It's MLK Jr. Day, What Have You Done?
Educating during global crises- and welcome to the newsletter!
In December 1971, John Lennon released his still popular song, “Happy Xmas (War is Over).” That song compels the listener with a question: “so this is Christmas, and what have you done?”, and a statement “war is over, if you want it”. The song was written in protest of the Vietnam war.
A few years earlier, in March 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said the following about Vietnam.
“The bombs in Vietnam explode at home—they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.”
These three statements, made over 50 years ago, reverberated throughout my being this weekend, as Cornel West brought Dr. King’s words to my attention at the March on Washington for Gaza this past Saturday. Had Dr. King been alive today, he might have edited his statement to say that as U.S. bombs explode in Gaza, they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.
After hearing Dr. West give his remarks, myself and 400,000 others marched around Washington DC to shut down normal operations of the city and bring attention to the genocide occurring in Gaza, and the U.S. complicity in sending weapons to Israel that are used to commit war crimes. While we were marching, we ended up right next to Dr. West, and I got to speak with him briefly. It was an exciting moment, to see an admired intellectual that I had only read about. Yet, it was also deeply disheartening.
The symbolism of marching on Washington DC, with Cornel West, on Martin Luther King Jr weekend, where Dr. King’s cause is still not realized, was striking. It made me ponder my role as a Montessori educator. Maria Montessori advocated for an education that would change the status quo of violence and domination to bring a new age of peace and interdependence. She lived through the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II and believed that education was the best way to prevent such atrocities from happening again.
In Dr. West’s speech, he called for more than a ceasefire.
He called for liberation.
Dr. Montessori made a similar call, that peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but the result of liberation. This is a world that I, too, seek. I left the march pondering the following; a combination of Lennon, King, West, and Montessori:
“It’s MLK Jr. day- and what have I done?”
This post is not designed to give simple, “check box” answers of how educators should work toward an ameliorated world (although, I’d hope if you are an educator, that we can agree on that!). Rather, I am thinking about habits and practices that I can embody every day. How can I provide an environment which allows my students to live in a mini-version of the ameliorated society that Montessori, King, West, and others, envision? How can I support students in experiencing what it’s like to become citizens of the world- not through my telling them how to be, but through their own exploration and reflection?
This is the purpose of the newsletter. To be in dialogue with you- all of you- about the process of radically transforming education so that it can lead to an ameliorated world, where all people experience liberation, and as a result, peace. I aim to publish multiple times a week to bring my thoughts to you all, and for you all to bring your thoughts to me. We might not agree, but I still hope we can engage.
So, reader, I’ll ask you. We are living in a world of crises and inequity. You can’t change the entire system yourself, but you do have agency within it.
What have you done?
Maybe together, we will find a way forward.