials did not officially sanction Thursday’s change in curriculum, they did not seem to mind, either.
“We recognize that a comprehensive education needs to consider the subjects that are taught in relation to current events,” said Troy Flint, a district spokesman. “And today’s lessons exemplify that.”
School districts across the state have voiced their displeasure with the cuts in financing, which come as California faces a $14.5 billion deficit. But perhaps nowhere have the objections been more pronounced than in Oakland, a historically underfinanced district of some 39,000 students, many of them poor. The district essentially went bankrupt in 2003 and was taken over by the state, though it has recently resumed local control over some administrative functions, Mr. Flint said.
On Wednesday, members of the school board and local leaders rallied to protest the recent cuts and unveiled several proposals meant to help generate funds, including closing a loophole on a state yacht tax. More unusual, the district is also praising a plan to ask residents in Democratic-led legislative districts to “call, e-mail, and/or send a postcard” to residents in Republican districts to try to drum up support for increased taxes on oil, vehicles and the wealthy.
“People just seem to tune out, because every year there seems to be a budget crisis,” said Kerry Hamill, a board member who organized the rally on Wednesday. “We wanted people to know that this one is different.”
The question of whether such nonviolent means really work also had students debating in a rickety modular classroom at Oakland High School during Thursday’s teaching of the alternate curriculum.
Taurus Hamilton, a junior, said he was not sure.
“Sometimes you need some violence to show people that you got something to say,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Sometimes you got to show people what you’re willing to do to get what you need.”
A classmate, Vanessa Dilworth, disagreed. “That’s not right,” she said. “If you don’t do it a peaceful way, there’s people that are going to beat you down. It’s like Martin Luther King versus Malcolm X.”
Their teacher, Ben Visnick, came down firmly on the side of nonviolence, but let the students battle it out verbally for several minutes. A former president of the teachers’ union, which helped organize Thursday’s curriculum shift, Mr. Visnick said earlier classes had sparred over the economy and the school system’s budget, which is never far from some students’ minds.
“Most of our students are working class or poor,” Mr. Visnick said. “And they know that the deck is not always stacked fairly.”
© 2008 The New York Times
Now this is real education!
The Oakland group is amazing! They showed up at the ILWU rally later yesterday and spelled out this program they have developed.
Then they laid out chapter and verse how the State of California is intentionally ‘dumbbing down’ schools where the non-affluent children are taught.
Paul Robeson lives!
Fantastic! It’s great to see students and teachers pull this off with the help of the teachers’ union and acquiescence of the school district. In more conservative communities it may be a lot harder to do this, but at least the good people of Oakland are showing how it can be done.
It has been a long time since I was in school but if the curriculum doesn’t include what is happening in the world around us how can we ever expect that the students will understand; much less solve the problems they will be confronted with as adults? What happened in Oakland should be happening nationally especially when you consider barely 50% of the students in this country are graduating. Having a school curriculum mandated by a handful of people has not been effective. We all need a serious dialogue about our role in the world. Students should be studying philosophy at an early age otherwise you wind up with students who believe the solution to problems is violence rather than dialogue and negotiation.
Most of our churches and “religious” leaders also need to be more involved with the reality of what is being done in our name. When so-called men of faith do not want to talk about the war or condemn torture then we have completely lost our moral compass. It is bad enough that no one will do anything substantive about our illegal war and the war profiteers who have led this nation down a path that only enriches those who profit in death and destruction. Our nation is greater than this and what they are doing in Oakland is what we should be doing everywhere.
Unfortunately, I’m living in Bush country and can’t imagine my local school district allowing an open discussion like this. You’ve got to love northern California! These teachers and kids give me some hope. “Paul Robeson High School”. I love the sound of it. I attended Dwight Eisenhower High School. Even that’s not sounding so bad these days.
Our Corporate ‘citizens’ are into plunder not education. We had best revoke their citizenship before we are corpus, Habeas.
Frustrating that the Latino third of the students walked out on it. The immigration rights problem is very much linked to the education defunding and the war profiting. In a growing economy immigrants are mostly welcome (except for the right wing racists), but with the never-ending wars (among other things) the economic crisis will keep growing. The Latino students have got to learn to see the whole thing as a single system.
I’m glad these teachers felt comfortable enough to do this. When I was a teacher, I couldn’t even discuss evolution without someone screaming about something in the back. If I dared to mention anything about Bush’s pet war, I got harassed by the evangelical majority. Education under conditions like the one I worked in is not education at all. At the end I did make the students read Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason”. Many were uncomfortable to know that the founding fathers had other ideas than the ones they had been taught in church. I sometimes feel that the church has overstepped it’s bounds as keepers of the spirit. They have become instead the enforcers of conservative thinking.
shankari25,
Good points. Many in the church do the bidding for the forces of reactionary thinking while hiding behind religious garments. Age of Reason SHOULD be taught and the reasoning behind Tom Paine’s written words.
