Date: Monday, September 8, 2014
Time: 6:30 PM
Place: News & Letters Library
228 S. Wabash Room 230, Chicago

Speaker: Erica Rae, teacher and writer for News & Letters

•   Why are the Common Core Curriculum and standardized testing so hated by those who have to teach it and learn it?

•   What is the relationship between the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Public Schools?

Students, teachers and community members protesting recent education budget cuts in California. Photo by Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters

•    How do race, culture, and educational achievement interact with each other in ways that can either benefit children or harm them?

Under capitalism, the meaning of what is defined as education is narrow: you go to school, take tests, memorize, take more tests, get good grades, do this many times, maybe get a job making a decent wage, pay taxes, and then you die. Revolutions, like the 1871 Paris Commune or the contemporary Arab Spring, bring new ways of thinking about education. Discussing new ideas about education is critical, not just as blips on the radar screen of history but as a long-term reality where “education” promotes the development of students, from early childhood to old age, and will not separate the individual human being from the community and the world in which s/he lives.