I first came across the Generation We video through my Twitter network. I think it was Alec Courous who posted it first. The video, while a bit overly produced and polished, seemed to have an urgent and authentic message. I followed the links to the website, and eventual I ordered the print copy of the book, although a PDF format is available from the website.

The book much like the video has its flaws, but over all the Generation We project appears to be a worthwhile endeavor. I will briefly highlight my criticisms, but I want to spend more energy on promoting the message, in hopes that more people will join the movement.

After reading the first few chapters, in which Eric Greenberg, identifies the make up of the Millennial generation, I found myself a bit insulted. The overly simplified generalizations, the slick use of stock photography, and the profusion of meaningless charts and graphs make the book appear to be more of a comic book than an important manifesto that will lead to any meaningful social change.

Greenberg spends too much time early on in his text, in my opinion, focusing on the importance of his project. The self-important tone early on in the book detracts from the powerful points he will later make. The overuse of colorful pull-quotes with words like “hopeful, optimistic, progressive, forward-thinking, and independent,” were a bit too much too handle for a cynical Gen X’er like myself.

I suppose that this sort of MTV-ifaction of his prose was meant to retain the attention span of a younger audience, but if Greenberg truly believes that this generation is as brilliant as he claims, then he should start by giving them a bit more credit, and simply deliver his message of hope and activism directly, rather than dilute it with shiny ornaments.

My second and final critique of this book is that we should always be skeptical of any one who so easily generalizes about large groups of people, making grandiose statements like:

Members of Generation We see their friend’s coming home from was with permanent injuries; they find themselves unable to afford healthcare, to save for retirement, or to fill up their tanks with gas. They blame the right for these problems, and they see the obstinacy and narrow-mindedness of conservatives as being antithetical to their own optimism and spirit of innovation. So they reject the failed solution of the right, even as they refuse to commit themselves wholeheartedly to any political party.

Chapter two of the book is riddled with oversimplifications like the statement above, but I suggest that readers simply skim the first chapter and get to the meat of the book. While Greenberg’s sophomoric style takes some getting used to, his message is a valuable one. This book would make an excellent text for any Global Issues class. Let us now explore its merits.

We are here to learn and evolve as souls, and this journey we call life is about having a higher purpose and meaning beyond satisfaction of our sense and accumulating possessions. Life is about working on behalf of others, taming our egos, and sharing our talents to make the planet a better place.

The book first outlines the pressing issues facing the world today:

• Environmental Collapse
• Health Catastrophe
• A Failing Educational System
• Economic Disaster
• Creeping Totalitarianism
• A World Ravaged by War

Each one of these bullet points is elucidated by sharp, concise prose like this:

Today’s mass media are effectively an instrument of mass consumerization. Commercials and editorial content both serve the same purpose: to brainwash viewers into choosing violent toys, processed food, fast food, and other poor lifestyle choices. They program us to spend our lives in front of a TV screen, video-game console, or computer monitor, where built-in tools for marketing, promotion, and habit influencing can work on us continually, making us sedentary, obese, diabetic, weak, and dependent on artificial stimulants. This then affects our cognitive ability and locks in spending, time, and consumption patterns. Before we know it, they own us. And if we are different and dissent, they marginalize us and ostracize us from society, abandoning us to lives of hopelessness, voicelessness, and poverty.

Suddenly Greenberg’s book is no longer a cute comic book, but a manifesto for a coming revolution. A handbook for a cultural lost in its own self-obsession and preservation. He goes on to say:

Simply put, Generation We inherits a planet in peril, in which plunderers who treat the world as their private property are exploiting institutions of government, society, and business to control resources, manipulate media and markets, and sell out the long-term interests of their nation and the world for personal short-term gain.

These hostile trends aren’t accidental, nor are they unconnected. They form a pattern by which plunderers and speculators seek to manipulate society so as to maintain and expand their own power and wealth. A former president and first lady used to speak about “a vast right-wing conspiracy.” Here, if anywhere, is the real conspiracy—collusion among business and governmental leaders, media moguls, educators, and religious leaders who have contrived national and international systems that serve to keep the people weak, fearful, helpless, and under control.

The goal of this conspiracy is not to impose ideological or political doctrine but simply to control the world’s power and wealth. These systems keep people sick and drained of energy through food that is non-nutritive, healthcare that is unaffordable, and an environment that is toxic. They keep people ignorant through an educational system that stifles dissent, stultifies creativity, and deadens the mind.

They keep people physically and psychologically dependent through reliance on illegal drugs, pharmaceuticals, other addictive substances such as nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol, and addictive behaviors such as gambling, electronic games, and mindless entertainment. They prosecute and convict record numbers of youth, especially minorities, to keep them from exercising the power of their numbers in the political system. They keep people frightened through constant drum-beating for war, exaggerated threats of terrorism, and media-created bogeymen (from Islamist extremists to illegal immigrants). And they keep people helpless through out-of-control debt, brainnumbing work, and financial dependency.

