Picture, if you will, a world filled with peace, justice, equity, and democracy. A world of abundance fueled by creativity and production; spurned by fruitful collaborations across nations, religions, and ideologies. A world free of hunger and want; where bellies and minds are full and where all are citizens with powerful words and ideas to contribute to the global human family.
Why do we not have this type of world? What have we been led to believe about the inherent nature of humanity and about the inevitability of suffering, ignorance, and war? And how has our education precipitated these negative attitudes toward our world, our possibilities, each other and ourselves? Can the quality of education determine the quality of the human condition? Do we possess the untapped human potential to solve our greatest problems?
I believe emphatically that the answer is yes. Ignorance and nihilism are the leisure of privilege. We disdain what we cannot yet comprehend. Our Miseducation has made that incomprehension the norm. No weapon is more powerful than ignorance, save knowledge. No revolution has been or could be more complete than the immediate and total transformation of human thought and no institution is more essential to that transformation than our public schools. The challenge is ours to provide the necessary (and possible) critical global education to enable all of our people to live in the world of their dreams.
I'm drawn to your idea about negative attitudes about "our possibilities." I'm teaching a course now on Leadership in Black Communities and the phrase that I love to hear come out of my students' mouths in "Black possibilities." The paradigm shift that is occurring for these students, who have been miseducated/socialized/convinced that Black possibility is a near-impossibility, is powerful for me, and hopefully powerful for them. They are learning to incorporate agency into their critical reflections, opening up the possibilities of powerful knowledge.
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