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In Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Postman and Weingartner (1971) asked us to engage in a thought experiment. They wrote:

Suppose all of the syllabi and curricula and textbooks in the schools disappeared. Suppose all of the standardized tests–city-wide, state-wide, and national–were lost. In other words, suppose that the most common material impeding innovation in the schools simply did not exist. Then suppose that you decided to turn this “catastrophe” into an opportunity to increase the relevance of the schools. What would you do? (p. 59)

Thirty-eight years later, this is still an important exercise to engage in. We may even want to add a few suppositions:

Suppose the disciplines were not compartmentalized and departmentalized as they usually are. Suppose that the lines between “real world” and “school world” were more porous, allowing all students from all backgrounds to learn in classrooms and laboratories, but in equal measure in local communities, business organizations, museums, and remote locations? Suppose schools searched as doggedly for the individual and communal talents of their charges as they do for mastery of minimum standards?

Thinking about, planning, and enacting answers to these thought experiments is what this site is about. Dewey wrote, “Anyone who has begun to think places some portion of the world in jeopardy.” Let us then put school-as-usual in jeopardy! I am not advocating that we ignore standards (high standards are good) or ignore the federal government’s call for adequate yearly progress. Rather, I am urging educators to do so much more for all children, rich or poor, non-native English speaker or native English speaker, black or white, and on and on.

How can we re-imagine schooling (English education in particular) in ways that open up possibilities for our young people instead of closing them down? Can’t wait to hear from you…