i got to reconnect with my friend nick palermo at the pie throwing party the other night… please read this truly inspirational dream of his. one theme in his dream sums up my aims at easily amazed pretty succintly, “just examining the sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful world, looking for truth and lessons.”
my dreams last night were filled with pie-throwing messiness. Then we kind of paraded through the streets all messy. It was weird (it *was* a dream) and fun. Then there was this really strange part of the dream, and I thought it was so brilliant from the moment I saw it…
So as we paraded down the street in some unknown dream-neighborhood, I witnessed some thug using a blade to jimmy open the door at, of all places, a public school. Not sure what kind of school it was, elementary, middle, or high. I thought, “what a rat, would break into a school.” A couple of us approached the door to see what was going on in there. Instead of cleaning the place out, people (children, teenagers, adults) were gathered around in an auditorium kind of room, LEARNING! Some of the teenage kids were giving a very nicely designed and really high-tech presentation, complete with one of those fancy projectors hooked to a computer. So I asked someone what was going on. The person explained to me that this movement had formed where people would hold this kind of rogue class in public schools on weekends and vacation days. They all broke into the school, used the resources (like the projector and what not), and taught the kids how to teach each other using technology that they’d have to use later in life but that maybe wouldn’t be part of a normal class.
Furthermore, and here’s the kicker, the stuff they were teaching/learning/studying was *totally* out of the mainstream. Like the presentation that was going on when I walked in was some kind of behind the scenes of the civil rights movement – stuff they’d never teach in a regular class. You know, the public school version is just a couple “heros,” Rosa Parks and MLK, and they led everyone to equality. Well this version was more in depth, complete with militants on both sides of the issue, extensive controversy and disagreement, etc., way too complex and two-sided (not just a good guys/bad guys story) for public school kids. So while there’s no civil rights movement in the part I’ve read so far, I think this idea comes from a book I have and have partially read called “Lies My Teacher Told Me.” But at the rogue school, they were just examining the sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful world, looking for truth and lessons. It was like a school where Noam Chomsky is principal. It was an interesting end to a night full of crazy dreams.
so nick, when do you start teaching? or at least keep feeding us with such great ideas as this one!