Talking Back and Looking Forward

As schools grow more and more vulnerable to the whims of profiteers and, as a result, become less and less a sacred public space of learning and justice, the voices of everyday educators and students are increasingly marginalized. This is the tyranny of neoliberal school reform: silence the people who know education, the people committed to equity and justice, and elevate the voices and desires of the privileged few whose knowledge of education is peripheral and profit-driven. Talking Back and Moving Forward: An Education Revolution in Poetry and Prose is a collective response to this tyranny, a collecting rallying cry for reclaiming our schools. It is a chorus of voices from teachers, educators, and educational justice advocates who refuse to be silenced—who are standing up and responding to the imposition of damaging school reform initiatives. Unconfined by the conventions of the traditional scholarly voice, the contributors use poetry, memoir, short stories, and photography, choosing the expressions that most effectively capture their experiences and their demands for educational and social justice.

Table of Contents:
Dedication Foreword Introduction by Paul C. Gorski, Rosanna Salcedo, and Julie Landsman Chapter 1: Troubling Common Sense Regrouping the Children by Anne M. Beaton Quick Spring by Margot Fortunato Galt Artifacts by Mary Harwell Sayler out of the mouths of scholars by Kindel Nash Dots, Lines, Spaces, and Math by Geetha Durairajan Taco Night by Paul C. Gorski Chapter 2: Revealing the Cost of Educational Tyranny EDU Haiku by Mari Ann Roberts Standardized by Alison Stone Act V by Kelly Jean Olivas a lesson from an elementary principal by Korina Jocson Phoenixes by Julia Stein This Thing of Memory by Andrena Zawinski Answering the Call by J.F. McCullers The Auspices of Social Justice by Shannon Audley-Piotrowski Chapter 3: Honoring Liberated Voices I Apologize by Alejandro Jimenez A Classroom Assignment by María Gabriel “Where Are You From?” by Hana Alhady Felipe by Janice Lobo Sapigao unpredicted storm by Cathi LaMarche Chapter 4: Teaching Against the Grain Punk Has Always Been My School by Rebekah Cordova and Erin Bowers Pickled by Sarah Warren They Are Me and I Am Them: A Memoir of A Social Justice Educator by Cherise Martinez-McBride Look by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo Teaching from the Margins by Monique Cherry-McDaniel Peace by Walter Enloe You Gotta Be Ready for Some Serious Truth to Be Spoken by Debra Busman Chapter 5: Speaking Up and Talking Back Playground Futurities by James F. Woglom and Stephanie Jones The Richest Country in the World: A Fable by LouAnn Johnson Three Spaces of Exclusion: The 21st Century High School Integration of That Girl by V. Thandi Sulé They Said by Sarah Ann Gilbertson Language as Weapon: Lessons from the Front Lines by Lani T. Montreal Starfish (A Practical Exorcism) by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre All the Ways We Learn by Sarita Gonzales we pull the wool over this rainbow of eyes by Paul Thomas Use your words! by Mary Elizabeth Hayes Privileged and Under by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb The Goddess of Autumn by Richard Levine Chapter 6: Advocacy and Solidarity Connecting with Carlos by Amy Vatne Bintliff Praise by Julie Landsman Three Portraits by Jehanne Beaton Willie Alexander by Thomas Thurman Knowledge as a Function of Freedom by Toby Jenkins School Talk by Stacy Amaral letter to student by Sarah Warren Author Bios

About the Author :
Paul C. Gorski is an activist, author, and educator whose life revolves around social justice, environmental justice, and animal rights causes. He teaches in the Social Justice and Human Rights program at George Mason University. He lives in Falls Church, Virginia, with his two cats, Unity and Buster. Rosanna María Salcedo is a Latina artist, writer, educator, parent, and activist. She teaches Spanish and currently holds the position of Dean of Multicultural Affairs at Phillips Exeter Academy, a preparatory school in New England. Julie Landsman is a retired teacher, writer and teacher trainer. Her book A White Teacher Talks About Race is in its third printing. She enjoys working in schools and teaching creative writing to all age groups. Her latest book is Growing Up White: A Veteran Teacher Reflects On Racism. She believes student voices can drive educational change.

Review :
Talking Back and Looking Forward is a brilliant counter to lists of best practices that race to the top. This wonderful book evokes the transformational power of the arts to reclaim the identities, experiences, and injuries that standardization-policed-by-testing tries to erase from schools. Sometimes the spirit of resistance speaks, sometimes it sings--but always in unison with the voices of the oppressed, the excluded and those marginalized by injustices systemic to neoliberal capitalist society. And sometimes this spirit is amplified by educators advocating for them. This is a book in which the spirit of resistance is present in all of its polyvalent glory. It is a book that sings, that laughs, that weeps and that screams in fierce harmony with those forebearers of social justice who have over the decades forged a path towards liberation with both creativity and unyielding resolve. I hear their suffering and their joy echoed throughout every page of this book. I feel the stirrings of a new pedagogy of the heart. So-called education reformers have tried to convince the public that neo-liberal policies and no-excuses rhetoric are the answers to the problems of public education, particularly the problem of educational disparities. This volume takes on these so-called palliatives and speaks through the voices of real people to the problems of real people. In this moment when the narratives and debates about educational “reform” seem only to constrict, we need the arts more than ever to rattle and expand, and this is precisely what we find in this powerfully moving new book by Gorski, Salcedo, and Landsman, who have assembled educators and activists to speak through poetry and prose against the moment and towards a future yet untold. Passionate, illuminating, troubling, and inspiring, their words will sit with you as they stir you to action. Read it today. Reading this book was an inspirational breath of fresh air in the often stifling struggle for social justice in education. Hearing from fellow teachers and from students is a much needed break from the dialogue of well-meaning scholars who, though impassioned, are not in the classroom. I can see applications for this book both in my classroom and in my work as a teacher mentor. Poetry, like life itself, is about the world around us, and the world within. In this volume, teachers, students, and activists express with deep feeling what education should be, both in the world around us – our classrooms, schools, and communities – and within us – our hearts, minds, and souls. May all teachers and students hear the powerful messages about social justice, the current state of public education, and what we can do to change it, from the poetry in this heartfelt collection.