Here is a comment I recently left on a post by Ken Caroll called, Is Teaching a Subversive Act?

Good to see you again Ken. I find your posts and subsequent conversations very thought provoking. They linger in my head for days as I try and work out my arguments. Perhaps it is because I think we differ on so many fundamental levels, that I find our correspondences so valuable. But this time around, I do not want to come with an attack or break down your argument point-by-point. I have read all the other comments, but still do not feel the need nor have the energy to address each one individually.

I just want to express my thoughts on the concept of teaching as a subversive act. But before I begin, I think it is important to define the word subversive:

a radical supporter of political or social revolution
intended to overthrow or undermine an established government

Yes and yes. I am guilty on both counts. As an artist, a father, and a member of the human race I am a radical supporter of political or social revolution, because the world I see in front of me is not the place I want my daughter to live. I am well read enough in history to see patterns leading to the state the world is in, and I feel it is important to alter those patterns. I advocate the overthrowing not only of most current governments, but the very fundamental principles on which they are based. I advocate a new world vision, not of radical violent Marxist revolution, but a more synergistic, organic vision. I feel the revolution of which I speak is still be concocted by the very youth we are discussing. I feel it is my job to show my students that another world is possible, that they have the power to shape it.

So where does the subversion come into play? I agree with you that preaching, sermonizing and converting students to any ideology has no place in a classroom. Students should be allowed to weigh ideas for themselves and make informed decisions. The problem, however, is that we are not playing on a level playing field. Much of what young people ingest these days, from their text books, media saturation, advertising, and even moral values and life priorities are dictated by an uber-aggressive money making machine known as the new privatizing global economy.

The winners make the rules, and so they begin to market our children from the day they are born and create a race of apathetic consumers. Is it subversive to teach children to love and share and create outside the box created by a global economic system that teaches them to compete and one that measures success and happiness only through wealth?

As teachers we are told to ignore this elephant in all of our classrooms. I am not advocating teaching students that the current system is all bad, or that I have all the answers. I am simply saying that the system is not perfect, far from it, as it is sold to us. We must consider alternatives. The system itself does not like being criticized. See the tear gas and riot gear in all the anti-globalization demonstrations since Seattle 1999, but don’t students have a right to see alternatives to the history the system prescribes? Where is our history? Why are subversives forced to teaching under the dark of night? Why can’t we parade our heroes in our classrooms along with the Lincolns and Washingtons? Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey, Allen Gingsberg, and Hunter S. Thompson have every right to be heard in an objective classroom. Why aren’t Chomsky or Zinn on any major curriculums?

I entered teaching because as a teenager I realized that I couldn’t change the world alone. I needed help. As an adult, I am learning that this help is not coming from adults. So I look to the students in my classroom to look at the world objectively and make choices to help make it better. I am not subversive. I simply show them what I have learned. I share with them my life experience working in the third-world and inner city schools. I am a connector of worlds. I am a painter of pictures. I understand that the term make the world better is ambiguous and can be construed as neo-hippy blather, so let me put it in more simple terms. I believe in people who work to ease suffering. On all levels. In all places. At all times. That is why I teach. It is beyond politics, ideology, or subversion. It is my nature and I cannot teach any other way.