The recent killing of the CEO of United Health Insurance reflected the violence (himsa) we find ourselves embedded in. I refuse to condone violence in any form. What flies under the radar is the daily violence humans are subjected to when they are denied healthcare, when it is delayed. Hannah Arendt introduced us to the term “the banality of evil”, which underscores both forms of violence, although the former is more obvious than the latter. Schools and teachers can play a vital role in educating children, youth, and adults in ways that help them unearth the roots of violence.
For the past 2-3 years, I focused on re-imagining teacher education as an andragogy of hope and nonviolence. A third pillar is dialogue and civil discourse. One objective is to have a manageable endeavor for teachers from the moment aspiring teachers enter schools of education to the end of their careers. The second is to move away from what Paulo Freire referred to as a banking model of education where information is deposited in students to a dialogic form with teachers and students engaging as teachers and learners. When I enter K-12 classrooms, I observe how little has changed in our schools and this conditions education students the banking model. It is embraced by those who decide how schools and teaching function.
Currently, teachers experience top-down mandates reflecting a neo-liberal , market-driven, top-down process set down by politicians, bureaucrats, technocrats, and autocrats. Those in ivory towers design schools where competing for marks, individual rankings, and accreditation are the focus as opposed to considering the collective good and forming of character. Fortunately, good teachers do grow to explore, navigate, and discover ways to overcome top-down and politically motivated mandates.
Schools limit the ability to think critically and discern what systemic issues exist that prevent real change from occurring. It is easier to allow unfounded, unwarranted conspiracy theories, instead of considering other potential causes that require this critical thinking and discernment. For example, global warming likely has more to do with increased illnesses and syndromes than vaccines. Global warming means we have to make committed and transform how we each live and living collectively. Conspiracy theories carry no such weight. Critical thinking gives way to accepting opinions largely based on opinions. Dialogue gives way to supposed free speech.
Anyone who undertakes a challenge of this magnitude faces inertia of immovable forces. Having said this, it reminds me that Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed [humans] can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” The change we seek calls for the volition and will to press forward, express one’s self in a human and humane way, and make those changes in the face of opposition and resistance. What we need to avoid is acts of violence as acceptable to achieve our goals. This lowers and debases those who seek humane ways forward to the level of those who excuse the systemic violence and oppression that permeates us.
The word humane is essential to this re-imagining as much of the violence is associated with inequity and oppression. Growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, my mother, hardly a Marxist or social democrat, used to tell us “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” and we should be grateful for what we had, as many others had less. It is also essential to speak out and advocate for a world where it is unacceptable to put material wealth before human life and the life of the planet.
Poverty and oppression are forms of violence that exist as a products of the banality of evil and the system that promotes it. Gustavo Gutiérrez argued “the poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” Part of a different social order is educating teachers and, in turn, teachers educating themselves to create a humane, equitable social order.
This was a challenging post to write with many edits. It is different than other posts, however it is consistent with my recent presenting, writing, and publishing. When I received a PhD, I did not anticipate traveling this route, but one thing led to another and here I am. It is “the path less traveled” as Robert Frost suggests.
I leave with a Wendell Berry poem: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
And a Bob Dylan video, a song I forgot about until this morning. He reminds me conspiracy theories, and a need to address violence and its underlying causes have been with us for a long time.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Fantastic post, Ivon. Agree with all of it.
Thank you Michelle.
So many points you have shared were in my thoughts as well.
I love the quote from her in your piece and Robert Frost lived up the street from me and I walk his place as I do mine thankful and grateful for those who are kind.
My mom also told me the same thing as your mom, then again, I was 14 in 1970 ❤
Go see the Dylan movie he went from a serious writer wanting to share a story, to a man pushed by others to perform the way he had started, looking up to and adoring Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger to listening to Johnny Cash telling him to go get loud and make some noise.
Activate people's brains as to what is truly going on and with open minds maybe just maybe then we could save the world.
I adore music just not the ugly side of life. I have wanted Peace and Love to win out since I was 13 with rose colored glasses on my freckled face.
Thanks for doing a blog on this subject you are a great teacher.
Thank you on many levels Eunice. I was a touch older in 1970, but the comment by my Mom resonates today more than it did then. I think, as we mature, those nuggets make more and more sense. I love the early Dylan and listen to Guthrie (both Woody and Arlo) and Seeger. Growing up in the Woodstock era might inform who we are a bit.
You are so fortunate to walk the paths Robert Frost may have taken as well.
Life back then I was in a hurry to live now just doing what I love time is precious. You are right we lived in an era that many try to duplicate but never will.
Yes, Frost’s writings are amazing as our Henry David Thoreau and our Walden Woods and pond. I grew up not far from there and one of my first boyfriends took me there a lot. He read poetry from Thoreau to me special days for sure.
Life is good in New England
xo
It sounds wonderful. Thoreau and Frost would be amazing to spend time listening to and living there messages.
Thanks again for your post.
I feel the joy has been stripped from education, especially at the elementary level. Children learn more easily when they are in a happy environment. Today, that joy has been nearly eliminated by governing rules.
Students at an early age need to learn they are loved and how to spread some kindness in the world through their interactions with others in the class.
Too much time in our area is spent preparing students for state mandatory tests rather than the pure joy of learning. During my teaching years, my goal was to have a happy classroom where students wanted to come and enjoy the day while learning the basics yet having the freedom to expand their minds beyond the curriculum.
