Here’s a great talk gathered from the Women’s International News Gathering Service (W.I.N.G.S.).

Lani Guinier, first black woman tenured professor at Harvard Law, has unconventional views but they are worth consideration. In this talk she argues how we lose parts ourselves and abandon the powerless as we further to seek to gain power within current power-centric structures. She argues that we should seek to ovalize power.

On a related note, there are still many who believe that Barack Obama becoming President was a giant leap forward because he is a person of color but does he still not represent the same oppressive power as before? Just as the Black South African leaders today still represent the same masters the whites did during Aparthied .

In this Ted talk from 2006, Ken Robinson questions the way our schools are being run. He argues that we are squandering the wealth of creativity that our children have in abundance.

I used to believe that music and the arts were merely extracurricular activities. I felt they had value I thought they were not as important as math, english, and science. Then I read the book Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change by Maxine Greene and it completely changed my view. In fact, that book helped inspire me to start ArgusFest. In it Greene argues that music and the arts are vital in education. That in order to heal the many social and environmental ills we now face we must first be able to imagine solutions. We must imagine a better world before we can create it. I know, it sounds like a no-brainer but I didn’t really make the connection at the time. I didn’t think about the fact that music and art exercise our imagination skills, which are so crucial in problem solving. And we sure have a lot of problems to solve.

So, if you like this talk by Ken Robinson then you will also like Releasing the Imagination.

John Taylor Gatto was a teacher in New York city public schools for 30 years and was the winner New York City Teacher of the Year on three occasions. He has become an outspoken critic of the compulsory American education system and has some thought provoking things to say.

“There was not a single day that I went to work as a school teacher…when I did not have a clear intention…to wreak some harm to forced institutional schooling.” -John Taylor Gatto

johntaylorgatto.com

If you enjoy this talk I also recommend watching the documentary film “A Touch of Greatness” about Albert Cullum.