Pedagogy @ MindSay

Don't say I didn't warn you when some of you and friends of mine said they wanted to see more.....

I'll add more as requested on certain topics or by general inquiry. Don't be afraid to ask!

As you can probably tell my focus is on multicultural education, Latino education, and pop culture in education.  I'm currently working on the pedagogy of humanity, issues of privlege as a manifestation of power, rap to reggaeton: representations of identity.

Please remember it is not enough to read if you're not willing to bleed.  Thoughts without action are the fantasies we comfort ourselves with in a world taking advantage of our sedated will to be a voice for change and revolution.

These quotes are what I’m considering to lead into the chapters.

Introduction

“The man who struggles to find his place may find his place in struggles.  In the struggle man will come to know himself, his place, and that place of struggle within humanity.”

            -Antonio Garcia

On competition beyond survival

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
-Aristotle

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.
-Noam Chomsky

In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival.

-Andrew Young

The landscape of power

Between man and other animals there are various differences, some intellectual, some emotional.  One of the chief emotional differences is that some human desires, unlike those of animals, are essentially boundless and incapable of complete satisfaction.

-Bertrand Russell in Power

The process, path, and experiment of humanity

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.
-Noam Chomsky

Critical thought is a tool (chapter name not definite)

“If you desire to build a house you will need tools.  If you desire to tear it down you will need tools for that as well.  Without the tools to construct and deconstruct you are left with only seeing what you hope could be, is, or not be”

            -Antonio Garcia

The rage is relentless, we got move it with the quickest (Rage against the Machine.  See right through their right white and blue disguise.  Keep raging against the machine.  To stand up with your fist in the air a “fuck the system” in your mind you have ascended to dissention.  Feel good my friend because with out the critical awareness we would be lost in the comfortable, yet ignorant bliss of control, dominance, oppression, and be forever comatose to the world around us (See Orwell’s 1984).  Our fist is not meant to be a weapon but we must protect ourselves.  Raise your middle finger as an extension of your angst, turmoil, and relegation to slave.  Yell from the top of your lungs and bottom of your “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me.”  It is not out of pure hate, but anger.  A distinction between the tow is critical.  Anger is the natural emotion that we feel when we are discontent.  Hate is the frustration of not being able to understand the system of oppression upon us or those that are different from us (See Sleeter and Grant, 1994 Ch.3 “Human Approaches” in Making choices for multicultural education).

We have become silenced slaves.  We feel our tongue has been removed or that is no longer needed so long as we are fed and provided for (in equal or equitable terms in debatable).  The use of our voice is not to communicate disdain but to request, wait fuck that, demand, take, and fight for our freedom (Paolo Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed).  Emancipation is the greatest gift of all.  Perhaps you emancipate yourself through education or “momentarily” emancipate your mind through illicit potations.  Nevertheless, an enlightened sense of self coupled with community is true elation, a momentarily lapse into what some may call “heaven” (not directly referring to Christian heaven but the metaphysical pane of stillness (Eckhart Tolle’s A new earth: awakening your life’s purpose), contentment in ecstasy, and libratory movement of the essential soul.  I want to feel myself with my community as free and harmonious.

Freedom is not governmental it is individual, yet it is a state we try to obtain as a physical apparatus.  The free mind can never be caged or imprisoned in such a way that the mind because dulled into a dreadfully declined state much like that moments before death.  If we can free our minds (as cheesy as the Matrix movie was) then we will free ourselves.  Yet, I would maintain that freedom is a balancing not an absolute gift to be obtained and forever known.  We can break the body as well as the soul.  When we have broken both we have left man (in oppression) with nothing more [to break] short of exterminating him. 

How much can we talk about oppression, change, freedom, and revolution?  How long can you maintain it?

Life will eat away at you if you have the burning inside cause by an enlightened understanding of what is and can be.  I dream of a different.  It is within my heart and my writing that I discuss these topics.  People ask me why I do and don’t do certain things.  As I will assert and have discussed, there must be a genuine cause.  I do not support speculation or “preemptive” movements nor do I participate willingly in vain charity, sometimes deemed as radical movements.  There must be an understanding and strategy outlined.  That which we do in haste, masked as spontaneity, is often done without considerable thought of consequence.  Being and living the pedagogy of humanity requires me to understand consequences and to practice/exercise embracing that rationality.  Though quickness of thought and judgment are needed in certain times, wide spread or mass movements that seek to be popular rather than those that are purposeful are without true cause.  We were meant to live for so much more…..but we lost ourselves (Switchfoot, Meant to live).

  Antonio Garcia

Indiana University

agarciaj@indiana.edu

I am currently working on several paper presentations and a possible book regarding the pedagogy of humanity.  This work has not been completely thought out and articulated, but I hope through discussions and presentations that I will be able to refine ideas and culminate them into a succinct discourse.  My goal is to start developing teacher materials through rethinking schools or another publisher that shares the same vision for what I am trying to work on.  As I have said in discussions, what can we say that hasn't been said?  What we strive for is the right prescritpion (combination of philosophy and thoughts) for the right time that will address issues appropriately.  Life is a process, a path, and an experiment.

Antonio Garcia

Indiana University 

I have created this blog to maintain continuous conversation among the busy lives of all us.  We must reflect critically on issues but also maintin an activism among these topics.  Please feel free to respond.  I encourage all thoughts; hoever, threats or comments not complementayr and constructive will be deleted.

-Antonio Garcia

Indiana University