Another Learning is Possible

Bill AYERS

ANOTHER LEARNING IS POSSIBLE

University of Winchester, June 6th, 2015

Internationally renowned educational thinkers discuss how we might redirect our educational priorities towards learners who are creative, integrated, thoughtful and engaged.

Forced learning is destructive. It is destructive for our children, our society, our planet. An insistent government and teacher-lead diet of tracts and facts is sapping the creativity and motivation from learners. This major conference seeks to discuss and promulgate alternatives to the pedagogy peddled by all the major parties in the UK, and by successive governments in their Sisyphean search for international pre-eminence in spurious league tables. Some of the world’s foremost educational critics will open the discussion on how we might together redirect our educational priorities towards learners who are creative, integrated, thoughtful and motivated.

Day One features a series of keynotes from the indomitable US educational critic, Bill Ayers, along with a presentation from the great Harvard educator Eleanor Duckworth, and activist, academic and child advocate Bernadine Dohrn.

Those staying for Day Two will continue the discussion and take part in participant-centred workshops designed to deepen understanding of alternative pedagogies. Whatever the challenges we face, this conference proclaims, another learning is possible.

For more details see:

http://store.winchester.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=10&catid=9&prodid=242

Bill Ayers, legendary and controversial Marxist, social justice campaigner and educational critic.

Eleanor Duckworth, the great Harvard educator and one-time colleague of Jean Piaget

Bernadine Dohrn, activist, academic and child advocate: http://www.aivit.org/bernardine-dohrn/

Bernadine Dohrn

 

More speakers to be announced.

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Critical Pedagogy & Education Activism

Critical Pedagogy

CRITICAL PEDAGOGY & EDUCATION ACTIVISM

Blended: In‐Person & Online | Vancouver

Begins July 2015 | http://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/CPEA

The University of British Columbia

Faculty of Education

MEd in Curriculum Studies

This program emphasizes engaged and sustained intellectual education activism, informed by critical pedagogy along with research, teaching, and evaluation methods that transform schools into ‘laboratories of democracy’ for the 21^st century.

The CPEA cohort will support the creative combination of scholarship and activism within education, encouraging critical reflection on both the conceptual and practical potential and limitations of that tradition.

Core Themes: solidarity, engagement, and critical analysis & research

• Solidarity—reflects a core value of mutual support and reciprocity within and across various educational stakeholder groups that share common interests
• Engagement—reflects the idea that research is situational and kept dynamic when created and tested with groups actively working toward positive change
• Critical analysis and research—reflect the expectation that critical pedagogy and education activism are richly informed by conceptual depth, empirical evidence and ethical know‐how

Program Delivery

The cohort will include face-to-face instruction in courses taught in a centrally-located Vancouver site and flexible, blended formats that mix on-site and online learning.

In addition, there are two key intensive experiences: a Summer Institute and a Summer Symposium.

The culminating MEd Graduating Project will be facilitated through a series of meetings over the span of the program, and through individual or small group advising with the cohort supervisory team.

Information Session Meet program advisors and learn more about applying to become a UBC graduate student.

Wednesday, December 3 | Vancouver

BC Teachers’ Federation

4:00‐5:30 p.m.

100 ‐ 550 West 6th Avenue| Map

Application Deadline

January 23

http://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/CPEA

Please visit the program website for more information, or contact Linda (linda.haftner@ubc.ca).

 

Website: http://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/CPEA/

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Stand Up for Education Manifesto

Education Crisis

STAND UP FOR EDUCATION MANIFESTO

You may well be aware the NUT has recently launched its ‘Stand Up For Education’ manifesto, designed to help shape the political debate about state education in the run up to the general election and beyond.

You can find a copy here – https://www.teachers.org.uk/files/manifesto-16pp-a5–9623-_0.pdf

The document is intended to outline some key principles and fundamental concerns, relating to:

• Curriculum, pedagogy and assessment: ‘A wider vision of learning and achievement’ (p.4)
• Evaluation, accountability and improvement: ‘More time for teaching, not more tests’ (p.5)
• The teaching profession including teacher education (p.6 and 14)
• Social justice: end child poverty (p.7)
• Providing school places, finance, the education system and democratic governance (pp.10-13)

The campaign has emerged from the NUT’s member mobilisation, over a sustained period of time, in which concerns about pay, pensions and workload connect to a wider set of concerns about the nature and future of state education. The strategy and tactics of this campaign were recently outlined by its Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney, and NEC member Gawain Little, in a recent article in Forum for promoting 3-19 comprehensive education (Vol.56 No.2, 2014).

The campaign represents a concerted effort to mobilise professional and public opinion around an agenda that fundamentally challenges the trajectory of current policy, and has the potential to form an on-going campaign to shape policy beyond the election. It is clear that whatever the outcome in May 2015, the campaign for a well-funded, democratic school system based on sound pedagogical principles, not market values, will need to continue. The strategy recognises the need to win the battle of ideas, which will require an alliance of all those concerned for education.

We see this campaign as the best opportunity in a long time to mobilise on a significant scale around an alternative and much more hopeful vision of education.  That is why we believe it is important that progressive intellectual forces, within and beyond the higher education community, need to organise around the broad agenda presented in the ‘Stand Up For Education’ manifesto.

For this reason, we recently met informally with Kevin Courtney and Ian Murch (NUT Treasurer) to discuss how the academic community might best support this initiative. This was followed by a planning meeting in London involving some of the early signatories.

