Many people yearn for correctness & this is expressed in the phrase "standard English". The honourable side to this is that it offers a common means of exchange. However, this leads many people to imagine that because it is called standard, it is run by rules & that these rules are fixed… In fact, there is no agreed list, a good deal of what we say and write keeps changing and nothing is enforceable. Instead, language is owned and controlled by everybody and what we do with it seems to be governed by various kinds of consent, operating through the social groups of our lives. Social groups in society don't swim about in some kind of harmonious melting pot. We rub against each other from very different and opposing positions, so why we should agree about language use and the means of describing it is beyond me.

…This is not a neutral activity. It is part of how a certain caste of people have staked a claim over literacy."

"Killing Time: Colonizing territory for transient populations"

"The trick to sharing "best practices" is to stop doing that. Instead, share "our practices" and let ideas meet, collide, mix, and take root differently in each place. The trick to "scaling up" is the same - stop trying. If BMW has to "Americanize" their cars in order to sell them in the United States (adding cup holders, etc), what makes people like Intel or the KIPP or TFA foundations so arrogant as to imagine that they can replicate themselves among vastly different communities?

Instead we imagine, attempt, describe, converse. We pass along concepts, not plans. We share observations, not blueprints. We accept that whether it is a child or a school, we can not evaluate anything with a checklist or a score, but only with very human description.

That's a less rational world which requires more humane effort, and it contains troubling mountains and deep valleys because it is not flat. But it is the world in which we actually live."

"a blog post by Tag Savage [http://sexpigeon.org/post/16729718345/path-puts-a-silly-amount-of-trust-in-its-avatars ] about Path’s user interface choices in their app. Central tennent: if a place is too pristine and planned, it can’t be colonized. Tag’s words:

"Path is pretty in the same designy way as our modern museums. […] These museums are very exciting when they open. You show up and marvel along with all of the other fans of architecture. Maybe you return for one of those nights where they stay open late and there is a band and drinking. “A great space,” you think. […] The art doesn’t get talked about so much at these museums."

Path is a monument to Path. It is no place to scribble in. I wish it longevity so that it might find shabbiness.

A tricky balance, to be sure, but one that must be navigated if a product is dependant on user’s content. Part of the product must be left undone to provide the opening for the user to contribute."

"Debate held at Cambridge University, full version available at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/videodir/asx2/2299.asx "

""The barbarian rules by force; the cultivated conqueror teaches." This maxim form the age of empire hints at the usually hidden connections between education and conquest. In Learning to Divide the World, John Willinsky brings these correlations to light, offering a balanced, humane, and beautifully written account of the ways that imperialism's educational legacy continues to separate us into black and white, east and west, primitive and civilized."

"Adventures in Free Schooling was started for several reasons: to have a dialogue about democratic, alternative, creative, and popular education and critical pedagogy; to share resources on teaching and learning that is geared towards anti-oppression and liberation; to discuss the history of schools and their impact on our society; to explore current models and experiments in alternative education, teaching, and learning; and more.The discussions and topics found here have a heavy focus on history and the relation between workplace democracy and learning-place democracy. This blog is also dedicated to education that is focused on fighting societal injustices and creating liberation through learning and teaching. Last, but not least, Adventures in Free Schooling is a space that’s purpose is to create new and innovative ideas for alternative learning places and critical teaching methods."

"Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a French psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism. Fanon is known as a radical existential humanist[1] thinker on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization.[2]Fanon supported the Algerian struggle for independence and became a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front. His life and works have incited and inspired anti-colonial liberation movements for more than four decades."<br />
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[via: http://steelemaley.posterous.com/taiaiake-alfred ]

"The Library Channel is proud to present the third installment of the Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community, sponsored by ASU American Indian Studies Program, ASU Department of English, ASU American Indian Policy Institute, ASU Labriola Center, and the Heard Museum.<br />
<br />
Recorded March 23, 2009 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, University of Victoria Professor of Indigenous Governance Gerald Taiaiake Alfred talks about the “Resurgence of Traditional Ways of Being: Indigenous Paths of Action and Freedom”<br />
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Taiaiake Alfred is known for his leadership and groundbreaking research in the fields of Indigenous governance, philosophy and history, and also for his incisive social and political criticism. He has been awarded a Canada Research Chair, a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the field of education, and the Native American Journalists Association award for best column writing."

"It might surprise you that introverts travel differently than extroverts, particularly because most travel magazines, guidebooks, and TV shows are produced by and for extroverts.<br />
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"I don't seek people out, I am terrible at striking up conversations with strangers and I am happy exploring a strange city alone. I don't seek out political discourse with opinionated cab drivers or boozy bonding with locals over beers into the wee hours. By the time the hours get wee, I'm usually in bed in my hotel room, appreciating local color TV. (So sue me, but I contend that television is a valid reflection of a society.)"<br />
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I almost broke my neck extensively nodding in agreement while reading this article. The author also has some tips for the introverted traveler. And if you haven't read it, Jonathan Rauch's Caring for Your Introvert remains one of my favorite things that I've ever featured on kottke.org."

"In the 1960s and early 70s an influential group of education writers wrote accessibly, for the everyday reader, about the colonizing and radically unequalizing effects of institutionalized education on students and adults. To these critics schools were not benign, apple-on-the-desk acculturating institutions where children could innocently be sent each day to learn the skills they needed to succeed in a meritocratic society. Instead they were organizations designed to colonize, imprint, and shape from within the most vulnerable and least powerful individuals in our culture. This book examines the biographies of six important deschooling critics, their questions about the purposes of education, and the nature of powerful learning in their eyes. The book also asks, what do the deschoolers have to tell us now?"

"There is an ideology that they are attached to...westward frontier expansion, Myth of West, westward expansion of US btwn 1804 (start of Lewis & Clark expedition) & 1880 (closing of American frontier). Leaving aside matter of dispossession & murder of indigenous peoples, I tend to feel some sympathy for grandchildren of this legend: it's potent metaphor for freedom from social constraint combined w/ opportunity to strike it rich by sweat of one's brow & they've grown up in shadow of this legend in progressively more regulated & complex society.