long gone

If you care to leave a comment I now reside @ markhinojos.wordpress.com!!!

DONE

Time to revamp my blog, will post a new address soon!!!!

Thinking With the People

These last couple of days have been an eye opener for me and some of my collegues. We have discovered and some may have discovered this allready, our educational system or let me just say our district does not want our people to think. The elites of today don't want to think with the people and they do not want to let people think for themselves. As a progressive educator and one that identifies itself with the oppressed I have learned that I need to continue to be a voice for the "rejects of life," and with the wretched of the earth"?

"The same is not true, however of revolutionary leaders; if they do not think with the people, they become devitalized. The people are their constituent matrix, not mere objects thought of. Although revolutionary leaders may also have to think about the people in order to understand then better, this thinking differs from that of the elite; for in thinking about the peole in order to liberate (rather than dominate) them, the leaders give of themselves to the thinking of the people. One is the thinking of the master; the other is the thinking of the comrade. "

"Domination, by its very nature, requires only a dominant pole and a dominated pole in antithetical contradiction; revolutionary liberation, which attempts to resolve this contradiction, implies the emerges during this attempt. This leadership group either identifies itself with the oppressed state of the people, or it is not revolutionary. To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders." Paulo Freire

Human Beings or Human Doings

" If my presence in history is not neutral, I must accept its political nature as critically as possible. If in reality, I am not in the world simply to adapt to it, but rather to transform it, and if it is not possible to change the world without a certain dream or vision for it, I must make use of every possibility there is not only to speak about my utopia, but also to engage in practices consistent with it. I feel it is essential to underscore, within the scope of my understanding of a human being as a presence in the world, that we, men and women, are a great deal more than beings adaptablt to the objective conditions in which we find ourselves. To the very extent that we become able to recognize our ability to adapt to concreteness in order to better operate, It becomes possible to take responsibility for ourselves as transformer beings." Pedagogy of Indignation

ABSORBED

How can we sum it up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were absorbed in their "God projects" that they did not notice God right infront of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.
Romans 9:30-33

Teachers as Cultural Workers

This year was a huge learning curve for me as a first time educator. I have witnessed teachers dehuminizing my kids, teachers as poverty pimps, students not wanting to enter the classroom because they feared the authoritarian that led the class and the capatalistic view of administration. I thought I knew what "empowering students" meant but I took it into another direction a direction that has prevaled, but now having the insight on students empowering themselves I see it in a different perspective. A perspective I need in order for me to be a progressive educator, my students like adults, are easily diverted from tasks that take effort. Therefore they need to discipline themselves to focus their attention on the task at hand. A humanistic appraoch would be great but I need more than that, I need what I call a Human-Authoritarian approach. With this approach I can guide, liberate and create a pedagogical climate in the classroom and at the same time maneuver myself around as the authoritative figure in the room.

"By refusing to deal with the issue of class priviliage, the pseudocritical eduacator dogmatically pronounces the need to empower students, to give them voices. These educators are even betrayed by their own language. Instead of creating pedagogical structures that would enable oppressed students to empower themselves, they paternalistically proclaim: "We need to empower students." This position often leads to the creation of what we could call literacy and poverty pimps: While they are proclaiming the need to empower students, they are in fact strengthening their own privileged positioned."
Letters to Those Who Dare Teach (Paulo Freire)

Poppin' My Collar

Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don't put it off, don't fustrate God's work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we're doing. Our work as God's servants gets validated-or not- in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly... in hard times, tough times, bad times, when we're beaten up, jailed, and mobbed, working hard, working late, working without eating, with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we're telling the truth, and when God's showing his power; when we're doing our best setting things right, when we're praised, and when we're blamed, slandered and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive; though rumored to be dead, beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; havingnothing, having it all.
02Corinthians 6.1-10 The Message Remix

Just a few thoughts on this battle we called life, personnally an internal battle, getting cought up huslting on my own, what was I thinking? Giving into my own rumors that I was dead, falsehood! The thought of being jailed and being mobbed of everything that I am, I can just see it trying to survive in a world that tells me I dont' even matter and I am just worthless what am I talking about, I have been living it. Moving on, immersed in his love and immersed in the love of others for me and being persistant on Poppin' My Collar!