Our intention is not to identify a ‘one size fits all’ approach to involvement, but to develop several different forms of activity that can better fit with people’s circumstances. This could involve, for example:

• developing a database of ‘research contacts’ for the media etc.
• identifying relevant research
• the use of social media
• the development of regional and local events.

Involvement is not about having to sign up to every dot and comma of the ‘SUFE’ manifesto, and it does not have to be about formally or exclusively identifying with the NUT.  It is about recognising that we need to win the battle of ideas and that this represents one of the best initiatives in a long time for building a movement that connects ideas and activism.  Academics, researchers, teacher educators and wider public intellectuals surely have a key role to play in developing this movement. However, to make a difference, it is important that we organise.

Our aim is to explore how we might best do this.  We very much hope you will join with us. Some well-known individuals have already publicly declared support, including Robin Alexander and Tim Brighouse, and some well-known children’s authors. We have drafted a short statement at the end of this letter, which you may wish to support or alternatively write your own.

Stand Up for Education Manifesto: http://www.teachers.org.uk/files/manifesto-16pp-a5–9623-_0.pdf

How you can get involved:

Please let us know if you would like to add your name to this statement of support (please reply to terrywrigleyl@gmail.com or Howard.Stevenson@nottingham.ac.uk):

As lecturers and professors of Education, we wish to express our support for Stand up for education: a manifesto for our children’s education. We urge policy makers to recognise the need for a wider vision of learning and education, which is no longer distorted and undermined by bureaucratic systems of surveillance and artificial target-setting. We call for immediate steps to end the blight of child poverty along with funding for high quality early years education and the restoration of financial support for post-16 students to stay in education.  We agree that the future development of high quality comprehensive education for all depends on a well qualified teaching profession and the principle of local democratic governance.

We will then bring you up to date on current activities, including our new blog and an invitation to prepare a short article or briefing note backing up specific recommendations in the Stand Up For Education document.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email. Please feel free to forward it to other colleagues who you think might be interested in being involved.

Howard Stevenson  

Terry Wrigley 

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Another University is Possible

Education Crisis

ANOTHER UNIVERSITY IS POSSIBLE

Annual Conference

Call for Papers: 2015 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Conference Call for Proposals

Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Cultural Studies Association (US)

 

Another University Is Possible: Praxis, Activism, and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy

Riverside Convention Center, Riverside, Greater Los Angeles Area, California

21-24 May, 2015

See: http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/conference

SUBMIT A PROPOSAL TODAY!

Important Dates:

*       September 15, 2014: Submission System Opens  NOW OPEN
*       December 15, 2014: Submissions Due
*       February 15, 2015: Notifications Sent Out
*       February 15, 2015: Early Registration Opens
*       April 15, 2015: Early Registration Ends and Late Registration Begins

The Cultural Studies Association (CSA) invites proposals from its current and future members for participation in its thirteenth annual meeting in the Riverside Convention Center, Riverside, Greater Los Angeles Area, California.

Proposals from all areas and on all topics of relevance to cultural studies are welcome, and are not limited to proposals that critically and creatively engage this year’s highlighted problematic.

This year’s theme, “Another University is Possible: Praxis, Activism, and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy,” plays on the World Social Forum’s motto, “Another World is Possible.” It expresses a commitment to the intellectual and political project of a radically different university. Moving beyond policy and pundit-driven discussions of the state and the future of higher education, we seek proposals that highlight socially-engaged scholarship and activism, and projects that explore the transformative possibilities embedded in the present. What forms and formations of research, pedagogy, praxis, and activism have emerged from the struggles being waged in, around, through, and in spite of institutions of higher education? What roles can culture, theory, imagination, and technology play in these struggles? Taking up cultural studies’ historical commitment to the interrogation of the relations among knowledge, power, and social transformation, the 2015 Cultural Studies Association conference seeks to provide an insurgent intellectual space for imagining, enacting, and mapping new forms of knowledge production and scholarly communication and community.

We are particularly interested in work that links the global neo-liberal conjuncture of higher education to local acts of collective resistance and action, and back again. We want to know more about how students, staff, faculty, administrators, and community partners are responding to the current social, legal, economic, financial, political, cultural, institutional, and intellectual challenges and possibilities: student debt as a means of financing higher education institutions; court cases that attack the history and practice of affirmative action; the rise in union activity on campuses; the re-entrenchment of the “humanities” as a division under “crisis”; the emergent emphasis on MOOCs and other online forms of education that extend the already dominant casualization of academic labor; the emergence of public and digital pedagogy and scholarship; the ambivalent politics of academic freedom; the reduction of education to vocational training and degrees to commodified credentials; the role of universities in reproducing or amplifying (rather than reducing) the social inequalities of contemporary capitalism; and the university as a site of capital accumulation and dispossession, among many other trends and tendencies.

As at previous CSA conferences, this year’s conference aims to provide multiple spaces for the cross-pollination of art, activism, pedagogy, design, and research by bringing together participants from a variety of positions inside and outside the university. While we welcome traditional academic papers and panels, we strongly encourage contributions that experiment with alternative formats and challenge the traditional disciplinary formations and exclusionary conceptions and practices of the academic.  We are particularly interested in proposals for sessions designed to document and advance existing forms of collective action or catalyze new collaborations.  We also encourage submissions from individuals working beyond the boundaries of the university: artists, activists, independent scholars, professionals, community organizers, and community college educators.