Church may not be the best place to bring minors to anymore. So sad.
yes,yes,yes. This is where the future lies, in the hands of teachers. If they can muster the courage to teach the truth about America things will change. Unfortunately, most teachers are ignorant, too patriotic , or afraid.
The latino students are focused on their own problem. They are being selfish and failing their country. Like most Americans, they care mostly about themselves. I am not surprised. Latinos are not, overall, progressive.
Teachers out here in the Midwest lose their jobs for less than the California episode. They are supposed to spend their time teaching “intelligent design” and let our God inspired leaders worry about protecting the American people against the terrorists no matter what the cost. Anyway, it is just the Chinese and Saudi`s money, so why be concerned? The debt is just a G-D-Piece of paper, and our kids can take care of it.
Robeson would be so proud of them. So very, very proud.
Latinos are not progressive? I am surprised at such a sweeping characterization on this site. The Latino students were engaged on immigrant rights, an issue that is essential to the progressive agenda. There is room for more than one angle on justice.
High school and college students here in NY are up in arms over the shooting of Sean Bell. That’s important too.
Mostly I am encouraged that students are paying attention to the issues and acting on them.
The teach-in was very good. Kids know they don’t count for much when wealth is allocated. It is courageous of teachers to help the students articulate and process that this is wrong and it is not their fault.
I wish our cheapskate billionaire mayor and tip-toe cautious governor would talk about the war spending as they whine about lack of money for schools and health care.
There ya go! “TEACHERS BEYOND TERRIFIED TAKE ACTION!”
It’s not only teachers, EPA scientist but all of us are under suspection. Here’s a scary read on postal carrier warnings about possible US spying on citizens and mail monitoring: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/post-carrier-ac.html
We’ve lost so much, and we’ll lose alot more if we don’t stop our government from taking our freedoms our brave men & women,our money. what have the american people recieved. high gas prices,high food prices,high everything,lower wages,less freedom less safe. the republican way. i don’t see how any body could vote republican. one more thing, why must all god fearing people try to act like god, and try to make everybody be like them,LIVE AND LET LIVE,LIVE FREE,IS THIS A FREE COUNTRY OR WHAT.how would you like to be told you can’t pray. GOD will be the judge, not you.
I think what lizard meant was that Latinos are just like people everywhere: reluctant to think, easy to fool, short-sighted and apathetic for the most part, unless their immediate interests are involved - pace the immigration issue.
It’s human nature.
litt_wmn@yahoo.com
Shift your exchange/association away from the power centers. It’s time to walk the walk, people.
Wot? First the Unions, now the teachers! Is this the start of a rebellion by the American People against the boofheads who are running the place?
I am beginning to get excited about these development. Don’t disappoint me again. Please.
P.S. Should Hugo become the U.S. President? Check www.dangerouscreation.com
Oakland rules. But of course the SF Chronicle and other such a__wipes would like you to believe we in Oakland live in the dark ages ! There is a reason the homeless guys in SF use the Chron as toilet paper every morning. How apt.
Hail to the teach-in, the walkout, the work stoppage; all part of badly needed ferment to awaken American consciousness!
The goal of socialized education is to turn students in to little citizens of a one-world government where they are mere economic units, not individuals, nor people who give much thought to individual liberty.
That is why they penalize those who try teach critical thinking and question conventional wisdom. I mean, imagine, the citizens might even believe in conspiracies.
Individual liberty was the reason the Revolution was fought and is the basis for the US Constitution. Americans who are not taught this properly or forget it are ripe for an authoritarian takeover. Looks like we are ripe though. Our liberties are being disappeared, and the 18-35 yo group, which would have been the source of the most vocal or energetic activists a generation ago, are instead either unaware, or do not want to be bothered after years of being doped up with Ritalin.
Congress back in 1970 recognized that the federal government is supposed to have limited authority when it comes to education. An amended General Education Provisions Act - Prohibition against Federal Control of Education forbids the federal government from exercising any “direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration or personnel of any education institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system. Up until that time, public education was strong, with the exception of schools in minority districts. Forced busing/integration of the schools in the 70’s equalized education so that both whites and minorities would be dumbed down,(it did not elevate education for minorities)
Following the creation of the Globalist Trilateral Commission in 1973 the loophole through which the subversion of our education system was accomplished was federal funding of research and development.
In the 1980’s the effort to turn schools from places where students actually learn something to places where their values, beliefs, and cognitive skills was achieved by Outcome Based Education (OBE), which is a basically a behavior modification program.
