What would you speak up for?
They came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
They they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for ME and by that time no one was left to speak up!
-Pastor Martin Niemoller 1892-1984
I've often heard the old saying: If you don't stand up for something...you stand for nothing, at all! How fitting this is in regards to what we have been participating in. Embracing and speaking up for those who are oppressed is our calling. We can't sit back and remain silent!
What can we do locally to affect change globally?
Art History Timeline
14 years ago
I think the sooner we adopt critical literacy as the primary mode of teaching and learning, the sooner our students will be made aware just how capable of action they are. We all need to be able to acquire a language that will help us to negotiate the competing discourses that are at work in the world that are effectively privileging the few over the many. I think that our Aboriginal Education initiatives at the Board is a good start. I think that this process will help people become more aware of the issues of power, race, class and gender and how they have influenced the evolution of the education system - a system that should be facilitating emancipation, but to this day still, is characterized by the very norms that have operated historically to exclude. We need not look further than the textbooks we use...
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