Proposals from all areas and on all topics of relevance to cultural studies are welcome, and are not limited to proposals that critically and creatively engage this year’s highlighted problematic. We welcome proposals from a range of disciplinary and topical positions, including literature, history, sociology, geography, politics, anthropology, communication(s), popular culture, cultural theory, queer studies, critical race studies, feminist studies, post-colonial studies, legal studies, science studies, media and film studies, material cultural studies, platform studies, visual art and performance studies.

About the Riverside Convention Center, Greater Los Angeles Area, California

The 2015 conference will be held at the beautiful, brand-new Riverside Convention Center, in downtown Riverside, Greater Los Angeles Area, California. The closest airport to Riverside, California, for those of you flying in, is the Ontario, CA International Airport (ONT–sometimes referred to as the LA/Ontario International Airport).  More information about the venue, the city of Riverside, and the greater Los Angeles Area is available here:

http://www.riversidecvb.com/riverside-convention-center

Riverside is a hidden gem of Southern California, less than a half hour drive from the Ontario, CA International Airport, less than an hour’s drive from LA and about 90 minutes from San Diego. With its progressive landmarks, lively downtown, many fine restaurants, galleries and museums, and its proximity to so much of Southern California’s beautiful natural scenery and cultural sites, Riverside is a truly inviting and wonderful site for our conference.

Riverside is also home to several institutions of higher learning, with nearly fifty thousand college students populating the city, Riverside breeds an overall vibe of ambitious, critical energy. Riverside’s colleges and universities include: University of California, Riverside – One of the fastest growing colleges in the nation, UC Riverside is a national leader in cutting-edge research, community collaboration, and student diversity, La Sierra University, named “the most diverse university in the western U.S.” for the past four years by U.S. News & World Report, California Baptist University, and Riverside City College.

Submission Process and Timeline

All proposals should be submitted through the CSA online system, available at www.culturalstudiesassociation.org. Submission of proposals is limited to current CSA members. See the benefits of membership and become a member at www.culturalstudiesassociation.org.

The submission system will be open by September 15, 2014. Please prepare all the materials required to propose your session according to the given directions before you begin electronic submission. Notifications of acceptance/rejection will be sent no later than February 15, 2015.

In order to be listed in the program, conference registration must be completed online before May 1, 2015. All program information – names, presentation titles, and institutional affiliations – will be based on initial conference submissions.  Please avoid lengthy presentation and session titles, use normal capitalization, and include your name and affiliations as you would like them to appear on the conference program schedule.

Important Note about Technology Requests

All sessions run for 90 minutes and will have access to basic internet connection.  However, please note that unlike previous years, only about 50% of the rooms will have access to audiovisual equipment (projector, screen, speakers, etc.). Sessions that require audio-visual space or technical equipment must request these at the time of submission.  The Program Committee will do its best to provide reasonable accommodations, but accommodations are contingent upon the availability of resources and equipment. Any technology requests should be included as a note in the body of the initial submission, with a follow up email to Michelle Fehsenfeld at contact@csalateral.org.   Please only request projectors, screens, and speakers only if you plan to use them.  The CSA will be charged for every piece of equipment we rent/request.  A limited number of laptop computers will be available upon request but participants are expected to bring their own computers.

Please note that all session organizers/submitters must be CSA members for the 2015 calendar year at the time of submission

Conference Formats

Note: While we accept individual paper proposals, we especially encourage submissions of pre-constituted sessions. We also invite proposals that engage with this conference location and its many resources.
All conference formats – papers, panels, roundtables, workshops, and seminars – are intended to encourage the presentation and discussion of projects at different stages of development and to foster intellectual exchange and collaboration. Please feel free to adapt the suggested formats or propose others in order to suit your session’s goals. If you have any questions, please address them to Michelle Fehsenfeld at: contact@csalateral.org.

PRE-CONSTITUTED PANELS: Pre-constituted panels allow a team of 3-4 individuals to present their research, work, and/or experiences, leaving 30-45 minutes of the session for questions and discussion. Panels should include 3-4 participants. Proposals for pre-constituted panels should include: the title of the panel; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the panel organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of all panelists, and a chair and/or discussant; a description of the panel’s topic (<500 words); and abstracts for each presentation (<150 words). Pre-constituted panels are preferred to individual paper submissions.

INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Successful papers will reach several constituencies of the organization and will connect analysis to social, political, economic, or ethical questions. Proposals for papers should include: the title of the paper; the name, title, affiliation, and email address of the author; and an abstract of the 20 minute paper (<500 words). Pre-constituted panels are recommended over individual paper submissions, though we welcome both.

ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. In contrast to panels, roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in advance by the organizer. The majority of roundtable sessions should be devoted to discussion. Roundtables are limited to no more than five participants, including the organizer. We encourage roundtables involving participants from different institutions, centers, and organizations. Proposals for roundtables should include: the title of the roundtable; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the roundtable organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of the proposed roundtable participants; and a description of the position statements, questions, or debates that will be under discussion (<500 words).