Yes, a joy for learning is the crux of learning and teaching. They become interchangeable with happy students and teachers. Each of us looks forward to being the company of one another-accompanying each other.
Robert Fulgum and you speak to everything we need to learn we do in the early years: kindness, caring, good manners, etc.
Thank you for the lovely comments Bev
An excellent post. I especially like Margaret Mead’s quote. But we need lots of small groups.
Yes, we do Peggy and we need them connected like rhizomes spreading underneath and growing together somehow.
Really enjoyed this passionate call, Ivon–your articulate words and the words of others, too. Nice ending with Bob Dylan’s words and music. I share your love for humans and our reach to make life better on earth for all.
Thank you Jet. It is a collective process. We need to come together and do the best we cand, understanding there is no perfect world. I enjoy Dylan’s music old, new, and in-between.
Oh, my. You covered so much I don’t know where to start.
I am so disgusted with the US school systems and how public money is supporting more and more private schools. I’m disgusted with the top down approach of legislators deciding what children should learn. I’m disgusted with parents who want (or don’t want) specific things taught.
It is called public education. It is here to serve the public in general, not to meet the whims of every politician and parent.
So much more I could ramble about, but I’m not going to. Have a good 2025.
Thank you for the comment Emilie. It is so good to hear from you.
I agree public education should serve the public (the polis and community). Too often, know nothing politicians along with bureaucrats and technocrats, many of whom have never taught or have not taught in decades, make decisions from afar. The privatization of schooling is happening in Canada, particularly the province we live in Alberta. There is money to be made and people to control, so billionaires and soon to be trillionaires engage in profiteering and looking to create a compliant workforce. Welcome to the neo-liberal, market world of the 21st Century,
Like you Emilie, I could go on for a bit. Take care and have a wonderful 2025.
This is a wonderful post. I waited until I had time to really read it. I was only tangentially involved in education. I was a committee member on too many committees, but I saw the roots of your complaints forming in the way curriculum was planned, budgets formed and administrators hired. No one talks about issues like the ones you brought up. They talk about test scores and dollars. I dropped off some committees and was invited not to return to others. Teachers who want to make the kind of difference you suggest have to do it quietly, and on their own. Some do, and that’s a reason to be optimistic.
More and more, we look to standardize what is done in the classroom by teachers and students. You are right about teachers having to go about this work quietly and below the radar. We often end up on our own. I was fortunate as I had a like-minded colleague for more than a decade. Together, we planned on how to subvert the system and meet each student where they were in their learning.
Thank you for your insights and comment Dan.
Wow! 😮 I am so sooo glad I did not miss this post. I agree with you, Ivon, so much. The last quote has left me speechless 😶
Thank you. I was unsure whether you meant the poem by Wendell Berry or Gustavo Gutierrez. Wendell Berry has a way of waking me up with his poetry and Father Gutierrez reminds me that the poor are privileged. I use both in my writing and presenting. We need to think about how we improve education for children and youth. The path is through improving it for teachers.
Ivon,
Specifically the Wendell Berry poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” I am so impressed with the rebelliousness of remaining fresh like that. I had no idea he had written such a powerful poem. It speaks to a part of myself! 💗 thank you! 🙏🏻
Yes, he speaks to me in a deep way. He calls on me to be skeptical of my words and practices, as well as those of others who promise quick fixes.
Yes, thank you. He helps us penetrate deeper beyond what is ordinarily presented. I feel that earthy soil of underpinnings, like figuring out the wisdom without the roots of origination. Thanks again. Well said, Ivon. This is someone I want to read more of.
*wisdom within (sorry typo)
Impressive
Thank you
God, I love Berry. He and his wife visited our tiny community in New Mexico a couple of years ago! I had to hold myself back from jumping out of the car and going to give him a big hug – he and his wife were there to learn about something with the blue corn people. I let them be.
I would not want to be in education these days. The thing I have to keep reminding myself – the promise of the age of Aquarius is that old top-down systems will topple in order for new inclusive systems to rise. And of course you and I have lived long enough, we would perhaps like to skip the fall and rejoice in the rise. You of course are not alone in wanting peace and the best critical thinking skills humans are capable of. You are not alone. 🙏
I always feel there are others who share a vision of peace. Some are close at hand, others a keyboard away, and others I will never speak to directly, but they are there.
A colleague told me I would probably struggle in today’s classroom. There is little, if any, room to walk, talk, and chew bubble gum at the same time. There is a demand for compliance and conformity I would struggle with.
Yes, the promise of the 60’s and 70’s continues to elude us. I would love to rejoice in the rise and hope it is just around the corner.
So would I, Ivon, so would I. The world is in a very dark place right now, but I think we still need to hold out hope for a better one. Agreed that there are seeds everywhere. I’m going to see if I can share what I think is Jane Goodall’s last interview, in which she has some sweet thoughts. Peace. ☮️
I can’t find a direct YouTube of Jane Goodall’s interview, but if you have Facebook or access to it, I posted it there: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17JQtVYvqu/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Great video clip and some of this is now circulating on social media. It appeared in my LinkedIn and Facebook feeds the last couple of days, so I save it on both. I now use a Jane Goodall quote on hope in presentations to ice hockey coaches.
Excellent. Glad you appreciated it! 🙏♥️
Thank you. Hope is needed in dark times.