{"id":419,"date":"2011-04-09T21:39:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T04:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=419"},"modified":"2011-05-20T09:53:40","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T16:53:40","slug":"why-now-the-dark-days-possibilities-of-learning-2-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=419","title":{"rendered":"Why Now?  The Dark Days Possibilities of Learning 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Learning\" src=\"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Learning1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/> [<strong>A revised version of this post appears in <a href=\"http:\/\/toped.svefoundation.org\/2011\/05\/19\/besides-anger-action-and-ideas-can-emerge-from-the-worst-of-times\/\" target=\"_blank\">Thoughts on Public Education<\/a><\/strong>.]<\/p>\n<p>As I was thinking about writing this post, my attention wandered (yes, it does) to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edweek.org\/ew\/articles\/2011\/03\/31\/27slip.h30.html\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Sawchuk\u2019s <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edweek.org\/ew\/articles\/2011\/03\/31\/27slip.h30.html\" target=\"_blank\">Education Week<\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edweek.org\/ew\/articles\/2011\/03\/31\/27slip.h30.html\" target=\"_blank\"> story <\/a>about Monica I\u00f1iguez, a 4<sup>th<\/sup> grade teacher in Los Angeles Unified who has received her third budget-driven pink slip in six years of teaching.\u00a0 Her husband got one, too, and their house is in escrow.\u00a0 When times are so dire\u201419,000 of I\u00f1iguez\u2019s fellow California teachers got layoff notices\u2014how is it possible to think positively about public education\u2019s future?\u00a0 That is what I advocate in my series <em>Learning 2.0.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>The answer is that this is the very best time to think, plan, scheme, and politic about the future of public education.\u00a0 Three aspects of the current condition make it so:<\/p>\n<p><strong>First, the mind and psyche need to flee the darkness. <\/strong>At historic times of darkness, we seek the light, because doing so give us hope.\u00a0 The 37<sup>th<\/sup> Congress meeting in the depths of the Civil War, passed the Morrill Act that underwrote public colleges and universities across the country, the Homestead Act that opened land west of the Mississippi to settlement, and the Pacific Railroad Act provided funds to link the coasts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second, it takes the opportunity to build differently. <\/strong>When times are flush, the public instinct is to do more of the same rather than to design something new.\u00a0 During California\u2019s last big period of flush budgets, it poured billions into unsustainable class size reductions.\u00a0 Those funds may have temporarily helped a cohort of students\u2014some of the same students that are now being frozen out of places at the state\u2019s college and university system because of cutbacks\u2014but they didn\u2019t fundamentally change or challenge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Third, thinki<\/strong><strong>ng anew is the first stage of political action. <\/strong>Public education, particularly in the cities, has become a bad brand, something that no one wants to buy.\u00a0 Only with a better idea and a clear notion of how to move toward it will it be possible to move forward.<\/p>\n<p>Monica I\u00f1iguez needs a good, steady job.\u00a0 The best way we can help her protest is to help design a better system of public education.\u00a0 Consider <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/L2First.pdf\">Learning 2.0<\/a><\/strong><\/em><em>.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[A revised version of this post appears in Thoughts on Public Education.] As I was thinking about writing this post, my attention wandered (yes, it does) to Stephen Sawchuk\u2019s Education Week story about Monica I\u00f1iguez, a 4th grade teacher in Los Angeles Unified who has received her third budget-driven pink slip in six years of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,7],"tags":[31,188,30,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":430,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}