Their goal: to create a world in which the majority of the population are like high-paid serfs, unable or unwilling to organize, protest, or assert themselves and capable only of serving their corporate masters.

Greenberg goes on to outline the opportunities available to fight these perils:

• The Power of Technology
• The Global Spread of Knowledge
• Environmental Awareness and Holistic Thinking

And a comprehensive agenda for what needs to be done. (This agenda can be found from the PDF book on pages 145-147)

Maybe you have a few other items you would like to add to this list. That’s great. Our goal here is to prime the pump—to start a national conversation, especially among Millennials themselves, about where we want to take our nation and the world. We are proposing an agenda—a list of items for discussion—not a plan. It is up to you, and every concerned citizen, to take part in shaping the strategy. Maybe you think some of the goals we’ve listed here are too ambitious—that we are being unrealistic in our dreams for the future. You may be right. But history shows that the human capacity to achieve great things is far greater than we normally realize.

The book ends with an impressive  declaration and plan for action. You can find and sign it on the Gen We website. While I had qualms with the presentation of the content, I found this to be an important movement, and I recommend that teachers make the effort to connect our students to its message.

I plan on introduing this project to students on Intrepid Classroom. What do you think? How can your students get involved? Please leave comments with ideas about collaborarte,  and let’s do some work on the ideas presented by Generation We.

A few days ago, I was chatting with Lindsea on Skype about a variety of topics: music, education, and the need for adults to communicate more often and more in depth with students. We briefly brainstormed a few ideas we each had for the EduPunk challenge, when we arrived at the following slogan for her Street Art campaign: “Education everywhere. Take back your education.” We discussed the idea of Guerrilla Learning, and the idea that we realized was repeatedly emerging was this need for students and teachers/adults to meld their networks.

This is the first paragraph from my latest post for the students at Intrepid Classroom. I am reposting it here along with a link to the post in its entirety in hopes that any teacher or adult who is reading this blog will be motivated to come join us and add your voice to a growing community of teachers and students.

It is time that we join forces and stopping talking about our students and start talking to them, with them. I hope you will at least comment on the post or better yet, come join the Ning and be a teacher at the INtrepid Classroom! We are thirty something strong and growing. See you there.

I recently posed a challenge to my Intrepid Classroom. And now I am making the same challenge to you web savvy educator:

Do a bit of research about DIY and the punk ethics and see what you can produce to show you understand the concept of punk as it relates to learning and education. Use any tools you have at your disposable both digital and old school, then present your work on the Ning, the wiki, youtube, or your own blog. Don’s ask for clarification, don’t ask for what is acceptable; don’t ask anything just do it. Create! We have been mired in the past by too much discussion and collaboration, so this is an independent project and it is due by the 26th of June.

Come join our Ning, add to the wiki, share your voice with the young people you say you teach. Stop talking about these tools and use them. What will your Edupunk Project look like? June 26th, spread the word let’s see what happens!

School is all but out for most people very soon, but you can still invite your students to take on this project on their own. Have you taught them enough over the course of the year so they can?

I want to take this time to talk about and reflect on the Intrepid Classroom experiment I am working on. The mission statement of the class is:

Intrepid Classroom is a place where students of all ages from around the world visit, meet each other, share ideas, and decide what they want to learn from each other. The goal is to focus on the following topics: conflict resolution, global sustainability, peace activism, music and art as agent for social change, technology as a tool for social justice causes, but we are open to any other topics the readers of this blog suggest.We can discuss any topic we feel important here at the Intrepid Classroom. The hope is to create a fluid, organic curriculum that engages all participants.

What does that look like? So far we have 28 members from all over the world. We are using a variety of web tools to help create and maintain a natural network of students determined to investigate and pursue their own interests. I am fighting every urge to micro-manage the daily functions of our Ning, which seems to be the actual classroom where students come almost daily to talk about books, the war on terror, best forms of governments, music, or technology.

It has been fascinating for me, because I have taught some of these students first hand, while others I have never met. I am watching students from Doha discuss books with students I had in Malaysia, only to have a complete strangers join them from Costa Rica. I am allowing the students the freedom to explore and investigate not only what they want to learn, but how they will synthesis any new knowledge or skills they acquire. I often find them participating late on a Friday night or discouraged because tools are blocked at their schools. I am hoping that they will discover and share which of these tools are best for each task that they choose to pursue.

The point, I suppose, is for kids to realize that their learning is more than a grade. Seeking truth and knowledge is a natural and exciting human action. Furthermore, I hope they will realize that the search for this new knowledge need not be scripted or found in “approved” sources only. I want them to work with strangers to find meaning in their individual investigations. I cannot think of a more student centered way of teaching. I am not the expert, but another member of the network. I use the blog as a platform to share my thoughts and knowledge. It is becoming a great resource for political conscious music and film. I look forward to seeing it grow, so that the members of the class can share it with others.