The father of this movement was Benjamin Bloom and his 1981 book, “All Our Children learning” is said to be the bible of OBE. In the book he says “The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings, and actions of students.” The instrument for this was the “Course Goals Collection” completed by the DOE in 1980-81. “The collection consists of fourteen volumes with 15,000 goals covering every major subject taught in the public schools from K-12.” They obviously forgot the prohibition on any federal government involvement in instruction.
This was of course under the first TLC presidency of Jimmy Carter.
The OBE became the way students were to be trained to believe the same things, have the same values, and to ignore those they were taught at home.
In “The Effective School Report”, Dr. Kelly stated that “The brain should be used for processing, not storage.” This is the view of education that says you prepare students to take a test determined by federal standards of what they should know. The student is to just process information and come up with the correct output like a computer. Computers are great, but they do not think.
In any event, the movement picked up momentum on Reagan’s watch, but it is not a Democratic or Republican program because they serve the same globalist masters. In “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America”, Charlotte Iserbyt, says, “The real purpose of this project was to propose a radical redesign of the nation’s education system from one based on inputs to one based on outputs.” It switched from a curriculum of content a student was required to learn, to a series of answers the student was supposed to repeat when tested. The schools, with direction from the DOE and grants from major foundations, as well as input from corporate leaders, were redesigned to produce obedient workers and citizens who do not question authority.
When I was in school, I had several teachers who taught using the Socratic method. If you asked a question, you did not necessarily get an answer, you may have got another question, which if answered, would get another question, teaching you the process of using your brain to get the answer to the question you asked. In many cases, you find their is more than 1 answer to the question asked. So we were taught to question any answer given to us by an authority figure, since we learned the answer given is usually the one that benefits the authority, and not the only answer. You do not learn from your teacher, your teacher simply guided you to learn the facts in the text book, and to challenge the analysis of these facts. Once you have done so, and have concluded the anlysis is logical, you have learned. If you end up not accepting the analysis, you have either not understood it, or you have concluded it is not logically so, or even incorrect, at least as presented in your text or your teachers arguments. Memorization of “facts” is not learning.
In 1989 Chester Finn, the former head of the DOE’s research branch, told business leaders that he favored a national curriculum. He forgot the congressional prohibition on a curriculum determined at the federal level.
At the same time Papa Bush unveiled his “America 2000″ to the National Governor’s Association that essentially set in concrete the whole behavior modification movement that had been forced on the education system.
That same year, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s Elementary Global Education Framework was announced. Its goals were to create “Human beings whose home is planet earth, who are citizens of a multicultural democratic society in an increasingly interconnected world, and who learn, care, think, choose, and act, to celebrate life on this planet, and to meet the global challenges confronting Humankind.” In other words, create young Globalists.
Bush II came to office looking to bring education that is “accountable” and “will leave no child behind”. Today we have national standards and national tests, and teachers just teach to the test, and a lot of children are being left behind.
If that’s not enough, government is not satisfied with just dumbing down the children with poor education, many parents today are required to put their child put on a regimen of Ritalin, a mind altering drug, for a mental illness that did not exist 30 years ago. We’ve got seven million government approved drug addicts going to school in drug free zones, many of them misdiagnosed because they fail tests or are just being kids, and those diagnosed with ADD who fail tests do not count against the school. Madness.
Children are also dying from Ritalin use. According to Ritalin critic, Dr. Baughman, of 2,993 adverse reaction reports (AR) concerning Ritalin listed by the FDA from 1990 to 1997, there were 160 deaths and 569 hospitalizations, 36 of them life-threatening.
Ritalin is early training to introduce children to drug abuse. Today, Ritalin is popular as a drug of choice among college students who were brought up on it. Reports from colleges indicate that Ritalin use has become as popular as a study aid. A black market for obtaining Ritalin without a prescription has developed on some campuses. To increase its potency, some students crush Ritalin and sniff it like cocaine. After the “buzz” wears off, students report side effects of melancholy, lethargy, dry mouth, loss of appetite and inability to sleep. In many cases, after being on the drug for several years children actually forget how to live without it. If taken off the drug they have reported feeling lost, frightened, even paranoid. This can lead the child to eventually experimenting with illegal drugs in an attempt to feel normal again.
Research has shown that children on Ritalin are three times more likely to develop a taste for cocaine. So as the psychologists continue to invade the classrooms in ever increasing numbers, ask yourself why the drug culture is growing by ever larger numbers through ever younger children. Also, ask how the War on Terror could not pay dividends in the War on Drugs. Drug money gets laundered, and from all accounts it is an over 600 billion dollar industry, yet it flourishes.