PRAXIS SESSIONS: Praxis sessions allow a facilitator or facilitating team to set an agenda, pose opening questions, and/or organize hands-on participant activities, collaborations, or skill-shares. Successful praxis sessions will be organized around a specific objective, productively engage a cultural studies audience, and orient itself towards participants with minimal knowledge of the subject matter. Sessions organized around the development of ongoing creative, artistic, and activist projects are highly encouraged. The facilitator or team is responsible for framing the session, gathering responses and results from participants, helping everyone digest them, and (where applicable) suggesting possible fora for extending the discussion. Proposals for praxis sessions should include: the title of the session; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the (lead) facilitator and of any co-facilitators; a brief statement explaining the session’s connection to the conference theme and describing the activities to be undertaken (<500 words). Please direct any questions about praxis sessions to Michelle Fehsenfeld atcontact@csalteral.org.

SEMINARS: Seminars are small-group (maximum 15 individuals) discussion sessions for which participants prepare in advance of the conference. In previous years, preparation has involved shared readings, pre-circulated ”position papers” by seminar leaders and/or participants, and other forms of pre-conference collaboration. We particularly invite proposals for seminars designed to advance emerging lines of inquiry and research/teaching initiatives within cultural studies broadly construed. We also invite seminars designed to generate future collaborations among conference attendees, particularly through the formation of working groups. Once a limited number of seminar topics and leaders are chosen, the seminars will be announced through the CSA’s various public email lists. Participants will contact the seminar leader(s) directly who will then inform the Program Committee who will participate in the seminar. Seminars will be marked in the conference programs as either closed to non-participants or open to all conference attendees. A limited number of seminars will be selected by the program committee, with a call for participants in the chosen seminars announced on the CSA webpage and listserv no later than 15 February 2015. Interested parties will apply directly to the seminar leader(s) for admission to the session by1 April 2015. Seminar leader(s) will be responsible for providing the program committee with a confirmed list of participants (names, affiliations, and email addresses required) for inclusion in the conference program no later than15 April 2015. Proposals for seminars should include: the title of the seminar; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the seminar leader(s); and a description of the issues and questions that will be raised in discussion and an overview of the work to be completed by participants in advance of the seminar (<500 words). Individuals interested in participating in (rather than leading) a seminar should consult the list of seminars and the instructions for signing up for them, to be available at the conference website by 15 February 2015. Please direct questions about seminars to seminars@csalateral.org. Please note that for them to run at the conference, seminars accepted for inclusion by the program committee must garner a minimum of 8 participants, including the seminar leader(s).

WORKING GROUP SESSIONS: All working groups have two sessions at their command. Working groups may elect to post calls on the CSA site for papers and internal submission procedures or handle the creation of their two working group sessions by other means. Working groups will facilitate the creation of two sessions drawing from, but not limited to, working group members. Working groups should create their proposals according to the specifications listed under their session format. When submitting to the conference website, working groups should select “Working Group” as their session format and include a note in the body of their submission designating the session as an official submission of the working group. Only Working Group organizers should submit Working Group session proposals through the conference submission system.  A listing of all CSA Working Groups is available here: http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/workinggroups

PANEL CHAIRS: We are always in need of people to serve as panel chairs. To volunteer to do so please submit your name, title, affiliation, and email address, as well as a brief list of your research interests through the conference website.

 

Registration Fees

Like our membership fees, the registration fees will be on a sliding scale: for more on this see:  http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/conference

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Free Minds, Free People

Childhood

FREE MINDS, FREE PEOPLE

National Conference

Oakland, CA, USA

July 9 – 12, 2015

Free Minds, Free People is a national conference convened by the Education for Liberation Network that brings together teachers, high school and college students, researchers, parents and community-based activists/educators from across the country to build a movement to develop and promote education as a tool for liberation.

Read more about our mission and goals.

We are extremely excited to announce that the next Free Minds, Free People will take place in Oakland, CA, July 9 – 12, 2015!

Our last conference in Chicago was a huge success! About 1,000 people from across the country came together and enjoyed nearly 100 workshops, panels and assemblies.  For those who were at the Chicago conference last year, you may remember the awesome turnout of folks from California and the Bay Area who presented and participated in that conference. They are taking that energy and commitment to FMFP and putting it on full blast to host our next conference.

We’ll plan to see you July 9 – 12, 2015 in Oakland, CA – mark your calendar, start organizing to participate, and spread the word!

FMFP: http://www.fmfp.org/

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

 

State of Education – What Next?

Critical Education / Education is Critical

STATE OF EDUCATION – WHAT NEXT?

September 14 @ 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Following on from our conference in March we are continuing the threads and planning next steps…

http://stateofeducation2014.wordpress.com/

Details:

Date: September 14, 2014

Time: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Event Category: organising meeting

Organizer: Radical Education Forum

Website: http://radicaleducationforum.tumblr.com/

Venue: Common House, Unit E, 5 Pundersons Gardens, Bethnal Green, London, E29QG United Kingdom

+ Google Map

Website: http://www.commonhouse.org.uk

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Education for Action

Education Crisis

EDUCATION FOR ACTION

Inspired by the debates in the ‘uncut’ and ‘occupy’ movements around the globe, a group of us have been meeting in Leeds to talk about what’s been happening to adult and workers’ education. We’d like to ask you to join in our discussions so we can generate ideas and action that work in communities and trade unions and inspire new ideas about the content and delivery of an education that we own ourselves.

This group has started to evolve. We are a loose collective that is committed to empowerment through education for a social purpose. Education is being turned into an economic commodity and is being slowly privatised in the interests of the rich and powerful. We want to join forces with others who oppose those that want to reduce the experience of living (for the 99%) to providing consumer demand for stuff!