I am always amazed by how much we underestimate students. When given the freedom to produce innovative work based on their own interests most of them will often surprise us. I am very pleased with our progress at this stage in the game. We are working with very few rules or guidelines, but there seems to be a synergy building that I am looking forward to exploiting.

Besides the blog and ning, we have a youtube channel for storing any video we may produce as well as a place to document and store video resources. We have started a wiki for a collaborative writing project as well as a place for brainstorming and collaborating on future projects.

Kids today do care about the world in which they live and are looking for ways to have a say in its administration. If you haven’t already been to the Intrepid Classroom please come by and snoop around. Join the Ning, we could use a few more teacher voices in our growing network, or use our resources to talk to your students about instilling a sense of creative activism. Invite them to join us. This is a great post to get them started. You may have to loosen the leash, but you will be surprised by how far they can run.

Although I am not getting paid and my future is still unclear,  I feel the need to be involved with my teaching network and trying to rustle up people who are interested in exchanging ideas and learning. Those are the reasons I teach anyway, not for a paycheck.

As I sat day after day, thinking about how the educational institutions of the world are mistreating me, I started to re-think what it means to teach in an institutional environment run at best by bureaucrats and at worst by corporate interests. I also began to brainstorm “perfect” classroom ideas. I have been forced to really sell myself to potential employers, and these negotiations have got me thinking about courses I would like to teach that don’t exist in most schools.

It appears that more and more people are starting to realize the fundamental flaw of teaching in a system that is based on profit. Teachers like Clay Burel and Bill Farren are asking us to rethink the very nature of how a school should function in society. As the global consumer cultures attains more and more influnce over all of our lives, should it not be the role of schools to offer young people alternatives to current systems.

Our schools should play a role in encouraging and teaching students the basic principles of activist culture. As the authority, teachers are nervous to tell an already rebellious group of adolescents to question authority, but we owe it to them to demand more of their educators.

I hope to play with some of these ideas further at the Intrepid Classroom, but I want to use this space to reflect on the reasons behind why these themes should be taught in traditional schools. I hope to create a sort of activist training school. A place where students can question the very systems they are told to worship. I would like to create a source of resources from art, to music, to web culture that helps students understand that although the mass media may try to make them believe they are powerless, there have always been people fighting for a better world, and most importantly they too can participate. Although perhaps not for much longer!
I have written in the past about my Utopian classroom, but now I want to focus on my perfect curriculum. The reoccurring themes for most of my ideas are the incorporation of Social Justice and Peace Activism into traditional curriculums. I see a series of specialized courses that deal with political, class-based issues, and artistic and philosophical themes. One such course would be an elective, probably a semester long on music as an agent of change. I hope to outline each course in depth, but for now I want to start drawing the rough sketches:

The music curriculum would study everything from sixties protest music, to the blues, to modern day singer/activists working for change. Students would not only listen to the music and examine and reflect on the lyrics, but they would also be asked to research and learn about the social problems that were the impetus of the music. As you can see there is already a Social Studies and Language Arts element to the material. They would also be asked to collaborate and create socially conscious music themselves. Using networking tools like Youtube, they would than try to promote their music to as wide an audience as possible.

I have taught a mini-music unit every year of my career, but it always seems forced, and it takes time away from the curriculum I “should” be teaching. Now that I am out of a real classroom, I hope to teach students about the power of music in a less constricting and confined environment We owe it to our students to not only study history, but learn to be a part of it.

How do you incorporate socially conscious material into your curriculum? What obstacle to you face?

I have been thinking about what role my classroom blog, Intrepid Classroom, could take during this time of involuntary sabbatical. I have been thinking about this transformation for several weeks, and I think I finally have enough structure to re-launch the site with some tangible goals and a compressible philosophy.

I hope that after visiting the site and reading the opening post of the Blog and the about page, you will use it as a resource for your students and invite them to enter the conversations at the Intrepid Classroom. I hope that this site will become an independent place for middle and high school students from around the world to come, meet, learn, teach, and share ideas. I hope to act as facilitator, social-network liaison, web 2.0 tutor, presenter, performer, observer, and organizer.

I want the site to focus on the following topics: conflict resolution, global sustainability, peace activism, music and art as agent for social change, technology as a tool for social justice, and any other topics the readers of the blog suggest.

In short, I want the site to be a place that students find interesting and entertaining, but also a place where they can challenge, not only mass media produced propaganda, but also their own entrenched culture beliefs.

Please read the introduction to the new Intrepid Classroom and share the link with as many educators and students that you know. Let’s see if we can create something special for both teachers and students. I would love to have guest contributors. People like Clarence Fischer, Clay Burell, George Mayo, Diane Cordell, and Lindsea come to mind as potential friends of the Intrepid Classroom.

If you want to get involved please leave suggestions or ideas in the comment section below.