This is not to say those in the education system know what is happening, many believe they are doing good, because thats what they were taught in Universities funded by the Tax Free Foundations, which in turn are owned by the Globalist elite who influence what gets taught.
Control of the MSM was not sufficient for the globalists, control of the educational system was as important. Virtually every professor, teacher or scientist relies on tax free foundations, government funding or works for corporations who depend on government funding. If you don’t play the game, you are kicked out. How does a historian make a living? Teaching in a university, and publishing. If you publish or teach views of history that are not to the liking of the power elite, you are punished. In fact, certain subjects are so taboo, even the publishers won’t touch them, and those smaller publishers who do find companies like Amazon or B&N won’t touch them.
You teachers, students, active board members, district spokesman of the Oakland School District did a tremendous service to your district and for your students. I hope the kids can educate their parents as well.
Bravo for your teach-in and rally protesting $$$cuts. The proposal to close the loophole on the state yacht tax is brilliant!
I am thrilled by your energy, intelligence and far-sightedness.
Go!!!!… Craig Gordon, Troy Flint, Kerry Hamill, Ben Visnick, and most important,
Taurus Hamilton. I agree with him that sometimes there needs to be a big noise in order
for some people to hear.
MiMiCcS thank you for the summary . I know some people that should read this perspective right now.
I took my 12 year old boy out of this clap trap in January .
He seems much happier already.
Congratulations! Ben, hope to see you at State Council.
Old saying if I missed it above sorry
If you don’t learn history we are doomed to repeat it.
Schools are a great way to get not only the truth out but history. We can’t rely on the media or even what people in office to tell the truth.
To those who jumped on the Latino students for their walk-out: this sounds racist to me. Walk-outs are a tool used to bring attention to a problem which is not being adressed through normal channels. They require some leadership, organization and also an understanding by the participants of the percieved problem. This applies both to the walkout and the teach-in. Both are respnses to a problem and both are valuable educational tools.
Mr d
Do you ever notice how the media covers such a protest?
1) they don’t get the true message out
2) if they do they show the scruffiest person they can so the message is negative in appearence
3) they have a negative story about the country these kids maybe have relatives in
4) the next story is a bright glittery story so Americans forget what they just watched 5 seconds ago.
that is how the media controls public views to a protest. negative, spin and make you forget by the next story.
I, too, applaud the Oakland peace work. There are individual teachers all over the Northwest who do the same thing on a daily basis, and some get punished for it. Most of us, however, just carry on. I do not own a TV, so I do not know how Fox network dealt with this, if at all. Ignoring protest is a perfect way to silence it. Let us not forget that more than half of Amerika gets its ‘news’ from Rupert Murdoch, the Australian fascist who owns and controls Fox and a huge piece of the Amerikan media. But there are grass roots happenings like this all over the thinking part of our nation - mostly on the borders [West Coast, East Coast, Canadian border midwest like Wisconsin]. I find this to be very hopeful. This primary election process has apparently brought out the biggest voter participation in US history, according to National Public Radio [if we can trust even them anymore…]. I do not think that this turnout has happened in support of the status quo. I hope that we are seeing the tip of a revolutionary iceberg here. Students, Unions, working class people - the same combination that put the country on its ear in 1968. We must be prepared for a strong backlash from the rich and the corporations.
A job well done. I thank the Oakland School district, I thank the Long Shorman on the West Coast. I live on the East Coast in Maryland and there was no mention of it except just a 20 sec blurp on one of the News Networks. I hope this idea will spread.
Across the country constraints are felt at a time that Bush is obsessing over an additional 90 billion? 100 billion? dollars for Iraq War funding. The figure keeps bloating as Democrats attach domestic-spending earmarks before they pass it.
Whatever could we do with this 90-100 billion dollars on just the home front?
All Americans will suffer for some time for not doing more to confront the Bush team fiasco. Our Dubuque school district pink-slipped 32 teachers in April “due to budget constraints.” Who needs teachers, I guess; ignorance wins the day, along with war, global starvation and global warming.
Our local antiwar group has held weekly protest vigils downtown since October, 2001. Teachers along with most residents don’t attend, or rarely have attended. At most one-half of one percent ever stood up publicly to say, “No!” so the Bush team sails on nurturing its expensive illegal and immoral wars for the benefit of his friends, as Bush describes them, “the haves and have-mores!”
before anyone starts whining about money being spent for war, california better get it’s act together. while i lived there i paid 10% of my income in state tax and there still were deficits. now i live in texas where i do not pay any state tax and the state gov does not have a deficit.
currently cali has a $20billion (with a b) deficit. expect more cuts and enjoy the nice weather.
Hollow point - you are so right. One of the most effective methods the media has is “shunning”.