This is a GUEST article by Rick Ayers, an adjunct Professor of Teacher Education at the Unversity of San Francisco. In this penetrating analysis, Rick takes a takes at the Occupy Wall Sttreet Movement that is sweeping the world and suggests that it is confounding educational and social theorists who for generations have talked about changing and improving the system. The left and the Right have debated different goals and strategies, but it has all been TALK. The difference here, suggests Rick, is that the protest is about action.Yes, the protesters have multiple and often not very clear goals. Yes, they lack a centralised point of reference or control. But what they share is a determination to create change, to stop waiting for the Ubermensch to come and save us all with a grand masterplan. they understand how thhe system works, they recognise its structural inequalities and they intend to redistribte the wealth.

Rick suggests that the same principles and strategies might be applied to schools, allowing the learners to organise and direct their own learrning. He suggests that if we want clues as to how this might shape up we ought to read the works of critical pedagogues who have been laying out the arguments and strategies for decades - Linda Darling-Hammond, Pedro Noguera, Debbie Meier, Monty Neill, Diane Ravitch, Bill Ayers, Kris Gutierrez, Anthony Cody amongst others. Good stuff. The article appeared originally on Rick's blogpost  and in the Huffington Post 

To download the PDF click here

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