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In our first two meetings,
then, we have focused on how individuals are coming together
as groups to take action and have impact, to build alliances
and to commit to learning and acting for the long term.
At our first meeting on
October 26, we learned about the Badass Teachers Association
from Brianne Kramer, an instructor in education at Ohio
Northern University. The Badass Teachers Association (BATs)
is a national organization “to give voice to every teacher,”
and has a strong Ohio chapter.
BAT’s goals are to (1) “reduce
or eliminate the use of high stakes testing,” (2) “increase
teacher autonomy in the classroom and work,” and (3)
“include teacher and family voices in legislative
decision-making processes that affect students” (www.badassteacher.org).
Kramer told us about her
own journey, beginning with becoming involved in the Ohio
BAT chapter through her concern with common core curriculum
and high stakes testing, and continuing this past summer
with testifying, along with fellow teachers and her own
nine-year-old daughter, on Capitol Hill, bringing concerns
of parents and teachers to Congressional representatives.
BATs main issue is with school funding and oversight of
funding, though it also has investigated pros and cons of
the common core.
Kramer recommended the site
www.knowyourcharter.com
for those who wanted to understand school funding and
for-profit charter schools.
She suggested that
teachers and parents might check out Northwest Ohio Friends
of Public Education, which according to their website is “a
citizen-driven, non-partisan movement to inform and engage
Northwest Ohioans, at the community level, to support and
strengthen public schools” (http://nwofpe.weebly.com/).
The Ohio BATs members also
attend the Network for Public Education Conference (http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/),
which was established by noted historian and former U.S.
Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, Ph.D, to
support public education.
For our second meeting on
November 9, we joined with other grassroots community
organizing efforts around the city to discuss “The Long
Haul: Radical Organizing,” led by Chris Dixon, author of
Another Politics: Talking across Today’s Transformative
Movements (2014).
Dixon emphasized several
characteristics of community organizing that we see
reflected in Community Conversations. He noted that
successful change comes from “being responsive rather than
reactive.” That is, in order to fix a problem, “we need
sometimes to pause and talk about what we want to do
together.”
In Community
Conversations, this happens through information-gathering,
as with the session on BATs and with our upcoming session on
“What Parents Need to Know about Special Education Law.”
Dixon also noted that “how
we treat one another in movements and in activist groups
matters.” He observed that often in our larger society we
practice “contempt, rivalry, exclusion, and territorialism”
instead of listening. In doing so, we often assume we
cannot work together across boundaries. Community
Conversations is designed to bring people together who too
often do not interact: parents, teachers, administrators,
students, and community.
Dixon urged something that
we must always keep in mind: that we “need to build
movements where we can see the best selves of others and we
also can be our own best selves.” This is something we
foster in Community Conversations, with our vision that “by
tapping our own local knowledge we will develop our
community’s capacity for positive change.”
To actualize that vision,
we need to recognize the best of every person’s knowledge
and urge all to contribute the best that we have.
As we have stated before,
we whole-heartedly believe that in order for society to
thrive, individuals must to come together to freely discuss
matters of common concern. Community Conversations is
intended to create a free and democratic space—a place where
people can try out ideas and collectively select the ones
most important to act on—as well as to develop smart ways to
act.
But our understanding and
knowledge, as well as skills to act, develop over time, as a
group gets to know each other, and builds common
understanding together. Patience and persistence matter.
Dixon entitled his talk “the long haul” for a good reason.
The authors of this column are faculty at the University of
Toledo and facilitate the group “Community Conversations for
School Success.” Lynne Hamer, Ph.D, is professor of
Educational Foundations and Leadership and directs UT@TPS.
Willie McKether, Ph.D, is associate dean in the College of
Language, Literature and Social Science, and associate
professor of Sociology/Anthropology.
Everyone is welcome to join in the Community Conversations,
alternate Mondays, 6:30-8:00 pm, at the Kent Branch of the
Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, 3101 Collingwood Blvd.,
Toledo. The next conversation will take place on November
23. By popular request from the conversations group, D
Adams, Ph.D, of The University of Toledo will discuss “What
Parents Need to Know about Special Education Law.”
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