Globatron Saint
more hope, found within the machine…this young woman is a saint in my mind, and will serve as a model for my work this year on globatron….we must get out there again, and let our society know that we mean to be heard…bravo!!!!
more hope, found within the machine…this young woman is a saint in my mind, and will serve as a model for my work this year on globatron….we must get out there again, and let our society know that we mean to be heard…bravo!!!!
6 Comments
Ronnie
August 13, 2010She is wise beyond her years. Thank you for sharing this with me.
globatron
August 13, 2010what lack of ego. amazing at her years. To say she is the best at doing. The best at being a slave. wow. that must have been a smack to her principal’s face. i bet she became an instant celebrity to the folks with low grade point averages.
i wonder who approved the speech. i would think there would be an approval process. if not i bet there is next year.
i have the sudden urge to google her and she where she is now. what she is studying and what her plans are.
Greg
August 13, 2010Interesting, motivational but ultimately we are all part of the Matrix. I mean if you think about the analogy it is very accurate, yes if you remove money as being your primary motivator then you are open to other options, but at the same time what happens? Do you become homeless without resources to feed, cloth, warm yourself?
I am inspired by her courage to speak out but at the same time I find she might be just a speck against limitless beach sand of the system. I found this speech to resonate with me but as I am unfortunately older and can’t see a world without some system to keep it orderly I believe we will never have a utopia of the sort she speaks of.
It would be nice where we would have a world of no fear where individuality would be encouraged and applauded. I believe this might change slowly as those who were not accepted and ostricized come to power regardless of their circumstance. Take Bill Gates, the posterchild for the “Nerd” cliche in school typically that is ridiculed and exiled from public acceptance, now controls the largest mass of wealth in the world. I don’t know, I was a geek in school with some athletic tendacies also, played basketball and football but was also a computer nerd and electronics geek. Never really accepted in either world.
Guess I am trying to say is I would like to see a system that is different but have lost the faith that it will ever happen as long as the masses are catered to. Jesus I am rambling. sorry. Good Friday to all. Sorry I have been away. Been saving the world (at least in respect to my kids world) lately and have been busy. Glad to be back.
Akbar Lightning
August 14, 2010no offense,
but i don’t think the goal is some utopian society, but to simply appreciate the simplicity of a courageous act, without any need to see it turn into anything else.
this girl did a brave thing, and i would like to see people learn to just simple sit in such awe and admiration without seeing it as a call to a political debate.
that revolution that you have stopped believing in greg, would happen if we all lived as she does, that’s the point….like you, i don’t think the world will ever be perfect, but i am happy to remain idealistic, for my sake only…
Logocentric
August 21, 2010Bravo!
wonderful find. thank you for sharing this. it helps to inspire me and remind me of my roots as i once again prepare to enter the classroom as a teacher.
the act of decency and courage demonstrated by this woman speaks to a complex of maladies i believe we all share: fear, passivity, and resignation to our native autocrats, whom we rarely recognize as autocrats. she is a bright spark in a dim grayness that characterizes many attitudes and assumptions about “education.” and i think the brilliance of her speech hinges on her deep pragmatism, as illustrated in the following excerpt:
“For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.”
she does not, in other words, appear to be attached to notions of universal reform or guiding “the system” toward pleasant ends for everyone. on the contrary, she reaches out to her tribe, to those individuals who have the capacity to hear but perhaps not the courage to stand alone. indeed, the notion of a candle in the darkness does not suppose that the world will catch fire–only that one may recognize similar things in other candles. she reminds us, first, that public education is a microcosm of modern life in “the West,” and second, that people are capable of behaving humanely in dehumanizing conditions.
i think she alludes to those conditions in some of her parting words, in which she says “i was molded by my environment.” we shouldn’t forget–those of us who claim to identify with this person, whom i’ve never met, but with whom i feel an instant connection–that we are encapsulated in a common culture of information, standards, commercialism, militarism, and the list goes on; i owe my sense of bonding (bondage?) to the conditions that surround me. if i can remember this, i can be a better friend, a better teacher, a more responsible student, than if i resign myself to the idea that “the system” is too oppressive and too big to change. in fact, the system IS too big to change, at least for the vast majority of us; what we experience daily is just the latest version of perennial separateness and the experience of compensating for that separateness. yet it is OUR version. it is part of a larger arc of history, yet we are allowed for a while to say what it means to us now. so recognition of the condition is not the same as resignation. resignation follows awareness (usually dim) of a problem without the courage to admit why it is a problem, or how the conditions which currently sustain it hold together.
recognition, on the other hand, is a way of seeing through the lens that has evolved along the arc, and of proposing a way of being in it now–a way of relating to one another in the context of our current situation. this skill is in very short supply, in my opinion. not only that, the act of recognizing (that is, as a conscious, deliberate activity) holds within itself an act of caring, consciously and deliberately, about those who will arrive after one has left. and this becomes more and more important, i think, over time, for this reason: if we who call ourselves “progressives” do so because we believe that the arc of history bends (or may bend) toward justice (to borrow from a favorite scholar and activist), we must also recognize that the need for a progressive orientation arises from conditions which must be countered by said orientation. that is, opinions may progress, but so do the conditions of inhumanity intensify and progress–and often as the result of deliberate and conscious work that responds directly to said orientation. and resignation to that intensity is tantamount to letting the future go where it will, without trying to help it understand where it came from or how it may respond to its own unique situation.
Akbar Lightning
August 21, 2010i like your response Logo…
i am reminded of the strangest aspect of the Matrix Trilogy, the idea that Neo actually is a creation of the Matrix itself. this paradox is so beautiful and profound, that most people don’t know about or think about it…
just like the Platonic cave…those who leave the cave still began as cave-dwellers…
as Father Mapple implied in his recent prophecy, this video is a perfect example of what i think will define 21st century philosophy – the act of honesty…
and honesty requires the judicious and refined use of language, since one can only discover what one wishes to say through the art of language, and therefore discover the truth of oneself…and once this has occurred one has to speak up for a humble yet more loving environment…
participation is how we distinguish between oppression and the democratic ideal…but, as an aside, participation requires self control…