See: http://education4action.wordpress.com/

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

School of Success

Education Not For Sale

SCHOOL OF SUCCESS

Platform for Education Struggle

This is the provisional website of the School of Success. An ongoing, yet started, research project by graphic designer David Ortiz.

The platform is still in its first phase, presenting the problem of cutbacks in higher education — mainly from the situation in the Netherlands. The second phase will expanded to other countries while driving to deeper research on the consequences, alternative methodologies and future scenarios.

Meanwhile — and until the platform fully operates — the first pamphlets of the School of Success can be downloaded in PDF format or purchased the full set of pamphlets (nicely printed with a risograph) through email request.

More material coming soon.

For further information contact: info@schoolofsuccess.net or jump here.

School of Success: http://schoolofsuccess.net/

**END**

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Power and Education: Volume 5 Number 2 (2013)

Education Crisis

POWER AND EDUCATION: VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2 (2013)

Just published at: www.wwwords.co.uk/power/content/pdfs/5/issue5_2.asp

POWER AND EDUCATION
Volume 5 Number 2 2013       ISSN 1757-7438

CONTENTS:

Esther Priyadharshini. Reimagining Knowledge Terrains: the Economic and Social Research Council, governmentalism and the social science landscape

Anna Kirova & Kelly Hennig. Culturally Responsive Assessment Practices: examples from an intercultural multilingual early learning program for newcomer children

Małgorzata Zielińska. Migration and Adult Education: time, place and power – Polish migrants in Reykjavik, Iceland

Alison Healicon. ‘My Dress Is Not a Yes’: subversion and the SlutWalk message

David Rufo. bUzZ: a guide to authentic and joyful creative learning

Jennifer Martin & Tony Lawson. Whose Empowerment? The Dynamics of Power and Choice in Managing Student Access to Personalised Key Stage 4 Options

Rachael Gabriel & Jessica Nina Lester. Community Performances and Performative Texts as Tools for Critical Exploration: the practice of being labeled disabled

Richard Hall. Academic Activism in the Face of Enclosure in the Digital University

 

BOOK REVIEWS
Becoming a Model Minority: schooling experiences of ethnic Koreans in China (Fang Gao), reviewed by Satoshi Sanada
Decolonizing Philosophies of Education (Ali A. Abdi, Ed.), reviewed by Sylvia Rose-Ann Walker
From the Dress-Up Corner to the Senior Prom: navigating gender and sexuality diversity in pre-K12 schools (Jennifer Bryan), reviewed by Gerald Walton

Access to the full texts of current articles is restricted to those who have a Personal subscription, or those whose institution has a Library subscription.

PERSONAL SUBSCRIPTION (single-user access) Subscription to the 2013 volume (including full access to ALL back numbers) is available to individuals at a cost of US$50.00. If you wish to subscribe you may do so immediately at www.wwwords.co.uk/subscribePOWER.asp

LIBRARY SUBSCRIPTION (institution-wide access) If you are working within an institution that maintains a Library, please urge them to take out a subscription so that we can provide access throughout your institution; details of subscription rates and access control arrangements for libraries can be found at www.symposium-journals.co.uk/prices.html

For all editorial matters, including articles offered for publication, please contact p&ejournal@mmu.ac.uk

In the event of problems concerning a subscription, or difficulty in gaining access to the journal articles on the website, please email the publishers at support@symposium-journals.co.uk

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Centre for the Study of Education and Work: Update 5th January 2013

Educating from Marx

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK – UPDATE 5th JANUARY 2013

EVENTS

SPEED DATING FOR WORKERS’ RIGHTS

Monday, January 7, 2013
7:15pm – 10:00pm
417 Restaurant and Lounge
417 Danforth Ave., Toronto, ON

Fundraiser for the Workers’ Action Centre.

Speed dating, men & women, ages 30 – 40. Meet 12 – 14 singles in one evening while raising money for a worthy cause

Cost: $25 – Please bring cheques made out to the Workers’ Action Centre.

To sign up:  Send an email to justidateevents@gmail.com to reserve your spot.

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ONTARIO 2013: TOWARD A POST-AUSTERITY VISION

Wednesday, January 9, 2013
10:00am – 4:00pm (lunch included)
Thomas Lounge, Oakham House
Ryerson University Toronto, ON

Please join the CCPA [Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives] – Ontario for an update on the province’s economy and a strategy session focusing on how to move toward a post-austerity vision.

We’ll feature:
* Hugh Mackenzie, CCPA- Countering deficit hysteria: Ontario budget numbers post-Drummond
* Jim Stanford, CAW- Economic and jobs update
* Trish Hennessy, CCPA- Toward a post-austerity narrative
* Sectoral updates … and more!

Questions? Please contact Trish Hennessy: ccpaon@policyalternatives.ca
Register at http://ccpa-ontarioeconomicupdate-eac2.eventbrite.com

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ANTI-CAPITALISM AND FEMINISM

Saturday, January 12, 2013
7:00pm
Beit Zatoun
612 Markham Street
Toronto, ON

Join the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly for a ‘coffee house’ discussion on Anti-capitalism and Feminism

– Socialist Feminism in Canada: A Brief History — Meg Luxton
– Marxist Feminism: Keywords and Key Concepts — Shahrzad Mojab

Followed by Q and A and informal discussion.

This is the first of a three-part monthly series on anti-capitalism and feminism. Watch for future listings.

