“That’s the big trouble with our whole school system in this country. The kids are all educated to live a kind of life that they may never have a chance to live. A kid in the slums goes to school and is taught all about how to be President of the United States and he’s told that’s what he should try to be, when the fact is he will be darn lucky if he ever gets to be a truck driver. You know how mixed up our school system is.” SchoolEducationAmbitionAmerican DreamEconomic DisparitiesSocial Stratification Book:Reveille for Radicals Source: Reveille for Radicals
“In a survey of American educational institutions, Robert M. Hutchins, then President of the University of Chicago, developed the thesis that the character of our educational systems reflects the character of the society that sustains and engenders them. The society in this instance is one characterized by aggression, both individual and social, by a wide disparity of wealth, privilege, and opportunity, by materialistic values and standards, and by a rather confused and demoralized ideology. Our educational system is the inevitable progeny of its present society.” CharacterEducationSocietyIdeologyMaterialismAggressionInequityEducational Systems Book:Reveille for Radicals Source: Reveille for Radicals
“One of the most significant educational features of a People’s Organization is the fact that its all-inclusive and functional program shatters the shell of isolationism surrounding not only the community but the individuals that make up the community. In the first stages of the building of a community organization local provincial pride is placed upon a pedestal. As time goes on, the purpose, character and drive of the People’s Organization takes a direction which is the very antithesis of community chauvinism. The People’s Organization begins to learn, through its own practices, of the functional relationship between the community, the city, the state, the nation, and the world as a whole.” RelationshipsCommunityEducationBig PictureInclusivityIsolationism Book:Reveille for Radicals Source: Reveille for Radicals
“In a People’s Organization popular education is an exciting and dramatic process. Education instead of being distant and academic becomes a direct and intimate part of the personal lives, experiences, and activities of the people. Committee members find that they must become informed about the field of activities of their committee; they later discover that in order to be capable of carrying out their own activities they must know about all those other problems and activities that are related to the committee’s work. The committee that becomes interested in housing shortly finds itself involved in the fields of planning, health, race relations, and many other fields. Knowledge then becomes an arsenal of weapons in the battle against injustice and degradation. It is no longer learning for learning’s sake, but learning for a real reason, a purpose. It ceases to be a luxury or something known under the vague, refined name of culture and becomes as essential as money in the bank, good health, good housing, or regular employment.” EducationLearningActivismActivistsOrganizingRadicalsOrganizersPractical Knowledge Book:Reveille for Radicals Source: Reveille for Radicals