An Introduction to--- or Reminder of--- My Personal Background and Activities in the New Salem Educational Initiative

I just wrote the following account of my personal background and activities in the New Salem Educational Initiative in reply to a person in the public media seeking such a profile.  These comments should be helpful as a review for followers of my blog, and as an introduction to those less familiar with my teaching, writing, and public advocacy.


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With regard to your kind comments about my teaching and my advocacy on matters pertinent to K-12 education, and desire to know more about my background and activities, I offer the following summary:


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I hold a Ph. D. in Chinese history from the University of Minnesota, with an original academic specialization in Taiwan.


I vowed from the outset of my years devoted to education to train like a university scholar but remain dedicated primarily to K-12 settings.  Over the course of forty-five (45) years, I have taught in a multiplicity of situations:  fifteen years in K-12 classrooms;  four and a half years, non-sequential, at the university;  three years teaching English as a Second Language in Taiwan;  a year of lecturing in Mandarin Chinese for the Fulbright Foundation in Taiwan;  and a year teaching a GED curriculum in a prison (Missouri Eastern Correctional Center). 


I have taught in many settings, with continual prime emphasis on working with the economically poorest of the urban poor, since I first taught near the public housing projects in West Dallas;  and for the last twenty-five (25) years in North Minneapolis.


A metaphor for my career as a scholar-teacher is the phase during which I presented my dissertation, Agricultural Development and the Fate of Farmers in Taiwan, 1945-1990, to the professors on my committee at the University of Minnesota;  while I was a teacher at the old City, Inc., North Side;  the latter served students, many of them gang members, from troubled familial circumstances.


I am an author of numerous works:


I have written numerous opinion pieces for the Star Tribune and have posted 262 articles on my blog at http://www.newsalemeducation.blogspot.com.


I have written eight books, most of them listed on Amazon; and including two--- The State of African Americans in Minnesota, 2004 and 2008 editions, for the Minneapolis Urban league, during the tenure of my friend Clarence Hightower as President and Chief Executive Officer. For a year and a half now I have published an academic periodical, The K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, available to a growing number of individual and group subscribers. I also host a television show, The K-12 Revolution with Dr. Gary Marvin Davison, on which I conduct interviews (most recently with Minneapolis Public Schools Director of Black Male Achievement, Michael Walker); make extended commentary; and conduct academic sessions of up to two hours (covering two complete shows) with my students.


I have completed ten of fourteen chapters for a new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, which offers a complete education in economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, the fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics--- so comprehensive that many a university graduate wishes that she or he had either previously received, or remembered, the included information.


With regard to my students, know that these other quite time-consuming activities are in addition to my most important and temporally extensive activity of all--- the conducting of 17 small-group academic sessions over the course of seven days a week; and the administration of the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, at which Jerry McAfee is pastor.


In these academic sessions I move my students, all of whom are either African American or Hispanic and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, to grade level in mathematics and reading, then put them on a college preparatory course of study. I train them to take the ACT and cover with them the information from my chapters in Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.


I was on one of the committees that wrote the academic standards for the State of Minnesota Department of Education.


I am at work 19 hours most days and at least 15 hours every day, modeling and advocating for the excellent education for which our young people have been long waiting.


I am determined to revolutionize K-12 education for the delivery of knowledge-intensive curriculum by knowledgeable teachers who possess the pedagogical gifts for imparting their knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors.