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Friday, October 21, 2016

Wake up, Policy Makers, Legislators and Ed Reformers you have failed


Tonight at our TEDxCCSU all women Happening "Who Speaks for us" event. Six incredible women take the stage at CCSU. Women whose work deeply reflects an advocacy of caring for others.
My heroes have always been women. TEDxCCSU talkers are not compensated, they are not even given a penny towards their travel, they take great risks to spread good ideas. They stand alone on the stage knowing that they have 15 minutes to give it their best shot. They do this, because they care about the world, about you, and about us. They are the best of the best.

I am so proud our TEDxCCSU team gave me the go ahead to recruit an all women cast this year. In two weeks time I'll post the links to their talks. Get ready, we are shaking the tree...it's woman's day.
Nell Noddings is a larger than life author and Feminist Educator. She said: "We will not find the solution to problems of violence, alienation, ignorance, and unhappiness in increasing our security, imposing more tests, punishing schools for their failure to produce 100 percent proficiency, or demanding that teachers be knowledgeable in the subjects they teach. Instead, we must allow teachers and students to interact as whole persons, and we must develop policies that treat the school as a whole community." 

 

In selecting our TEDx talkers this year I reread and reflected on the writings of Nell Noddings often. I reached out to Women whose work speaks for itself much like Noddings work speaks to me.
Dr. Denny Taylor introduced Nell to me some 22 years ago. She was a visiting scholar, and I was a doctoral student at the University of Arizona.  She was simply amazing. One of those teachers who inspires and moves her students to risk stepping outside their comfort zones. I am blessed by her lessons. Denny is speaking tonight, and like Nell Noddings her work is profoundly rooted in caring for children, parents, public schools, and our planet. I want Denny to know I still read Nell Noddings, and my teaching is inspired by caring for everyone who walks through this world. You don't need to be my student for me to care for you. I am my brothers and sisters keeper, and they are my keepers.


You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know our current legislators, policy makers, and education reformers are male driven reforms. NCLB, RTTT, and ESSA have already failed our children, their parents and teachers, and our public schools. The data of the past 14 years clearly points to their male driven models of rigor, tough love, and choice without equity as the biggest education reform failures in the history of public education. They have done great harm to a whole generation, and now with ESSA they are harming another. We can stand by and watch, or we can meet the challenge to care enough to enter the arena of change like tonight's TEDxCCSU talkers.

SO WAKE UP legislators, policy makers, and so called education reformers, you have already failed us. Choice without equity, rigor without out compassion, and the inhumanity of Test And Punish polices have always failed children. Nell Noddings, pointed out that our greatest challenge in public education is not tougher standards and more rigorous tests. The biggest challenge in our public schools is create a public school system that is deeply rooted in caring for those we teach, their teachers, each other, and our world. Children deserve education reforms rooted in caring.
Shaking the tree, it's women's day at TEDxCSSU,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner


If you want to listen to what this walking man listened to on his walk over the mountain this morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Q79lls1f0 



1 comment:

  1. THANK YOU for this input. I am reminded of Russell Means (Native American speaker) who has a wonderful "11th Hour" speech about the absolute dangers of patriarchy.

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