On a recent crisp fall morning in the nation's capital, 3rd grade teacher Rebecca Lebowitz gathered her 29 public school students on their familiar giant multicolored carpet, and reminded them how to make sense of the characters whose worlds they would soon enter during independent reading time.
"What are the four things we want to look for when we meet a new character?" Ms. Lebowitz asked from her chair at the foot of the rug. Several hands shot up before nine-year-old Monica spoke confidently over the steady hum of the classroom's antiquated radiator. "We want to pay attention to what they do, what they say, how they feel, and what their body language tells us." "That's right," her teacher said cheerily. "When we look for those four things, we have a much better sense of who a person really is."
As the calendar shifts to the eleventh month of 2011 -- a year of near-constant revolution and upheaval, from the Arab Spring to the Wisconsin statehouse to the global effort to Occupy Wall Street -- what might the rest of us learn from students like Monica? If, in short, we were as smart as a third-grader, what would we observe about the character of this year's global protests, and what might we decide to do next?
1. It is not about "democracy" -- As much as we glorify and value the principles and practices of our democratic system of government, it's not democracy per se that is at the root of this unleashed global yearning. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman pointed out, what motivated the protesters in Tahrir Square -- and what most animates those who continue to brave the wintry weather in public squares around the world -- is a deeper quest for what lies at the root of a genuinely democratic society: justice.
The people protesting around the world are not just looking to be seen; they're demanding to be heard. And what they're saying is that from Egypt to the United States, essential social contracts have been broken -- contracts that require at least a modicum of fairness and balance. If anything, therefore, these movements are about highlighting an uncomfortable truth: merely having a democracy does not guarantee a just society, and the tendencies of democracy and capitalism, left untended, tend to flow in different directions.
2. It is about unsustainable social orders -- Across the Middle East, citizens have been risking their lives for months to protest the injustice of their daily lives. And yet the absence of social justice is a cancer that has already spread well beyond the borders of the Arab world. According to a recent analysis of the 31 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), nearly 11 percent of all people in OECD countries live in poverty. Worse still, 22 percent of American children are affected by poverty, yet the United States spends only 0.33 percent of its GDP on pre-primary education.
When these data are combined with other indicators like income inequality, access to health care, and the percentage of elderly citizens living in poverty, the United States gets a social justice rating that trails all but four of the OECD's 31 countries. Add to that the now-well-known fact that the top 1 percent of Americans now control 40 percent of the total wealth, and you have an unsustainable social system, plain and simple. People are angry, and they're not going to take it anymore.
3. It does require a reboot of public education -- History has shown us that to sustain a movement for transformational social change, anger is both necessary and insufficient. To sustain our energy, we are best fueled by an empathetic regard for the needs of others, not just our own. As Gandhi put it, "I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion."
If what we seek, then, is a more sustainable and just social order, how should we recalibrate our public schools -- the institutions most responsible for equipping children with the skills and self-confidence they need to become effective and justice-oriented change agents as adults?
We might start by evaluating each other the same way Ms. Lebowitz's students evaluate new characters in a book. To fulfill the egalitarian vision of 2011, children must grow up in learning environments that are sensitive not just to what they do and say, but also to how they feel and what their body language tells us about the larger world they inhabit. This, too, is a central insight of those who study systemic change. "We need to learn to attend to both dimensions simultaneously," says M.I.T management professor Otto Scharmer. "What we say, see, and do (our visible realm), and the inner place from which we operate (the invisible realm, in which our sources of attention reside and from which they operate)."
Recent events have underscored just how essential it is to acknowledge our global interdependence; after all, it was the financial subterfuge of the few that affected the personal well-being of the many. That's why a healthy democracy is more than just policies and practices -- and a healthy school is more than just test scores and teacher policies. That's why the American activists of tomorrow need more than just the occasional lesson about Gandhi or King; they need consistent opportunities to actively apply their own developing compassion for others in the service of creating a better world. And that's why students like Monica need to grow up in a society willing to heed the rising voices of the protesters and recommit to our nation's founding promise: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice."
Follow Sam Chaltain on Twitter: www.twitter.com/samchaltain
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Terry Chadsey
An overhaul of the Head Start Program would be a great place to start. Only recently, for example, were rules adopted to require lead teachers to have at least a Bachelor's degree.
As Occupiers make their voices heard, we need to make sure the voices of our children are heard above all the rest. When we can provide for them, we can start making real social change across the board.
Gibberish, a unmeaning; unintelligible; in-coherent
Why do we want more of this in our lives much less in our public schools?
Or did you have another religion in mind?
This would cut down on the bullying and other forms of violence and give our children vital tools for use throughout their lives. It would eventually help to restore a more civil tone to our national discourse, too.
1. No tolerance for disruptive students.
2. No tolerance for parents that defend their kids' bad behavior in school.
3. Lots of creative homework (three times as much as they were getting before).
When teachers don't have to be cops in the classroom and don't have to deal with unreasonable and sometimes bullying parents, they can teach and students can learn.
Until these types of basic changes are made in public schools there will be no improvement in our public education system.
Untill Progressives are removed from power in the public school system those students who cannot attend private schools or Charter schools are just plain out of luck.
If we are to occupy any grade, it should be an occupation of the type of critical thinking that makes kids of all ages think and ask critical questions, as my second grade teacher did when we questioned the injustices of Little Rock. I believe you remember her from my story this past July.
That's what Ms. Lebowitz did for Monica.
Please join us at www.occupyedu.tumblr.com and share your visions of a transformed education system and how you are occupying education to get us there. Every voice counts and it is by using our voice and our actions that we can reclaim education for our children's present and future lives!
They are the basis for the school paradigm that kids are inferior humans lacking civil rights.
Furthermore, children are much smarter than we commonly give them credit for, a fact that is readily apparent to adults who know how to have rational conversations with them.
The child you describe sounds highly intelligent. She certainly knew exactly how to push your buttons and manipulate you. No doubt another adult could have had a conversation with her that went much different.