Denny Taylor is author of the influential books Family Literacy and Learning Denied, two books that had a huge influence on my thinking about literacy instruction. When she speaks, we all should listen. After years away from publishing, but not from researching, Denny is back with a vengeance. She deserves our support. Please read her letter below.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am writing to urgently request your help. If you find the
political circumstance and the research base for the four propositions that I
have outlined in this letter are compelling, and you support the course of
action suggested here please send this letter to friends and colleagues. Use
your websites, Facebook, and any other means to get the message out. Given that
I rarely enter the public sphere my friends will know that the situation of
which I write is pressing. Time is of the essence, I fear.
Some of you will have read books I have written based on
forty years of longitudinal research in family, community, and schools settings
with children, families, and teachers who live and work in challenging social
and physical environments. Except for my doctoral dissertation, all my research
has taken place in sites of urban and rural poverty.
About fifteen years ago I became more focused on
catastrophic events, including extreme weather events, industrial disasters,
war and armed conflict, and acts of mass violence that occur with little
warning and in a matter of a few seconds change the lives of children,
teachers, and their families forever.
I haven’t published during this fifteen year time period,
but I have been working as a researcher and writing on a daily basis. Much of
the time I have spent studying the research on trauma and mass trauma with a
mentor in the field. Still more time has been spent studying Earth system
science, and eventually writing qualitative research papers that were peer
reviewed by researchers in the physical sciences. Based on the reviews, I have
participated in research conferences and meetings with Earth system scientists
whose research focuses on quantitative studies on the anthropogenic changes
that are taking place to the planet.
My own research has evolved, and I have found my place
between scientists, policy makers, and the public. The mix of social and
physical sciences is making it possible for me to share the findings of these
fifteen years of daily study, which are firmly grounded in scientific evidence,
and in the lived knowledge that has come from living and working in places
where catastrophic events have taken place.
There are eight book length manuscripts on my bookshelf and
the first three books based on them are being published this summer. These
books are very different from each other, but they all focus on the
interconnections between two of the greatest threats to our children’s future:
- The
dismantling of the US public education system; and
- The
acceleration of anthropogenic change to the planet.
The Earth system scientists from the global scientific
community who participated in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report
categorized climate change as “unequivocal”, and 195 countries signed documents
in agreement with these scientists. In addition, the US Government
Accountability Office (GAO) has produced 40 reports, the first in 2005, raising
concerns about climate change and in the 2014 report the GAO has elevated the
impacts of climate change to “high risk” status. The Department of Defense
(DOD) has issued similar reports and warnings and is preparing for catastrophic
events that might occur because of climate change.
But the US Congress still refuses to act. Many members of
Congress are still denying that climate change is unequivocal, and they refuse
to acknowledge that both the people of the United States and the entire global
community are at “high risk”.
Even more inexplicable is the fact that there is now one
political party in the US Congress that is not only denying climate change, but
has powerful members on Congressional sub-committees convened to focus on
climate change who are also outspoken in denying basic science.
The three books connect the dots between the dismantling of
the US public education system and the denial of climate change, and they
present four propositions:
First Proposition: By defunding public education the federal
government is selling the future of children in the US to private corporations,
creating huge revenues for companies and a bonanza for shareholders, while at
the same time undermining and destabilizing the neighborhoods and communities
in which schools are privatized.
Second Proposition: By profligating denial of climate
change, defunding and limiting expenditures on mitigating climate and
environmental problems, the US Congress is actively engaged in protecting the
corporate interests that have supported their political campaigns, while
willfully ignoring the very real and very grave threat that exists to the
American people, especially children, and to all human life on the planet.
Third proposition: By defunding public education and selling
the children in the US to private corporations that are in large part
responsible for climate change and the destruction of the environment, the federal
government is ensuring the indoctrination of America’s children into the
State-Corporate Complex that is threatening their future, while at the same
time actively interfering with their capacity to develop the problem-solving
capabilities they will need to tackle the potentially life-threatening
anthropogenic changes to the planet that they will experience in their
lifetime.
Fourth proposition:If we are serious about preparing our
children for an uncertain future, in which they will be confronted by many
perils, then we must stop the corporate education revolution immediately and
recreate the public school system based on democratic principles, ensuring
equality and opportunity for all children to participate in projects and
activities that will ensure their active engagement in re-visioning and
re-imagining human life on Earth.
For our children and the planet, the third and fourth
propositions are far reaching in their implications. The three books unpackage
the political propaganda, and focus on the scientific research that is being
obfuscated for political power, and corporate revenues and profits. Each book
explores the relationships that exist between what Noam Chomsky calls “the
State-Corporate Complex” and the acceleration of climate change, and the
defunding andcorporatization of public education. Together they
provide compelling evidence why the Common Core should be abandoned and
Pearson’s “global education revolution” immediately ended.
Here are the titles of the three books:
Nineteen Clues: Great Transformation Can Be Achieved
Through Collective (just published in paper and also available in
electronic formats for Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and iBooks).
Save Our Children, Save Our School, Pearson Broke the
Golden Rule (proof copies of this political satire have arrived and
the actual book should be available in two weeks with eBooks to follow).
Keys to the Future: A Parent-Teacher Guide to Saving the
Planet (is in the final edit stage and will be available in paper by
September, again with eBooks to follow).
Together, based on the evidence, these books make the case
that there are three things we know for sure:
- What
happens to the future lives of our children and grandchildren depends on
us;
- We
should not expect the powerbrokers of the State-Corporate Complex to come
to our aid or rescue our children;
- Extreme
inequality is not only bad for people it is bad for the planet – the poor
are at greater peril than the rich.
Many teachers and parents are already leading the way in the
struggle for equality and more humane learning environments for children. Their
courageous activism is the struggle not only for the re-establishment of the publiceducation
system, but also for the future of humanity.
The dangers to our children are real, and at Garn we
volunteering our time to work for the Press, because we regard ourselves as
first responders in an emergency situation. Our mission is to publish books
with actionable knowledge that can be of use to educators and the public. We
are hopeful for the future and we put our trust in the people, especially
parents and teachers, who are working to make the planet a child safe zone.
Please consider supporting Garn Press by sharing this letter
with everyone in your social networks and encouraging your friends and
colleagues to read the books. Reviews are welcome!
Our hope at Garn is that when our children and grandchildren
ask us what we did to respond to climate change we will be able to tell them
that:
- We
saved their schools and made them sites of equity and justice;
- We
made their schools places where every child developed the capacity to be
resourceful and resilient;
- We
insisted that they had the opportunity to participate in great projects
about the Earth and about the Universe;
- We
made sure their education included both the scientific and the literary so
they could see the deep connections between these ways of thinking and
ways of being;
- We
were adamant that they learned together in classrooms that valued the ways
in which they could support one another;
- We
insisted that their classes included the arts, dance, music, drama,
painting and drawing in seamless lessons that encouraged joyfulness and a
sense of belonging to a community.
We will be able to tell them that because of the ways in
which we insisted they were educated the ethos of the nation changed. Because
of their children the public began to regard the Earth differently. People
began to reassess what was important to them. They acted on what they already knew,
that liberty cannot exist without justice, and that the price of great wealth
for a few was too high for the public to pay and would no longer be tolerated.
We will tell them we stood strong, and we used these
newfound beliefs in our re-Imagining of the ways we live on the planet. We will
tell them because we love our children so much the world changed.
We must do whatever we can to make this happen, so we can
tell our children, “We worked together and we made the Earth a child-safe
zone.”
Denny Taylor
New York
July 15, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment