You must always be careful to judge with circumspection any testimony on the part of members of the education establishment or putative "progressive" advocates for change in education when they appear to advocate an approach to K-12 education based on "critical thinking" and "lifelong learning."
This jargon originates in the lexicon of education professors, who for at least the last 35 years have ruined generations of teachers and others taking courses in departments, schools, and colleges of education.
Education professors as a group devalue knowledge as a basis for K-12 education.
I hope that you are taken aback by that statement, which bears repeating:
Education professors as a group devalue knowledge as a basis for K-12 education.
Know first of all that education professors are devoid of any unique field to justify their own university positions: All courses taught by education professors would be better taught by those identified with solid academic disciplines: mathematics, biology, history, economics, English literature, drama, and the like; even courses in pedagogy would be better taught by professors of philosophy, psychology, and neurobiology.
So education professors have tried to maintain some position for themselves in a university setting by maintaining degree mills for K-5 teachers and certification schemes that serve as "cash cows" for colleges and universities, which are deeply culpable in churning out poorly trained teachers.
And for at least 35 years the core message of education professors is that one can always look up facts when one needs immediate information, so that the transmission of knowledge is not an important aspect of the role of teacher. Rather, teachers should turn themselves into "guides" or "facilitators" in any student search for information, and in discussions through which students learn to think critically.
This has an immediate sound-good quality that fools many people, most disastrously most of those who now teach our children. Resort to the jargon of critical thinking and lifelong learning is just an excuse for laziness on the part of teachers. This approach to education has left our children, and indeed our citizenry (most people graduate form public schools--- and even many private schools have this intellectually impoverished approach to education) knowledge-deficient and skill-deprived.
Thus high school graduates (and the existence of so many students who cannot even meet our low academic standards for graduation is a travesty) claim a piece of paper that is a diploma in name only. They often cannot figure percentages or grasp the essentials of statistical probability. They could not tell you the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'ite, or which nations in West Asia (Middle East) are dominated by one or the other of these Muslim schools of thought and practice. They cannot tell you how the Federal Reserve System works, or the philosophical differences among Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. They cannot tell you about the genesis of the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation--- and how the inherent issues affect our world today. They could not compare the drama of Arthur Miller with that of August Wilson. They could not explain what distinguishes the painting of Renaissance masters from those working in the European medieval era, nor could they tell anyone anything about the work of the Song Dynasty landscape painters, or about the influence of Nigerian Ife sculptors on Picasso.
Critical thinking is only meaningful when conducted in the context of a strong knowledge base, which makes, for example, judgments about the wisdom of American military commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria--- or about Federal Reserve bond-buying programs--- possible.
Lifelong learning is only likely to continue or to have any discernible quality when one has learned to love knowledge in the first place.
So do not be fooled by testimonies to critical thinking and lifelong learning, both of which are excuses for laziness when mouthed either by members of the education establishment who parrot education professor-speak; or by advocates for such an approach on the part of so-called "progressive educators" who want to embrace the failure of the last 35 years by trying to do more of what has failed our children and our citizens so miserably.
Any excellence in education proceeds upon the provision of distinct knowledge and skills sets in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years, imparted by teachers who are themselves knowledgeable and skilled.
Knowledge-intensive education is the foundation for critical analysis and for the love of learning one's whole life. One must start from knowledge, not from testimonies to critical thinking and to lifelong learning on the part of intellectual prevaricators who think very little and know nothing much themselves.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 16, 2015
Message to Members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education >>>>> Please Use Your Time Waiting for Resolution of the Holyoke (Massachusetts) Special Education Matter to Develop a Philosophy of Education
To members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education >>>>>
As you wait now for the investigation into treatment of special education students in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where prospective Superintendent Sergio Paez has served as superintendent and now consultant, you should use this time to develop an abiding philosophy on the basis of which all of your decisions should be grounded.
Please read this article to completion and take note of recommended readings near the end of the article.
To firm up your philosophy of education, you should read the works of commentators of differing views and decide where you stand. As you will find at article's end, these commentators include E. D. Hirsch, William Bennett, Alfie Kohn, Howard Gardner, and Diane Ravitch.
Before you consider the works of these authors, though, please remember the following >>>>>
Remember that the vision that we should be adopting for the Minneapolis Public Schools is the following >>>>>
Teachers of highest quality shall impart an excellent, knowledge-intensive education to all students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, with the purpose of sending graduates forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
Remember also that the definition of an excellent education is as follows:
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, grade-by-grade curriculum in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.
Remember, as well, that an excellent teacher is defined as follows:
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
And know that we must establish the purpose of an excellent education as follows:
The purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction
…………………………………..................
Now please read the following books in order, as given:
E. D. Hirsch, The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them (New York: Anchor/ Doubleday, 1996 &1999)
E. D. Hirsch, Cultural Literacy (New York: Anchor/ Doubleday, 1987)
William Bennett, The Educated Child (New York: Free Press/ Touchstone, 2000)
Diane Ravitch, A Century of Battles Over School Reform (New York: Simon Schuster, 2001)
Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve (New York: Mariner, 1999 & 2000)
Howard Gardiner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 1983 [first edition] & 2011 [latest edition])
Reading the books by E. D. Hirsch and William Bennett will give you an understanding of advocacy for the knowledge-intensive education that I strongly favor.
Hirsch is a political liberal who argues that failure to give children of poverty and familial dysfunction a knowledge-intensive education is socially irresponsible. Bennett uses much of Hirsch's Core Knowledge Foundation material while embracing Hirsch's argument and also advocating for a conservative position that stresses enduring knowledge over faddishness.
Reading Diane Ravitch's book will give you an understanding of education change efforts in the 20th century. Ravitch is now a sell-out on the matter of knowledge-intensive education and is currently serving the interests of the education establishment. But the given book, written when her views were more consistent with those of Hirsch and Bennett, is an excellent account of the history of 20th century education in the United States.
