Rebecca Solnit and How Pockets of Hope Have Saved America

In my recent post on Medium, I decided to take a crack at the largesse we call "curriculum" and why textbooks have never been sufficient:

While I’ve appreciated the effort to collect resources (see#CharlottesvilleSyllabus from graduate students at the university), I’ve become wary of collecting resources for the sake of collection. Without a pedagogy that centers critical thinking, examination, inclusivity, and agency, history will repeat itself. (Xian Barrett does a great job laying out some of the tenets for good teaching here.) It’s not enough to just put a list and ask folks to just deliver in the era of Common Core State Standards and scripted lessons. It’s even more critical to insist on pedagogy, environment, and all of their manifestations. A curriculum is only as good as the accompanying approaches and the conscientiousness of the adults in charge of its intent.

At the end, I also posit that this textbook mess often leaves it up to the protestors, scholars, and other agents to clean up the mess as best they can. People who work under this umbrella know that the fruits of their labor will probably not be harvested in their lifetimes. America had a million chances to get this moment right, including but not exclusive to: 1776, 1863, 1937, 1945, 1964, 2001, 2009, and 2012. In those moments, however, "many sides" ideologies prevailed. continue reading

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