If we will create a guerrilla movement among modern schoolteachers, we must proudly identify our collective spirit with Guerrilla History and Guerrilla Mythology.
Teachers, more than anyone in America, should appreciate what it takes to confront an IMPERIAL POWER with unbending intent and wily courage.
Despite the odds against them, bands of rebels have waged unconventional warfare throughout history against IMPERIAL POWERS who showed an overwhelming predominance in force and influence.
In every age a hero or sage….
A small band of Hebrew Maccabees oppose the Syrian Empire.
A ragtag army of American Colonists oppose the British Empire.
The Rebel Alliance opposes the Galactic Empire.
Gandhi makes GUERRILLA WARFARE a spiritual practice.
Why do we employ an analogy to GUERRILLA WARFARE to—- teaching in our public schools?
Che Guevara
Cochise, Chiricahua Apache
Miss Jones
THE EMPIRE no longer requires physical territory.
Today it asserts its Imperial Power over our FRAME OF MIND.
THE EMPIRE which we oppose is the predominance of the left hemisphere of the brain over the right hemisphere— Logic, Sequence, Literal-mindedness, Analysis are asserted with supremacy over Synthesis, Emotional and Artistic Expression, Context, a Comprehension of The Whole Picture. MORE
In our school system, the left-brained authority of NUMBERS AND DATA crushes any uprisings of right-brained pedagogical wisdom gained from over 2,500 years of teachers teaching— and thinking about it.
Traditional pedagogical wisdom has been ignored for the past thirty years.
In 2002 with No Child Left Behind, an Act of Congress committed the allegiance of our school children to the EMPIRE OF THE LEFT BRAIN.
THE EMPIRE then boldly invaded and occupied the otherwise sacrosanct public school system—- traditionally a cultural institution advocating “both-sides-of-the-brain” instructional programs.
For more than two decades, our nation’s educational leaders have served as agents of THE EMPIRE and not as advocates for children.
They have been planting their Banners of Rationality into increasingly younger and more innocent territories.
When our students are engaged in learning by playing, THE EMPIRE now requires us to make them sit down and sound out words. A five year old’s success, and ours, is valued by how well he can differentiate between the t-h sound in thin, versus the t-h sound in the.
When we spend time with our pupils dancing, singing, exercising, painting, performing poetry, acting out stories, we are shown mandates from THE EMPIRE requiring children to sit down and write earnestly in workbooks.
The Literacy Movement becomes far more IMPERIAL than empirical when our educational leaders extract a minimum of 120 clocked minutes a day for only one facet of human intelligence.
All teachers know that Harvard Psychology Professor Howard Gardner has described an array of Multiple Intelligences: Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical, Bodily Kinesthetic, Visual-Spatial, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal….
Our instinct and training tell us to encourage the unique capacities of each youngster in the classroom. In order to fulfill this purpose, we will practice guerrilla teaching.
There was a time in the New York City public school system when teachers had to force all children to write exclusively with their right hands. Today, all American teachers are being forced to make all children think exclusively with their left brains.
The Guerrilla Teacher, every single day, openly teaches THE WHOLE CHILD.
GUERRILLA TEACHING 3 /You Can Practice Guerrilla Teaching Tomorrow