But dialogue requires a basic level of social trust. You need to believe you have something to learn from your conversation partner. Otherwise, why bother. In the current polarized tribal moment of 2020, dialogue--in particular the open, exploratory, Socratic kind without which democracy withers--has become difficult if not impossible. Like trying to read a newspaper in a high wind. Well I'm here to report the wonderful, hopeful news that dialogue isn't completely dead. It hasn't yet vanished from the face of the earth. I know because I've managed to keep it alive (these past few decades) in a magical, special place: the classroom.
Building on Dewey's pedagogical wisdom, in the late 1990s I had great success as a teacher in 3 troubled NYC ghetto schools. Beginning with a high school in Harlem (where a dead body was discovered on the roof at the start of the semester), each time I replaced the regular teacher who either quit, had a nervous breakdown, or fled the building. After parachuting in, armed with a sense of idealistic hope (despite the difficult conditions), using dialogue I created a liberating, transformative atmosphere for students to learn, grow, change, and believe in themselves again.
In each of these "rescue mission" assignments, my real-life versions of Hollywood movies like Blackboard Jungle, To Sir With Love, and Dangerous Minds--or an educational version of James Bond--I helped to, in the words of one of my grateful students, "save the semester."
Of the many lessons I taught (and learned) with my inner-city charges, perhaps the most crucial is that the world as it is now--with its unfairness, injustice, and inequality--isn't fixed in stone. We still have the power to change it. The first step forward, according to philosopher Maxine Greene (who was my friend and mentor), is to move beyond the numbness, apathy, and despair that submerges us in the status quo. To achieve this, Maxine was an outlier for not worshipping at the holy altar of STEM: an over-emphasis on science and technology that has hijacked the education debate for decades.
Instead, she believed (as I do) in the neglected power of the arts and humanities. It is the imagination, above all faculties, which gives us "the capacity to think of things as if they could be otherwise." Imagination and possibility go hand in hand. Along with hope. In my work as an educator, I take pride in having helped thousands of students develop the hopeful belief that they--and the world--can be different. Better. Otherwise.
But that was 20 years ago. Now we have an even greater urgency. Given the climate crisis, and rise of right-wing authoritarianism, even the phrase "making a better world" sounds rather tepid. Now we need to talk about saving the world. Straight up.
I say education can play a vital role. Ten years ago, my wife and I created a nonprofit TV show, Public Voice Salon, to advance knowledge of the best ideas in education (some of which I've touched upon in this essay) into the broader public realm. Where they belong. Barack Obama once said that, "in a media-dominated society like yours, if it's not on television, it doesn't exist." We believe that a radical transformation toward a civic model of education ought to be the stuff of water-cooler talk, cafe' conversations, and bar-room discourse (post pandemic!) from sea to shining sea. Begin now on Zoom.
So far, the overnight ratings of our TV show aren't spectacular. I doubt the execs at CNN or MSNBC are losing any sleep over us. And yet, this year our show was nominated for the prestigious Yidan Prize. Created by a Chinese billionaire, it aims to be the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in Education. One hopes that American billionaires, like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, will jump on the Education Bandwagon and create a similar prize.
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