« Labor: Motion on Professional Standards for Instruction | Main | Down and Out in Jesusland »
November 4, 2004
For Progressive Teachers, Now What?
The Progressive Caucus started this blog to provide a forum to discuss the work progressive teachers should undertake both within their classrooms and within the larger culture. Tuesday's results give an unfortunate immediacy to such discussions. As I talked to friends and colleagues across the country yesterday, everyone was in a state of "shock and awe" as the conservative right had effectively been given control of the presidency, house, senate, and judiciary. Folks spoke of feeling like foreigners in their own country -- feeling damaged by overwhelming support of harsh anti-gay and anti-immigrant propositions and offended by the fundamental conservative Christianity which has so effectively taken control our our democracy.
It is hard to know what to do in response. Clearly, as teachers, we imagine our classrooms as a site of both education and activism. At this moment, it is perhaps time to shift our primary professional identity away from a particular disciplinary interest. Perhaps it is time to use our classrooms to model both democratic action and critique the distortions and harsh social policies being propogated by the conservative right. Yet, clearly more is also required. Perhaps it is also time to re-align our relationships with professional academic organizations or even to begin new ones.
It is hard to capture the anger and sadness which this moment marks for many of us committed to a progressive education and a tolerant country. For those of us who have tried to link their professional lives to progressive politics, the question really becomes, "What now?"
Posted by sparks at November 4, 2004 9:10 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.progressiveteachers.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8