Wildcat Strike

West Virginia teachers are on a strike involving over 20,000 teachers and 13,000 school staff. It is the eighth day and I am inspired by the activism following the Parkland massacre. West Virginia teachers are not only exhibiting courage and willingness to stand up for the justice and dignity of the teaching profession, but they […]

The Weight or Weightlessness of Courageous Conversations

The heaviness of a small segment of dark brown bodies at the end of a long color line that curves around the room going from dark skin to medium to light. Two outliers insert themselves and evocatively defy the trend. They are motivated by something else; the unexpected psyche of an individual who defies the […]

In the End the True Nature of Teaching Will Prevail

Teaching and learning is art. The role of the artist is to reveal the essence of reality so that we are moved into compassion for ourselves and the world. So we can respond with kindness and humanity, to grow and flourish, to love each other and experience the effortlessness of unbound beauty, the type of […]

Entitlement: Knowing Your Place

In The Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol wrote about the apartheid conditions of America’s public schools and begged educators and policy makers to do something about it. That was in 2006 and not much has changed. Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared education ‘the civil rights issue of our generation’ […]

Renaissance of Courage: On Public School Responsibility

          Who is Dr. Cornel West referring to when he says, “We need a renaissance of courage and a willingness to sacrifice?” This is what he told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! during a discussion on his new book Black Prophetic Fire about the legacy of leading African American voices including […]

The New Proletariat

What can the new proletariat offer the world?       This question has been on my mind for a long time, the role of the proletariat in society, this modern day matrix in which we find ourselves today.  As I sit back and observe my life reflected in world events, localized and marginalized as a […]