More about the speakers:
Meg Luxton: Professor and Director of the Graduate Program of Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University. Meg has been active in the women’s liberation movement, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and a range of campus and community groups. As a socialist feminist scholar she writes on feminist politics, women’s work (paid and unpaid), international effort to include women’s unpaid work in the UN and the history of the Canadian women’s movement, especially it’s left-wing currents.
Shahrzad Mojab: Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education and Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto. Scholar, teacher, and activist, Shahrzad is internationally known for her work on the impact of war, displacement and violence on women’s learning and education. Her recent co-edited book, Educating from Marx: Race, Gender and Learning (2011, with Sara Carpenter, Palgrave McMillan ‘Marxism and Education’ Series) is an anti-racist feminist analysis of Marxism for a revolutionary feminist praxis. For more on this book see: https://rikowski.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/educating-from-marx-race-gender-and-learning-by-sara-carpenter-and-shahrzad-mojab/

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WORKERS RISING FROM WALMART TO MARIKANA PUBLIC

Tuesday, January 15, 2013
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, room 8220
252 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON

Speakers:
– Elizabeth Clinton, OUR Walmart campaigner from Texas
– Ritch Whyman, International Socialists

While governments around the world try and push austerity and force the working class to pay for the economic crisis, workers continue to resist.

Showing that workers in some of the lowest paid service-sector jobs can organize and fight back, workers from Walmart and McDonald’s have held protests, wildcat strikes and campaigned for better wages. In South Africa, miners have bravely faced down police bullets in their struggle against their employers and government. Workers across Ontario are preparing to protest a Liberal government that is trying to impose wage freezes and cut their benefits.

Join a discussion on working class resistance, where we have been and where we are going.

Organized by the U of T International Socialists
Info: reports@socialist.ca

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COMMUNITY HEALTH FORUM: NEWCOMERS TO CANADA: MIGRATION, IMMIGRATION CHALLENGES AND SUCCESSES

Wednesday, January 9, 2013
7 to 9 p.m.
Ramada Plaza Hotel
300 Jarvis Street, Toronto and online

Topics to be discussed:
-Ethnoracial diversity
-Getting to healthcare
-Navigating the system

More information: http://www.actoronto.org/home.nsf/pages/act.docs.2302

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FORCED MARRIAGE PROJECT – WORKSHOPS

The Forced Marriage Project (FMP) invites you to participate in a four part series of FREE training workshops for service providers, youth-focused agencies/groups, community-based organizations/groups, and volunteers.

The Forced Marriage Project (FMP) is a project of Agincourt Community Services Association, funded by Status Women Canada. We raise awareness about forced marriage in Canada through our website, newsletter, youth engagement initiatives, and training service providers and community members
in understanding and responding to cases of forced marriage.

#1: An Introduction to Forced Marriage
#2: Working with Parents
#3: Engaging Youth
#4: Intervention in Cases of Forced Marriage

For more info and to register: http://fmp-acsa.eventbrite.ca/

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT COURSE AT RYERSON

The first course was taught by Winnie Ng and Deena Ladd over six full time days in the spring, 2012. There were 18 participants — the majority were front-line community workers in a variety of settings. The majority were sponsored by their employers to attend which made it possible for them to take the course. We had a great class that supported each other in their learning and the evaluations were very positive!

We are hoping people who are working in community agencies, unions, immigrant settlement agencies and neighbourhood centres, health centres, etc will be supported by their organizations to attend this course. The course will be examining models of community engagement, strategies of best practices, working from an anti-oppression practice, strengthening leadership skills, developing critical analysis and reflection on our own practice and understanding how to do this work in the context of inequalities and unequal power dynamics.

Please consider the following:
* If you are an executive director or manager – would you financially support one of your staff to attend this course?
* if you are in a leadership position, could you consider arranging a scholarship donation from your organization and sponsor a community leader to attend?
* If you are a front-line worker – do you want the space to learn, share strategies and strengthen the work you do with the communities you work with?
* If you work in a trade union – do you want to learn, share strategies and understand how to build connections with communities and the work you are doing?
* If you are a community activist – do you want the space to share strategies, learn about best practices and get support for the work you are doing?

Course CSWP 936 – Logistics: the course is $524 and will be 39 hours of instruction and fully credited by Ryerson University. The course is part of a new certificate in Community Engagement, Leadership and Development.

The class is 6-9pm and runs from Monday January 14 until Monday April 15.
There is no class on Monday February 18, Family Day.

For more information about The Chang School, or to register for the Certificate in Community Engagement, Leadership and Development, visit http://www.ryerson.ca/ce/community or contact directly. Phone: 416.979.5035, Email: ce@ryerson.ca

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THE “C-WORD”, A PUBLIC CONVERSATION ABOUT CAPITALISM

By Building Common Ground – Guelph

Sunday, January 27, 2013
1:00pm until 3:00pm
Bookshelf Cinema
41 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON

Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, co-authors of a new new book entitled “The Making of Global Capitalism”, will initiate the next BCG public conversation on the relationship between capitalism, our economic and environmental crises and the implications for all those interested in building a better world.

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NEWS & VIEWS

ROBIN HOOD TAX WINS

Euro Parliament okays 11 nations’ plans to tax financial transactions.

Brussels (13 Dec. 2012) – The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT and commonly referred to as a Robin Hood Tax).

