Layoff Notices Sent to Thousands of US Teachers

[Ed Jewett]

The clear trend is toward the creation of resilient communities. Home schooling, previously aligned at times with a religious and even fundamentalist leaning, can be (must be) part of that (once it has winnowed away the religious and fundamentalist curricula). I think the essential task before us is to establish an archival and distributive system in the various skills, intelligences, etc. and to understand truly, critically, how community works. Shamans and spiritual leaders and healers do play a role. There must also be a village specialist in how to perceive, how to think, etc. Howard Gardner has a prescription in his books. We must all become teachers, and we must all become responsible for sowing the future.

Good plan, for those who can afford to implement it. TPTB have, not coincidentally, made it harder than ever to survive financially. Poverty is slavery.

Everyone, even wage slaves or others oppressed and burdened, can afford this. Like gospel music (R&B, jazz) in the cotton fields, it moves person-to-person, heart-to-heart, in whatever community exists, and community can exist anywhere under all manner of duress. Spirit can survive in prison (many books can be noted as examples and witness), in abused children, in conditions of hatred and apartheid, in the black regiments sacrified to the walls of fortresses, in the barracks and hovels of those condemned to the slow agony of prolonged death by hunger or sudden death by genocide.



"In the Middle Ages, when lighting a fire from scratch was an arduous process, people often carried a metal box containing a smoldering cinder, kept alight throughout the day with little bits of kindling. In this way, someone could light a fire with ease wherever he went, because he always carried the spark. Our universe is alive with sparks. At our fingertips, we have an infinite capacity to light a spark of possibility. Passion, rather than fear, is the igniting force.

The practice of enrollment is about giving yourself as a possibility to others and, in turn, being ready to catch their spark. Enrolling others is not about forcing, cajoling, tricking, bargaining, pressuring or guilt-tripping someone into doing something your way. Enrollment is the art and practice of generating a spark of possibility for others to share. Enrollment is about playing together as partners in a field of light."


The Art of Possibility[/FONT], Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander,
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Harvard Business School Press, 2000[/FONT]