I’ve been obsessed with hip hop videos since 2014, when I discovered Tricia Miranda, LA-based choreographer for stars including Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Missy Elliott. I took one hip hop dance class in Boston and can barely shake it in salsa or bachata outings (#cudjatellimwhite), but that doesn’t seem to matter when I tune in on the newest…
Migration is natural
On May 11th, PBS featured a fascinating story for its “Brief but Spectacular” segment that inspires thinking around (im)migration and identity. Jess X. Snow, a young first-generation Chinese-American artist illuminates her experiences as an immigrant, a child of immigrants, with force and insight: Imagination is daring to love what is not in front of us. So what then,…
Swamp Monster Betsy Devos: Nominee for Secretary of Education
Going to protest the possibility that Betsy Devos could become the Secretary of Education of this country tomorrow at BMCC in lower Manhattan. Watch her avoid responding substantively to any questions about equal protections for all students who have disabilities, who suffer bullying, who take out student loans, who are taken advantage of by for-profit…
Resist the punditry
A friend of mine shared a video of an interview between Gad Saad and Michael Rechtenwald, a professor at NYU who evidently has been “castigated for daring to criticize safe spaces and related thought policing, postmodernism, literary Darwinism, secularism in science, and the relationship between science and religion.” I’m including the video link here (I’d suggest…
My first publication: The limits of pedagogy: diaculturalist pedagogy as paradigm shift in the education of adult immigrants
I’ve published my first solo article, “The limits of pedagogy: diaculturalist pedagogy as paradigm shift in the education of adult immigrants”! Please find the prepublication “Accepted Manuscript” version of “…” here. Enjoy, share, and give feedback! the-limits-of-pedagogy_-diaculturalist-pedagogy-as-paradigm-shift-in-the-education-of-adult-immigrants PLEASE NOTE: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Pedagogy, Culture…
Of the people, by the people, for the people
Watching a video of an interview with Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, fugitive and public intellectual living in Russia. I saw Citizen Four, the movie about his decision and actions to release information about the widespread NSA surveillance both in the United States and around the world, last night. The story impressed me, not in small…
“GOP Gov. Snyder’s office says Detroit school kids have no right to literacy”: an opportunity to develop media literacy
The post title comes from an article a friend of mine posted on my Facebook feed, alarmed and asking what I thought of this situation. Photograph by Herbert Russell Below is my response… It’s a very interesting proposition. Checked out the story on the CBS website and this is what was included: “The lawsuit says…
Rancière and the role of education in political conformity/contestation
Yesterday I read a paper by Gert Biesta, a professor of education drawing from philosophy and political science whose interdisciplinary thinking inspires those of us like myself who are unconvinced by the all-too-often superficiality and dilettantism of the field of education. (I will write about this this week, as it bothers me greatly that those…
Mobile learning
It is the time for us to educate ourselves, to read and connect ourselves to stories of triumph against ignorance and oppression. Seeing the Queens Library bus parked on my walk to the subway reminded me that we are all ALWAYS learning and can demand that the government support our education. When we stop…
Getting started
It’s a funny title for a post, since I’ve been writing this blog since 2014. However, what began as a scholarly exercise, to be executed faithfully but unhurriedly, has shifted in my mind. The stream of conversation now, in the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, has become a torrent…