Read more: http://sgnews.ca/blog/2012/12/11/robin-hood-tax-wins/

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THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF HUGO CHÁVEZ

One of the main factors for the popularity of the Chávez Government and its landslide victory in this re-election results of October 2012, is the reduction of poverty, made possible because the government took back control of the national petroleum company PDVSA, and has used the abundant oil revenues, not for benefit of a small class of renters as previous governments had done, but to build needed infrastructure and invest in the social services that Venezuelans so sorely needed. During the last ten years, the government has increased social spending by 60.6%, a total of $772 billion.

Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/14/the-achievements-of-hugo-chavez/

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12 IDEAS TO STOP WAGE THEFT

Over the last 12 days of action, we [The Workers’ Action Centre] have profiled stories of workers fighting for unpaid wages. With your support, we have sent a powerful message to our government representatives that they need to stand up for stronger protections for workers in Ontario.

Read more: http://www.workersactioncentre.org/12-days-of-action/

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LEADERSHIP, FEMINISM AND EQUALITY IN UNIONS IN CANADA

This project explores the current climate and attitudes to women, feminism, leadership and equality in Canadian unions through the insights, voices and experiences of women union leaders, activists and staff. Women from seven provinces and territories were involved, including retired and still active staff, leaders and activists, racialized and Aboriginal women, lesbians and young women, and women from public and private sector unions and central labour bodies. Our findings do not address the situation in Québec.

The discussions were wide-ranging, analytical and deeply-moving. What emerged was a widespread consensus that there is a serious problem within the labour movement in advancing women’s equality work and supporting feminist activists at all levels. Union women, however, still share the optimistic belief that organized labour has played and can continue to play a critical role in challenging inequality.

Read more: http://womenunions.apps01.yorku.ca/

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ARTIST CREATES A VISION OF SOLIDARITY

Toronto – December 24, 2012 – There is a long history of mural art and the labour movement, and UFCW [United Food and Commercial Workers] Canada is helping that history continue.

This past July, more than a thousand agriculture workers gathered in Leamington, Ontario to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first-ever Agriculture Workers Alliance support centre in Leamington, Ontario. To mark the occasion, UFCW Canada and the AWA commissioned Chilean-born, Canadian-based social activist artist Gilda Monreal to create a mural to honour the tens of thousands of migrant workers who toil each season in Canada’s agriculture sector.

Read more: http://www.ufcw.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3183%3Aartist-creates-a-vision-of-solidarity&catid=6%3Adirections-newsletter&Itemid=6&lang=en

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THE FUTURE FOR LONG-TERM CARE LOOKS GRIM: MASS PRIVATIZATION

As with hospital beds, the government and other proponents of the near freeze in new long-term care beds suggest that home care can take up the slack.

Does this stand up?  Well, let’s take even a very aggressive version of this theory. Say that 25% of all people in LTC could be dealt with through home care. (Currently, that would mean evicting 19,250 LTC residents.)

Read more: http://ochuleftwords.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-future-for-long-term-care-looks.html

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CENTENNIAL OF 1912 “BREAD AND ROSES” STRIKE

The Bridge Review: Merrimack Valley Culture is an online journal about the culture of the Greater Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Founded in 1997, the journal explores the interwoven concepts of place, nature, culture and society. Based at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the journal includes writing, visual art, music, video clips, and other creative and scholarly works relevant to our region.

This special edition of the Bridge Review is dedicated to the centennial of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike.

Read more: http://www.breadandrosesbridgereview.com/

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A PROPOSAL TO STRENGTHEN THE CANADA PENSION PLAN: THE 1.5 OPTION

Expanding the Canada Pension Plan is back on the table. The federal and provincial finance ministers have been exploring several proposals for expanding the CPP in a paper prepared by their officials.

When the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans were created in the mid-1960s, they were deliberately designed to pay relatively modest benefits. The reasoning was that the private tier of employer-sponsored pension plans and individual savings plans would play the lion’s share of the earnings replacement objective for middle- and upper-income Canadians.  The Achilles heel of Canada’s retirement income system is that private pension and savings plans never grew sufficiently to properly serve the earnings replacement objective for many Canadians.

The Caledon Institute for several years has been proposing a ‘1.5’ solution for expanding the Canada Pension Plan in which the Year’s Maximum Pensionable Earnings would increase by 50 percent and the earnings replacement rate would also rise by 50 percent.  We would raise the Year’s Maximum Pensionable Earnings level from its current $50,100 to $75,150 – an increase of one-half.  The earnings replacement rate would go from 25 to 37.5 percent – also an increase of 50 percent.  As a result, the maximum CPP benefit would more than double, from $11,840 to $28,181.

Read more: http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/1002ENG.pdf

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MIGRANT WORKERS IN CANADA FACE DETERIORATING CONDITIONS

18 December 2012 – Today, International Migrants Day, the Canadian Council for Refugees expressed its concern about a series of changes over the past year that reduce migrant workers’ rights.  As a result many migrant workers in Canada are worse off than they were a year ago.

‘Things are going from bad to worse for the over 100,000 “low-skilled” migrant workers in Canada’, said Loly Rico, CCR President. “The Canadian Council for Refugees has deep concerns over the government’s approach to migrant workers as disposable, short-term labour with fewer rights and  protections than Canadian workers.”

Migrant workers in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program are vulnerable to exploitation because of their temporary status and restrictions on their work permits. While the transition to permanent residence for “high-skilled” temporary foreign workers is being made faster and more flexible, “low-skilled” migrant workers still don’t have access to permanent residence.