Alfie Kohn gives the so-called "progressive" view that has resulted in decidedly unprogressive consequences for our students, particularly those from families that are impoverished, dysfunctional, or residentially mobile.
Howard Gardner gives the view of "multiple intelligences" that has so gripped the fascination of the education establishment. Gardener identifies learning modes such as cognitive, kinesthetic, and artistic that are reasonable enough but engages in hyperbole in labeling these modes as "intelligences."
My views are known to my readers and discernible in my comments above.
But read the books and let's have the discussion.
The future of our children is at stake.
As you wait now for the investigation into treatment of special education students in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where prospective Superintendent Sergio Paez has served as superintendent and now consultant, you should use this time to develop an abiding philosophy on the basis of which all of your decisions should be grounded.
Please read this article to completion and take note of recommended readings near the end of the article.
To firm up your philosophy of education, you should read the works of commentators of differing views and decide where you stand. As you will find at article's end, these commentators include E. D. Hirsch, William Bennett, Alfie Kohn, Howard Gardner, and Diane Ravitch.
Before you consider the works of these authors, though, please remember the following >>>>>
Remember that the vision that we should be adopting for the Minneapolis Public Schools is the following >>>>>
Teachers of highest quality shall impart an excellent, knowledge-intensive education to all students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, with the purpose of sending graduates forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
Remember also that the definition of an excellent education is as follows:
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, grade-by-grade curriculum in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.
Remember, as well, that an excellent teacher is defined as follows:
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
And know that we must establish the purpose of an excellent education as follows:
The purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction
…………………………………..................
Now please read the following books in order, as given:
E. D. Hirsch, The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them (New York: Anchor/ Doubleday, 1996 &1999)
E. D. Hirsch, Cultural Literacy (New York: Anchor/ Doubleday, 1987)
William Bennett, The Educated Child (New York: Free Press/ Touchstone, 2000)
Diane Ravitch, A Century of Battles Over School Reform (New York: Simon Schuster, 2001)
Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve (New York: Mariner, 1999 & 2000)
Howard Gardiner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 1983 [first edition] & 2011 [latest edition])
Reading the books by E. D. Hirsch and William Bennett will give you an understanding of advocacy for the knowledge-intensive education that I strongly favor.
Hirsch is a political liberal who argues that failure to give children of poverty and familial dysfunction a knowledge-intensive education is socially irresponsible. Bennett uses much of Hirsch's Core Knowledge Foundation material while embracing Hirsch's argument and also advocating for a conservative position that stresses enduring knowledge over faddishness.
Reading Diane Ravitch's book will give you an understanding of education change efforts in the 20th century. Ravitch is now a sell-out on the matter of knowledge-intensive education and is currently serving the interests of the education establishment. But the given book, written when her views were more consistent with those of Hirsch and Bennett, is an excellent account of the history of 20th century education in the United States.
Alfie Kohn gives the so-called "progressive" view that has resulted in decidedly unprogressive consequences for our students, particularly those from families that are impoverished, dysfunctional, or residentially mobile.
Howard Gardner gives the view of "multiple intelligences" that has so gripped the fascination of the education establishment. Gardener identifies learning modes such as cognitive, kinesthetic, and artistic that are reasonable enough but engages in hyperbole in labeling these modes as "intelligences."
My views are known to my readers and discernible in my comments above.
But read the books and let's have the discussion.
The future of our children is at stake.
Dec 15, 2015
A One-Stop Health Class--- or a Very Concise Health Text
I am perpetually amazed that we go forward in life trying to address issues at the level of the symptom, rather than the cause. Because of this, we are forever trying to patch up what we did not get right in the first place.
As I have recorded in many articles posted on this blog, in education, we are forever trying to solve difficulties stemming from our failure to define an excellent education in terms of knowledge-rich curriculum and teachers who are themselves knowledgeable and pedagogically skilled.
Health is an ongoing concern of Americans, but the matter is really so simple. While a good health class and a useful health text might contain many valuable details as to anatomy, physiology, nutrition, and sexuality--- the fundamentals of good health are found in diet and exercise.
So consider the following a one-stop health class or a very concise health text--- the latter a response to all of the million-selling health fad books.
Fundamentals of Good Health >>>>>
Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Keep meat-eating to a minimum, emphasizing the many protein alternatives to be found in such foods as nuts, beans, soy products, cheese, and eggs (the latter if you do not regard them in essence as meat).
Consume dairy products in moderation: They are vitamin-rich and good sources of calcium.
Consume many foods replete with fiber every day for efficient functioning of the digestive system.
Remember that spinach, broccoli, and carrots are the nutritional powerhouse vegetables; and that the avocado (botanically a fruit) is so rich in nutrients and fiber that it is always essentially a meal in itself.
Get 20 minutes or so of cardiovascular exercise every day.
In addition to exercise, find ways to keep stress to a minimum, chiefly by embracing life as an educational opportunity leading to cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
.............................................................
Now just have the discipline to follow those simple precepts and consider all of those health fads and diets skeptically.
And if you want to help a good cause, by all means send me that million dollars for writing my antidote to all of those best-selling but ephemeral health books.
As I have recorded in many articles posted on this blog, in education, we are forever trying to solve difficulties stemming from our failure to define an excellent education in terms of knowledge-rich curriculum and teachers who are themselves knowledgeable and pedagogically skilled.
Health is an ongoing concern of Americans, but the matter is really so simple. While a good health class and a useful health text might contain many valuable details as to anatomy, physiology, nutrition, and sexuality--- the fundamentals of good health are found in diet and exercise.
So consider the following a one-stop health class or a very concise health text--- the latter a response to all of the million-selling health fad books.
Fundamentals of Good Health >>>>>
Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Keep meat-eating to a minimum, emphasizing the many protein alternatives to be found in such foods as nuts, beans, soy products, cheese, and eggs (the latter if you do not regard them in essence as meat).
Consume dairy products in moderation: They are vitamin-rich and good sources of calcium.
Consume many foods replete with fiber every day for efficient functioning of the digestive system.
Remember that spinach, broccoli, and carrots are the nutritional powerhouse vegetables; and that the avocado (botanically a fruit) is so rich in nutrients and fiber that it is always essentially a meal in itself.
Get 20 minutes or so of cardiovascular exercise every day.
In addition to exercise, find ways to keep stress to a minimum, chiefly by embracing life as an educational opportunity leading to cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
.............................................................
Now just have the discipline to follow those simple precepts and consider all of those health fads and diets skeptically.
And if you want to help a good cause, by all means send me that million dollars for writing my antidote to all of those best-selling but ephemeral health books.
Dec 13, 2015
A Note to Prospective Superintendent Sergio Paez and Members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education on the Matter of a Vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools
Note to prospective superintendent Sergio Paez and members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education >>>>>
A Vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools
During interviews and related meetings for selection of a new Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), the matter of a vision for MPS was broached, both in the course of the interviews and in meetings that followed upon those interviews.
In the course of the interviews, candidates Sergio Paez and Charles Foust provided a sense of what they would do to improve student achievement in mathematics and reading, but the provision of a clear statement worthy of serving as a vision for the future of the Minneapolis Public Schools was lacking.
Any vision provided by these candidates, or by Interim Superintendent Michael Goar, seemed unacceptably humble to me, as if getting underachievers and historically underserved populations of students up to grade level in math and reading might constitute a significant enough goal to serve as a vision.
This goal of addressing the needs of under-performing students is indeed the direst matter facing personnel of the Minneapolis Public Schools. But this important goal does not constitute a vision.
Only the vaguest notions of excellence in the provision of K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts were offered by the candidates, including the now prospective Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, Sergio Paez.
Please scroll down to my next article on this blog for my own clear statement of the vision that should be embraced by prospective Superintendent Paez and members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.
A Vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools
During interviews and related meetings for selection of a new Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), the matter of a vision for MPS was broached, both in the course of the interviews and in meetings that followed upon those interviews.
In the course of the interviews, candidates Sergio Paez and Charles Foust provided a sense of what they would do to improve student achievement in mathematics and reading, but the provision of a clear statement worthy of serving as a vision for the future of the Minneapolis Public Schools was lacking.
Any vision provided by these candidates, or by Interim Superintendent Michael Goar, seemed unacceptably humble to me, as if getting underachievers and historically underserved populations of students up to grade level in math and reading might constitute a significant enough goal to serve as a vision.
This goal of addressing the needs of under-performing students is indeed the direst matter facing personnel of the Minneapolis Public Schools. But this important goal does not constitute a vision.
Only the vaguest notions of excellence in the provision of K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts were offered by the candidates, including the now prospective Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, Sergio Paez.
Please scroll down to my next article on this blog for my own clear statement of the vision that should be embraced by prospective Superintendent Paez and members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.
A Clear Vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools
This is our vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools >>>>>
>>>>>
Teachers of highest quality shall impart an excellent education to all students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, with the purpose of sending graduates forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
<<<<<
……………………………………
In articulating this vision, we give the following definition of an excellent education:
>>>>>
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, grade-by-grade curriculum in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.
<<<<<
.......................................................
We give the following definition of an excellent teacher:
>>>>>
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
<<<<<<
…………………………………..
And we establish the purpose of an excellent education as follows:
>>>>>
The purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction
. …………………………………..
Following these definitions, we will do the following in matters of curriculum and teacher training:
Curriculum
>>>>>
We will define specific knowledge and skill sets that teachers will impart to students at each grade level.
At grades K-5, teachers will emphasize instruction in these key subject areas for a strong liberal arts education:
>>>>> mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (musical and visual).
At grades 6-8, teachers will instruct students according to their specialties in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts, so that students receive instruction in the following subject areas:
>>>>> mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (visual and musical); world languages; computers and technology; and industrial arts such as auto mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, construction, and electrical wiring.
At grades 9-12, teachers will instruct students according to their specialties in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts, so that students receive instruction in the following subject areas:
>>>>> mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (visual and musical); world languages; computers and technology; and industrial arts such as auto mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, construction, and electrical wiring.
Since students will have received such a knowledge-intensive education at grades K-8, students will enter high school (grades 9-12) ready to take Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses and specialized courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Much attention will be given to writing and research, with proper citations (footnotes, endnotes, or internal citations) given in all research papers.
Teacher Training
>>>>> We will at the level of the locally centralized school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools embrace the responsibility of training K-5 teachers as professionals of deep and broad knowledge in those subject areas of mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (musical and visual) for which they will be providing instruction to students.
>>>>> We will require that each teacher at grades 6-8 holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field of specialty (no degrees in departments, colleges, or schools of education will be accepted).
>>>>> We will require that each teacher at grades 9-12 holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field of specialty (no degrees in departments, colleges, or schools of education will be accepted), and we will encourage each high school teacher either to enter our classrooms or to acquire in the course of her or his career a Ph. D. in the field of specialty (no degrees in departments, colleges, or schools of education will be accepted).
Before presiding as teacher in a classroom of the Minneapolis Public Schools, each prospective teacher at grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 will serve a full academic year internship under the guidance of the best available teacher and will serve as practice teacher for at least two months during the spring season of internship.
>>>>>
Teachers of highest quality shall impart an excellent education to all students of the Minneapolis Public Schools, with the purpose of sending graduates forth to lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction.
<<<<<
……………………………………
In articulating this vision, we give the following definition of an excellent education:
>>>>>
An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting a knowledge-intensive, grade-by-grade curriculum in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts to students of all demographic descriptors throughout the K-12 years.
<<<<<
.......................................................
We give the following definition of an excellent teacher:
>>>>>
An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.
<<<<<<
…………………………………..
And we establish the purpose of an excellent education as follows:
>>>>>
The purpose of a strong K-12 education in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts is to provide maximum probability that students will graduate with the likelihood of living lives of cultural enrichment, civic participation, and professional satisfaction
. …………………………………..
Following these definitions, we will do the following in matters of curriculum and teacher training:
Curriculum
>>>>>
We will define specific knowledge and skill sets that teachers will impart to students at each grade level.
At grades K-5, teachers will emphasize instruction in these key subject areas for a strong liberal arts education:
>>>>> mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (musical and visual).
At grades 6-8, teachers will instruct students according to their specialties in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts, so that students receive instruction in the following subject areas:
>>>>> mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (visual and musical); world languages; computers and technology; and industrial arts such as auto mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, construction, and electrical wiring.
At grades 9-12, teachers will instruct students according to their specialties in the liberal, technological, and industrial arts, so that students receive instruction in the following subject areas:
>>>>> mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (visual and musical); world languages; computers and technology; and industrial arts such as auto mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, construction, and electrical wiring.
Since students will have received such a knowledge-intensive education at grades K-8, students will enter high school (grades 9-12) ready to take Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses and specialized courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Much attention will be given to writing and research, with proper citations (footnotes, endnotes, or internal citations) given in all research papers.
Teacher Training
>>>>> We will at the level of the locally centralized school district of the Minneapolis Public Schools embrace the responsibility of training K-5 teachers as professionals of deep and broad knowledge in those subject areas of mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts (musical and visual) for which they will be providing instruction to students.
>>>>> We will require that each teacher at grades 6-8 holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field of specialty (no degrees in departments, colleges, or schools of education will be accepted).
>>>>> We will require that each teacher at grades 9-12 holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field of specialty (no degrees in departments, colleges, or schools of education will be accepted), and we will encourage each high school teacher either to enter our classrooms or to acquire in the course of her or his career a Ph. D. in the field of specialty (no degrees in departments, colleges, or schools of education will be accepted).
Before presiding as teacher in a classroom of the Minneapolis Public Schools, each prospective teacher at grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 will serve a full academic year internship under the guidance of the best available teacher and will serve as practice teacher for at least two months during the spring season of internship.
Dec 11, 2015
Nativity 2015
From the Depths
of the
Great Unknown
came the
Mighty Bang,
spewing
Primordial Soup
into a
Universe
already
full of
many marvels
at the forming
of our
Globe.
Our feet touched
Sacred Ground
fourteen billion years
into the
Great Journey,
so that we roam
today
still babes of
Existence,
feigning
Understanding.
Stumble we onward,
searching for Light,
grasping for the
Great Unknown.
Our gong is ever noisy,
our cymbal always clanging,
as we fail to fathom
the
Depths of Eternity,
the
Gift of Love.
GMD
Christmas 2015
of the
Great Unknown
came the
Mighty Bang,
spewing
Primordial Soup
into a
Universe
already
full of
many marvels
at the forming
of our
Globe.
Our feet touched
Sacred Ground
fourteen billion years
into the
Great Journey,
so that we roam
today
still babes of
Existence,
feigning
Understanding.
Stumble we onward,
searching for Light,
grasping for the
Great Unknown.
Our gong is ever noisy,
our cymbal always clanging,
as we fail to fathom
the
Depths of Eternity,
the
Gift of Love.
GMD
Christmas 2015
Dec 10, 2015
Update >>>>> How the New Salem Educational Initiative Works: The History, Principles, and Day to Day Life of the Program
In the course of the last several weeks, as more and more readers have become interested in my blog, and I have become ever more active in efforts to overhaul K-12 education, more and more people have become interested in the New Salem Educational Initiative and inquired as to its origins and as to the day to day functioning of the program. This article constitutes an update of a similar article posted many months ago.
This update will give my many new readers a strong sense of my convictions and my efforts to revolutionize K-12 education. Herein lies a description of the history, principles, and day to day life of the program. And before I get to the program itself, I give a brief description of my own background and life as a teacher in K-12 education:
Personal Background, Trainiing, and Life as a Teacher
I attended Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, from the autumn of 1969 through the spring of 1973. Prior to entering SMU, I had already become intensely interested in the social revolutions (feminist, civil rights) that were taking place in the late 1960s and early 1970s; my interest quickened and my activism expanded during my years at SMU. I did not march for causes very much; although I have never shied away from confrontation, I have always wanted any confrontations that I initiate to have a very specific impact, and my ongoing commitment has been and continues to be to practical action meant to advance the common good.
By the spring (1971) of my sophomore year, I had decided to be a teacher. I became active in SMU Volunteer Services and soon took on the position of coordinator for services rendered at institutions for the mentally challenged and in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). I majored in political science and had near-majors in history and psychology. I took math through calculus and pursued a broad and deep liberal arts education. I also endured the excruciatingly terrible education courses to gain certification in the teaching fields of government and history; in time, in Minnesota, that certification would come to include all of those subjects considered part of social studies.
During my junior year, I served a semester internship at L. G. Pinkston High School in West Dallas, a heavily African American ghetto. This experience solidified my dedication to the education of urban youth. I did my student teaching at another inner city school but returned to Pinkston for my first two academic years (1973-1974 and 1974-1975) as a regular classroom teacher.
During the years from 1976 through 2003, I traveled throughout the United States and most of East, Southeast, and East Asia; got an M. A. (University of Iowa, 1979) and Ph. D. (University of Minnesota, 1993) in Chinese and Taiwanese history; lived in Taiwan for a total of three and a half years, becoming fluent in Mandarin Chinese and acquiring some Taiwanese (the Minnan dialect similar to that of Fujian Province on the Chinese mainland); and teaching in almost every type of situation: English as a Second Language (Taiwan); prison (Missouri Eastern Correctional Center); instructor at the University of Minnesota (two years teaching courses in East Asian history in the late 1980s as I pursued my doctorate); a semester teaching modern Japanese history at St. Olaf College; a rural high school, a suburban alternative high school, and two different alternative high schools in Minneapolis.
This is to say, too, that my wife, Barbara Reed, and I moved to Minnesota in the late summer of 1982 as she took a position at St. Olaf College in Northfield, where she still is a professor of Asian religions with dual appointments in the Department of Religion and the Department of Asian Studies.
I have been active in K-12 education in North Minneapolis since 1991, became a member of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in 1993, and for 20 years have coordinated and taught in the New Salem Tuesday Night Tutoring Program, which currently includes five tutors in addition to myself.
Over the years from 1988 forward, I have written eight books, including a co-written book with Barbara. I researched and wrote two books for the Minneapolis Urban League (The State of African Americans in Minnesota, 2004 and 2008 editions).
From the very beginning of my academic career, I have always wanted to be a K-12 teacher who trained like a university scholar.
In addition to continuing to run the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program, for the last ten years I have coordinated the New Salem Educational Initiative, which incorporates the Tuesday night program but also includes a seven-day-a-week small-group program, my written output of articles on K-12 education, and activist efforts to overhaul K-12 education.
The Day to Day Functioning of the New Salem Educational Initiative
Through the Tuesday night program, the small-group program, individual studies, and continued mentorship once students start matriculating at colleges and universities, I now have 125 students in my New Salem Educational Initiative network. My most time-consuming efforts go to serving the 45 students in the seven-day-a-week small-group academic sessions.
Students now typically enter the small-group program of the New Salem Educational in Grade K (kindergarten), following older family members who have been in the program. I perform all functions in the service of these students. I generate the curriculum and compile the materials for study, do the initial enrollment, attend to all office details, write grants and raise funds. Most importantly, I talk with and counsel family members of students, transport students to and from each academic session, and teach each two-hour session personally.
The relationships that I form with students are permanent. Once students are enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative, they remain under my academic instruction and personal mentorship forever. Students who enter after a few years in school typically are functioning below grade level in math and reading when they enroll in the New Salem Educational Initiative. My first effort, then, goes toward bringing a student up to grade level in these two key skill areas. This generally happens within an academic year or two.
Once a student attains grade level competency in math and reading, she or he moves on to a college track course of study, reading and hearing about subjects across the liberal arts curriculum. Reading at that point becomes not so much a skill as a portal for advanced learning. Students in the New Salem Educational Initiative acquire full grasp of mathematics skills pertinent to the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), fractions, decimals, percentages, graphs, tables, proportions, and ratios; and they learn all skills necessary for algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus.
Students also acquire strong verbal skills, learning how to write cogent essays and to read complex material with acquisition of advanced vocabulary and ever ascending levels of college preparatory reading comprehension. They read a generous number of selections from the Core Knowledge books edited by E. D. Hirsch, and they move in logical sequence through additional material chosen to impart strong knowledge sets across the liberal arts (math, natural science, history, economics, psychology, fiction and poetry, and the fine arts). Students use this strong liberal arts background in reading material from newspapers and journals, in both hard copy and online.
Middle school and high school students read Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. Students enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative all come from low-income families with multiple challenges. Currently, all of my students are African American and Hispanic. In the early years, students tended to enroll after having spent a number of years at the Grade K-5, Grade 6-8, and even the Grade 9-12 level in the Minneapolis Public Schools--- and had to make up significant and often severe academic deficits. Now, with so many younger students following older family members into the program, they tend to enroll at the Grade K (kindergarten level), and thus are always advanced for their grade levels.
Either way, the economically challenged students of the New Salem Educational initiative end up on a college track course of study far more typical for students at the middle and upper economic levels.
Principles Undergirding the New Salem Educatinal Initiative
Implicit in the above and more explicitly stated here, the principles undergirding the New Salem Educational Initiative, in accord with my views on K-12 education, are as follows:
For the United States to claim full democracy, all students should receive high quality education across the core subjects of the liberal arts curriculum. This is the same kind of education envisioned for good citizenship and high quality life by Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann, who wrote of “common schools” for all.
The abiding assumption in the New Salem Educational Initiative is that the logical acquisition of strong skill and knowledge sets promotes rich intellectual and cultural life, creates good citizens, and prepares the way for high professional and life satisfaction. Students in the New Salem Educational Initiative come alive in the world of knowledge. They don’t think twice about whether they can achieve at a high level. They can tell that I have full confidence in their academic abilities. They move through challenging material in logical sequence. They work on a task until mastery is achieved, and then they move on to the next, higher skill. They witness their own success, and they want more of the same. Just a few days into their participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, students see themselves as successful learners, and they take off toward ascending heights of skill and knowledge.
Whatever challenges of material poverty they bring into the program, students gain a wealth of knowledge and they do not see poverty of any sort in their futures. Students know that I will never go away. They see me week after week. They feel my love. Their families feel my love. I feel the love of these wonderful people in return. We all understand that we have entered into relationships that are permanent, that endure beyond the K-12 stage, that continue through attendance at excellent colleges and universities, that will endure into the stage of adulthood.
Students in the New Salem Educational Initiative succeed, because they have all of the ability to do so, and because I will have it no other way:
I care about my students as if they were my own, and in the manner of excellent parents and teachers, I do anything necessary to assure that my students, my children, are successful. Mainly, I teach up a storm. I exert heavy-duty effort, in the application of what my West Texas pappy called “elbow grease.”
The parents of students in the New Salem Educational Initiative care deeply, as all parents do, either in manifest expression or latent potential. I guide them either productively to apply the former or to tap and activate the latter.
The overhaul of K-12 education constitutes the next stage of the Civil Rights Movement. High quality K-12 public education will end cycles of poverty and turn societal liabilities into economic and cultural assets. Through my conducting of 17 two-hour academic sessions for groups of three to five students each, I ensure that my students will become productive and happy citizens.
Through my writing, speaking, and activism, I am fully dedicated to inducing the Minneapolis Public Schools to become a model for how centralized systems can do the same.
My Current Efforts in the Overhaul of K-12 Education--- and My Vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools as a Model for Locally Centralized Schools Districts
Imagine the Minneapolis Public Schools improving so thoroughly as to become a model urban central school district that similar organizations in other cities can utilize as reference for their own overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the central school district.
In my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) focused on the subject areas of economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics; I am providing the knowledge and skill set that would provide the essence of the curriculum productive of well-educated graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). Based on such a solid base of academic information and skills, graduates of MPS would possess knowledge that even our present version of university graduates in the United States would be happy to remember from courses in the given subject areas.
What I am doing in all aspects of the New Salem Educational Initiative--- including writing Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education; monthly production of the academic Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota; hosting of the television show The K-12 Revolution (every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on Channel 17, Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN]); personally conducting 17 small-group college preparatory academic sessions per week in a network that includes 125 students and their family members; superintending the Tuesday Tutoring program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church; speaking at numerous public venues (including monthly appearances during Public Comment time at the convening of the MPS Board of Education); and the posting of well over 200 articles on this blog--- is providing a vision for K-12 education and the future of North Minneapolis that encompasses what I am hoping to leave to the world when my own days on earth are numbered.
Imagine MPS extrapolating the principles of the New Salem Educational Initiative so as to design a locally centralized school system so worthy as to offer a model for the excellent liberal arts education that I am always advancing and that I am now detailing in the nearly completed book (I have finished ten out of the projected fourteen chapters). Imagine school classrooms from the K-5 level forward that are replete with academic resources of both the venerable print and the contemporary technological sort.
Hold in your consciousness an image of classroom walls and hallways filled with maps of continents, nations, and ecosystems from throughout the world; and with prints of great works of art and visual representations (paintings, photographs, and sculpture) of historical personages of great thought and accomplishment. Consider the transformative lifetime impact on young people who fully function at grade level in mathematics and reading and then follow academically committed teachers on a journey through the exciting world of knowledge.
Think about the effects on the lives of our precious young people, alive in the world of knowledge and excited by the banter of teachers who truly love them and effortlessly blend academic, comedic, and culturally attuned comments into their verbal expressions, their communications, their teaching.
Imagine schools as genuine places of knowledge acquisition that welcome students, their families, and community members to the sites and into the hallways of learning and ethics. Into these hallways would come experts from the realms of academia, business, government, social service, and theology to talk to MPS students and their families in a setting alive with the love of knowledge and ethical action--- and to engage in lively intellectual encounters with teachers capable of exchanging informed views with people of enormous information bases and great expertise.
Ethics would be an important topic for discussion in the schools of the future for MPS, with powerful conversations flowing in consideration of ethical precepts from the world's great religious traditions, applied in the context of an extensive knowledge base acquired both through dedicated academic study and active engagement with the workaday world: Young people and their families would be invited to participate in discussions focused on the nature of the good, the beautiful, and the empathic--- for the express purpose of advancing human understanding and promoting peaceful, productive relationships among people.
Imagine beckoning rooms in our schools from the K-5 level forward that are packed with great classic and contemporary works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; performance stages; technological resource area; media center; kitchen for student use; along with conventional classrooms used for traditional purposes and as centers for discussion, lectures, and speeches. Imagine schools from the K-5 level forward that include spaces for instruction in the vocational and technical arts, arranged for particular students upon expressed interest, so that the transmission of liberal arts knowledge would flourish alongside instruction that could include auto repair, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, and various other vocational arts.
Minneapolis in general and North Minneapolis specifically would become much better places for our young people and their families to dwell--- very much including those who are my personal passion: those who have been mired in cyclical familial poverty for generations. Schools would become tangible expressions of the joy of knowing and understanding the great world and universe, centers of information and wisdom in the midst of a community that radiates love of knowledge, ethical conduct, human beings.
I am developing the New Salem Educational Initiative as a vanguard community, formed by the 125 students and family members in my network, with the view of educating hordes of others interested in increasing their knowledge in all manner of subjects and coming to a place where ethics and moral conduct are treated as cherished guides to human action and interaction.
A very definite component of my vision is the transformation of the image of the North Minneapolis community that I love, from the perception of a place of destitution and violence to the recognized center of advanced academic knowledge and elevated ethical conduct.
This can and must happen in the future overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the locally centralized school district, with the Minneapolis Public Schools serving as model to a world that must thrive on the basis of knowledge and ethics, rather than perishing for a lack thereof.
This update will give my many new readers a strong sense of my convictions and my efforts to revolutionize K-12 education. Herein lies a description of the history, principles, and day to day life of the program. And before I get to the program itself, I give a brief description of my own background and life as a teacher in K-12 education:
Personal Background, Trainiing, and Life as a Teacher
I attended Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, from the autumn of 1969 through the spring of 1973. Prior to entering SMU, I had already become intensely interested in the social revolutions (feminist, civil rights) that were taking place in the late 1960s and early 1970s; my interest quickened and my activism expanded during my years at SMU. I did not march for causes very much; although I have never shied away from confrontation, I have always wanted any confrontations that I initiate to have a very specific impact, and my ongoing commitment has been and continues to be to practical action meant to advance the common good.
By the spring (1971) of my sophomore year, I had decided to be a teacher. I became active in SMU Volunteer Services and soon took on the position of coordinator for services rendered at institutions for the mentally challenged and in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). I majored in political science and had near-majors in history and psychology. I took math through calculus and pursued a broad and deep liberal arts education. I also endured the excruciatingly terrible education courses to gain certification in the teaching fields of government and history; in time, in Minnesota, that certification would come to include all of those subjects considered part of social studies.
During my junior year, I served a semester internship at L. G. Pinkston High School in West Dallas, a heavily African American ghetto. This experience solidified my dedication to the education of urban youth. I did my student teaching at another inner city school but returned to Pinkston for my first two academic years (1973-1974 and 1974-1975) as a regular classroom teacher.
During the years from 1976 through 2003, I traveled throughout the United States and most of East, Southeast, and East Asia; got an M. A. (University of Iowa, 1979) and Ph. D. (University of Minnesota, 1993) in Chinese and Taiwanese history; lived in Taiwan for a total of three and a half years, becoming fluent in Mandarin Chinese and acquiring some Taiwanese (the Minnan dialect similar to that of Fujian Province on the Chinese mainland); and teaching in almost every type of situation: English as a Second Language (Taiwan); prison (Missouri Eastern Correctional Center); instructor at the University of Minnesota (two years teaching courses in East Asian history in the late 1980s as I pursued my doctorate); a semester teaching modern Japanese history at St. Olaf College; a rural high school, a suburban alternative high school, and two different alternative high schools in Minneapolis.
This is to say, too, that my wife, Barbara Reed, and I moved to Minnesota in the late summer of 1982 as she took a position at St. Olaf College in Northfield, where she still is a professor of Asian religions with dual appointments in the Department of Religion and the Department of Asian Studies.
I have been active in K-12 education in North Minneapolis since 1991, became a member of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in 1993, and for 20 years have coordinated and taught in the New Salem Tuesday Night Tutoring Program, which currently includes five tutors in addition to myself.
Over the years from 1988 forward, I have written eight books, including a co-written book with Barbara. I researched and wrote two books for the Minneapolis Urban League (The State of African Americans in Minnesota, 2004 and 2008 editions).
From the very beginning of my academic career, I have always wanted to be a K-12 teacher who trained like a university scholar.
In addition to continuing to run the New Salem Tuesday Tutoring Program, for the last ten years I have coordinated the New Salem Educational Initiative, which incorporates the Tuesday night program but also includes a seven-day-a-week small-group program, my written output of articles on K-12 education, and activist efforts to overhaul K-12 education.
The Day to Day Functioning of the New Salem Educational Initiative
Through the Tuesday night program, the small-group program, individual studies, and continued mentorship once students start matriculating at colleges and universities, I now have 125 students in my New Salem Educational Initiative network. My most time-consuming efforts go to serving the 45 students in the seven-day-a-week small-group academic sessions.
Students now typically enter the small-group program of the New Salem Educational in Grade K (kindergarten), following older family members who have been in the program. I perform all functions in the service of these students. I generate the curriculum and compile the materials for study, do the initial enrollment, attend to all office details, write grants and raise funds. Most importantly, I talk with and counsel family members of students, transport students to and from each academic session, and teach each two-hour session personally.
The relationships that I form with students are permanent. Once students are enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative, they remain under my academic instruction and personal mentorship forever. Students who enter after a few years in school typically are functioning below grade level in math and reading when they enroll in the New Salem Educational Initiative. My first effort, then, goes toward bringing a student up to grade level in these two key skill areas. This generally happens within an academic year or two.
Once a student attains grade level competency in math and reading, she or he moves on to a college track course of study, reading and hearing about subjects across the liberal arts curriculum. Reading at that point becomes not so much a skill as a portal for advanced learning. Students in the New Salem Educational Initiative acquire full grasp of mathematics skills pertinent to the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), fractions, decimals, percentages, graphs, tables, proportions, and ratios; and they learn all skills necessary for algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus.
Students also acquire strong verbal skills, learning how to write cogent essays and to read complex material with acquisition of advanced vocabulary and ever ascending levels of college preparatory reading comprehension. They read a generous number of selections from the Core Knowledge books edited by E. D. Hirsch, and they move in logical sequence through additional material chosen to impart strong knowledge sets across the liberal arts (math, natural science, history, economics, psychology, fiction and poetry, and the fine arts). Students use this strong liberal arts background in reading material from newspapers and journals, in both hard copy and online.
Middle school and high school students read Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. Students enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative all come from low-income families with multiple challenges. Currently, all of my students are African American and Hispanic. In the early years, students tended to enroll after having spent a number of years at the Grade K-5, Grade 6-8, and even the Grade 9-12 level in the Minneapolis Public Schools--- and had to make up significant and often severe academic deficits. Now, with so many younger students following older family members into the program, they tend to enroll at the Grade K (kindergarten level), and thus are always advanced for their grade levels.
Either way, the economically challenged students of the New Salem Educational initiative end up on a college track course of study far more typical for students at the middle and upper economic levels.
Principles Undergirding the New Salem Educatinal Initiative
Implicit in the above and more explicitly stated here, the principles undergirding the New Salem Educational Initiative, in accord with my views on K-12 education, are as follows:
For the United States to claim full democracy, all students should receive high quality education across the core subjects of the liberal arts curriculum. This is the same kind of education envisioned for good citizenship and high quality life by Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann, who wrote of “common schools” for all.
The abiding assumption in the New Salem Educational Initiative is that the logical acquisition of strong skill and knowledge sets promotes rich intellectual and cultural life, creates good citizens, and prepares the way for high professional and life satisfaction. Students in the New Salem Educational Initiative come alive in the world of knowledge. They don’t think twice about whether they can achieve at a high level. They can tell that I have full confidence in their academic abilities. They move through challenging material in logical sequence. They work on a task until mastery is achieved, and then they move on to the next, higher skill. They witness their own success, and they want more of the same. Just a few days into their participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, students see themselves as successful learners, and they take off toward ascending heights of skill and knowledge.
Whatever challenges of material poverty they bring into the program, students gain a wealth of knowledge and they do not see poverty of any sort in their futures. Students know that I will never go away. They see me week after week. They feel my love. Their families feel my love. I feel the love of these wonderful people in return. We all understand that we have entered into relationships that are permanent, that endure beyond the K-12 stage, that continue through attendance at excellent colleges and universities, that will endure into the stage of adulthood.
Students in the New Salem Educational Initiative succeed, because they have all of the ability to do so, and because I will have it no other way:
I care about my students as if they were my own, and in the manner of excellent parents and teachers, I do anything necessary to assure that my students, my children, are successful. Mainly, I teach up a storm. I exert heavy-duty effort, in the application of what my West Texas pappy called “elbow grease.”
The parents of students in the New Salem Educational Initiative care deeply, as all parents do, either in manifest expression or latent potential. I guide them either productively to apply the former or to tap and activate the latter.
The overhaul of K-12 education constitutes the next stage of the Civil Rights Movement. High quality K-12 public education will end cycles of poverty and turn societal liabilities into economic and cultural assets. Through my conducting of 17 two-hour academic sessions for groups of three to five students each, I ensure that my students will become productive and happy citizens.
Through my writing, speaking, and activism, I am fully dedicated to inducing the Minneapolis Public Schools to become a model for how centralized systems can do the same.
My Current Efforts in the Overhaul of K-12 Education--- and My Vision for the Minneapolis Public Schools as a Model for Locally Centralized Schools Districts
Imagine the Minneapolis Public Schools improving so thoroughly as to become a model urban central school district that similar organizations in other cities can utilize as reference for their own overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the central school district.
In my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) focused on the subject areas of economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, African American history, literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics; I am providing the knowledge and skill set that would provide the essence of the curriculum productive of well-educated graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). Based on such a solid base of academic information and skills, graduates of MPS would possess knowledge that even our present version of university graduates in the United States would be happy to remember from courses in the given subject areas.
What I am doing in all aspects of the New Salem Educational Initiative--- including writing Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education; monthly production of the academic Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota; hosting of the television show The K-12 Revolution (every Wednesday at 6:00 PM on Channel 17, Minneapolis Telecommunications Network [MTN]); personally conducting 17 small-group college preparatory academic sessions per week in a network that includes 125 students and their family members; superintending the Tuesday Tutoring program at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church; speaking at numerous public venues (including monthly appearances during Public Comment time at the convening of the MPS Board of Education); and the posting of well over 200 articles on this blog--- is providing a vision for K-12 education and the future of North Minneapolis that encompasses what I am hoping to leave to the world when my own days on earth are numbered.
Imagine MPS extrapolating the principles of the New Salem Educational Initiative so as to design a locally centralized school system so worthy as to offer a model for the excellent liberal arts education that I am always advancing and that I am now detailing in the nearly completed book (I have finished ten out of the projected fourteen chapters). Imagine school classrooms from the K-5 level forward that are replete with academic resources of both the venerable print and the contemporary technological sort.
Hold in your consciousness an image of classroom walls and hallways filled with maps of continents, nations, and ecosystems from throughout the world; and with prints of great works of art and visual representations (paintings, photographs, and sculpture) of historical personages of great thought and accomplishment. Consider the transformative lifetime impact on young people who fully function at grade level in mathematics and reading and then follow academically committed teachers on a journey through the exciting world of knowledge.
Think about the effects on the lives of our precious young people, alive in the world of knowledge and excited by the banter of teachers who truly love them and effortlessly blend academic, comedic, and culturally attuned comments into their verbal expressions, their communications, their teaching.
Imagine schools as genuine places of knowledge acquisition that welcome students, their families, and community members to the sites and into the hallways of learning and ethics. Into these hallways would come experts from the realms of academia, business, government, social service, and theology to talk to MPS students and their families in a setting alive with the love of knowledge and ethical action--- and to engage in lively intellectual encounters with teachers capable of exchanging informed views with people of enormous information bases and great expertise.
Ethics would be an important topic for discussion in the schools of the future for MPS, with powerful conversations flowing in consideration of ethical precepts from the world's great religious traditions, applied in the context of an extensive knowledge base acquired both through dedicated academic study and active engagement with the workaday world: Young people and their families would be invited to participate in discussions focused on the nature of the good, the beautiful, and the empathic--- for the express purpose of advancing human understanding and promoting peaceful, productive relationships among people.
Imagine beckoning rooms in our schools from the K-5 level forward that are packed with great classic and contemporary works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; performance stages; technological resource area; media center; kitchen for student use; along with conventional classrooms used for traditional purposes and as centers for discussion, lectures, and speeches. Imagine schools from the K-5 level forward that include spaces for instruction in the vocational and technical arts, arranged for particular students upon expressed interest, so that the transmission of liberal arts knowledge would flourish alongside instruction that could include auto repair, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, and various other vocational arts.
Minneapolis in general and North Minneapolis specifically would become much better places for our young people and their families to dwell--- very much including those who are my personal passion: those who have been mired in cyclical familial poverty for generations. Schools would become tangible expressions of the joy of knowing and understanding the great world and universe, centers of information and wisdom in the midst of a community that radiates love of knowledge, ethical conduct, human beings.
I am developing the New Salem Educational Initiative as a vanguard community, formed by the 125 students and family members in my network, with the view of educating hordes of others interested in increasing their knowledge in all manner of subjects and coming to a place where ethics and moral conduct are treated as cherished guides to human action and interaction.
A very definite component of my vision is the transformation of the image of the North Minneapolis community that I love, from the perception of a place of destitution and violence to the recognized center of advanced academic knowledge and elevated ethical conduct.
This can and must happen in the future overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the locally centralized school district, with the Minneapolis Public Schools serving as model to a world that must thrive on the basis of knowledge and ethics, rather than perishing for a lack thereof.
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