Read more: http://ccrweb.ca/en/bulletin/12/12/18

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ONTARIO NEXT RIGHT-TO-WORK TARGET?

When Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed right-to-work bills into law last month, he gladdened the hearts of anti-union politicians next door in Ontario. Could our province, a union stronghold, be next?

The more unions are beaten back in the United States, the worse it is for Canadian workers, whose jobs can easily be shipped south. One need only look at Caterpillar’s Electro-Motive Diesel jobs being moved from London, Ontario, down to Indiana in 2012, after that state passed right-to-work legislation. Such laws outlaw contracts that require all those represented by a union to pay dues, thus breaking up solidarity.

Read more: http://www.labornotes.org/2013/01/ontario-next-right-work-target

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JOBS

SUMMER 2013 SESSIONAL TEACHING POSITIONS AT MCMASTER UNIVERSITY’S LABOUR STUDIES

The School of Labour Studies, McMaster University, invites applications for the following positions to be offered in the Summer 2013 session.

Read more: http://www.labourstudies.mcmaster.ca/jobs

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PROGRAM DIRECTOR, METCALF CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, TORONTO

The goal of the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation is to enhance the effectiveness of people and organizations working together to help Canadians imagine and build a just, healthy, and creative society.

Across its 3 programs areas — sustaining the vibrancy of the professional performing arts, harnessing the benefits of living within the Earth’s environmental limits, and improving low-income peoples’ economic livelihoods and access to quality jobs — the Metcalf Foundation advances its mission through practice, policy, and collaboration.

Responsibilities

The Program Director holds primary responsibility for the vision, strategic development, and implementation of all aspects of the Inclusive Local Economies Program, and contributes to the Foundation’s broader mission and mandate including the Innovation Fellowship Program

See complete job posting at http://metcalffoundation.com

To apply or recommend candidates for the position please contact Ruth Richardson of Open Blue Consulting, in confidence, at ruth@openblue.ca Interested candidates should send their expression of interest by Monday 7 January 2013, 5:00 PM EST to ruth@openblue.ca

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ASSISTANT/ASSOCIATE/FULL PROFESSOR IN CONTINUING AND COLLEGE EDUCATION

The Woodring College of Education invites dynamic and innovative educators to apply for a tenure-track position (open-rank) in the Master of Education Continuing and College Education (CCE) Program, beginning September 2013.

The successful candidate will be visionary and collaborative with other professional educators, students and alumni. She/he will maintain a strong record of scholarship and will be a leading educator. Additionally, she/he will support student professional development projects and assist students to be competitive in the market for teaching in higher education, directing training and staff development for business, industry, government and professional associations and as administrators of programs for adults, especially in colleges, technical schools and university settings. 

For more information, please visit: https://jobs.wwu.edu/JobPosting.aspx?JPID=3860

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ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):

Head: Peter Sawchuk
Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin

The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education. For more information about this project, visit http://www.apcol.ca

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s paper, Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society has been published at Heathwood Press as a Monthly Guest Article for September 2012, online at:

http://www.heathwoodpress.com/monthly-guest-article-august-critical-pedagogy-and-the-constitution-of-capitalist-society-by-glenn-rikowski/

Heathwood Press: http://www.heathwoodpress.com 

The Individuality Pr♥test: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transcontinental/the-individuality-prtest

I Love Transcontinental: http://ihearttranscontinental.blogspot.co.uk/

University for Strategic Optimism

University for Strategic Optimism

UNIVERSITY FOR STRATEGIC OPTIMISM

A university based on the principle of free and open education, a return of politics to the public, and the politicisation of public space.

About

Our basic public services, we are told, are simply too expensive. They must be thrown under the wheels of the megalithic debt that bears down upon us. They must be privatised, corporatised and commodified. All this so we can ensure the continuation of a system that funnels wealth into the hands of a privileged few. This failed and flailing market system, we are told, is the only one that is possible, drastic cuts the only alternative, the fairest thing to do. Any deviation from the path laid out for us will unleash the worst imaginable, a media-imagined Worst that threatens from our darkened skies.

The UfSO offers an emphatic No! to this description of our current situation, and sees instead a magnificent opportunity, a multiplication of possibilities, the opening of a space in which we might think about, and bring about, a fairer and and more fulfilling society for all. In short: Many good reasons for strategic optimism! We urge a rampant questioning of the ideological basis for the relentless privatisation and privation of our lives: Are these cuts incoherent, as some have said? Or is this a specific move/set of moves on the part of neoliberal capital? Are labour, education, healthcare, and the environment, mere commodities, to be consumed by those who will redeem them as more capital? Can the opposition to cuts begin moving towards a society ‘fit for purpose’? Is it still easier to imagine The End-of-the-World than The End-of-Capitalism?

University for Strategic Optimism: http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

 

 

Independent Working Class Education

The Plebs League

INDEPENDENT WORKING CLASS EDUCATION

The Independent Working Class Education Project aims to learn the lessons of history to inform current class struggle.

Inspired by the Ruskin Students strike of 1909, we organise open informed discussions and look at how interesting presentations can be used in a variety of circumstances.

We offer materials and contacts and always try to operate in a non-sectarian way; we are not committed to any particular political current.

 

IWCE Project hopes to:

* Respect the role of the working class in making history, and in making the future 

* Seek to offer a diverse range of education materials and approaches for trade union and other working class and progressive movement groups.

 

IWCE is at: http://iwceducation.co.uk/

The Plebs League

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski