tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56635932012-02-16T13:33:54.451-05:00Thoughts on popular education, storytelling and activism for a possible better worldchrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.comBlogger3781100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-32360217461907025442012-01-18T14:53:00.000-05:002012-01-18T14:53:24.196-05:00

In the 1980s i was one of an army of volunteers who worked with Peter Watkins on his 14+ hour-long film The Journey which was a stunning examination of both mass media and the nuclear arms industry. I continue to look at the media world through that experience which gave me eyes and ears to see and hear the messages between the lines, in the cracks, underneath the static. Though I haven't

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-62512051978377967982012-01-18T13:36:00.001-05:002012-01-18T13:37:51.610-05:00

I"m a little behind in sharing things here. On it now.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-51065812159182553542011-06-22T21:02:00.000-04:002011-06-27T00:05:51.975-04:00

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chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-47622081824051395312011-05-25T21:35:00.004-04:002011-05-25T23:00:11.621-04:00

Eduardo Galeano is a great hero of mine. I'll spare you my waxing on about his greatness and let you get to listening to him more quickly. Clara sent me this video of an interview done in the context of the current Spanish Revolution. While it is in Spanish, i do recommend that those of you who do not understand spanish nonetheless listen at least to the section of the interview in which Galeano

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-62565543324117270942011-05-03T00:21:00.010-04:002011-05-03T21:33:59.574-04:00

Should i be surprised that Harper's ghoulish implication that The Apocalypse would be hastened if he didn't get his majority so that he could "get on with the business" of managing the economy? Is it surprising that in our woeful political culture (and antiquated parliamentary system) that fear is more persuasive and powerful than hope? Our politics is the victim of religion. But i'm not talking

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-76403735722527940042011-04-25T07:53:00.009-04:002011-04-25T11:42:13.969-04:00

We're having an election here in Canada and, while many people (in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Gaza, et al) are currently risking their lives and dying for a more just system of political rule many Canadians treat blithely if not contemptuously their right to vote. The media reports of "annoyance" with "another election" were a discouraging start to our democratic ritual. Nor can i be surprised at

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-73732676623256540392011-04-23T15:50:00.005-04:002012-01-18T13:59:23.488-05:00

Origami has been part of my life since before i can remember. Fortune-tellers, water bombs and, of course, paper airplanes. I'm not sure i knew about origami per se until my best friend Majid, a fellow CEGEP student (an immigrant from Iran) taught me how to make a paper crane - something he's learned in the UK from a fellow language student from Japan. I made hundreds of cranes, perhaps

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-43764138277151923802010-09-26T12:44:00.002-04:002010-09-26T12:52:24.688-04:00

Abuela Grillo from Denis Chapon on Vimeo.A simply delightful animation by Bolivian artists. Grandmother Cricket is perhaps part of the force behind the famous resistance of the city of Cochabamba to the attempted privatization of water by the World Bank, a consortium of private corporations (including Edison, Becthel Corporation and others) and the Bolivian government of Hugo Banzer. Thanks to

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-57465195971311767692010-08-13T09:03:00.002-04:002010-08-13T09:19:54.937-04:00

Just came across this playful presentation on neoliberalism by Tim McCaskell who should be a national treasure. Tim worked for many years for the Toronto District School Board in the anti-racism department. Thousands of Toronto highschool students went through multiculturalism and anti-racism workshops that Tim was instrumental in leading. A leading queer activist and educator in Toronto, Time

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-10502017162820048732010-08-08T19:21:00.003-04:002010-08-23T21:44:37.109-04:00

A friend just sent me the link to Jugar y Jugarse: 2da edición: Las técnicas y la dimensión lúdica de la educación popular by Mariano Algava (thanks, Josh) and i am wowed. Algava appears to be an Argentinian professor and popular educator. He's one helluva writer, for sure. I read spanish slowly but it was quickly obvious to me that here was a discourse of popular education that is rare in the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-59607447860040477552010-08-08T15:15:00.002-04:002010-08-08T19:11:23.050-04:00

Reflecting on so-called "community arts" in preparation for teaching this Fall, i've been revisiting many texts about arts, creativity and activism. This book, If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland was recommended to me over 20 years ago by a friend (thanks, Clara). It remains one of the most inspirational and useful texts i've read in my life. Over and

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-53141665963450834802010-08-07T09:16:00.002-04:002010-08-07T10:17:12.864-04:00

This fall i will be teaching Community Arts Practice Practicum Seminar at York University. It's the culminating course for students of the Community Arts Practice certificate program. This is giving me a chance to revisit much of my own art practice and learning as well as remember fondly a dear friend dian marino who taught at the Faculty of Environmental studies until her death from cancer in

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-38304207787372932922010-07-01T19:29:00.002-04:002012-01-18T13:54:55.820-05:00

In 1980 or '81 i had a radio show at CKUT (campus-community radio station based at McGill University). My show was from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. which pretty much ensured that no students were listening. But i did have a few listeners who connected through cable. Rooting through the bank of vinyl i looked for anything but pop music and one morning found a record by Willie Dunn that included the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-30282056594009793792010-06-16T08:21:00.005-04:002010-06-16T10:20:58.242-04:00

This publication includes some excellent articles on community arts practice by Jumblies members - a Toronto, Ontario-based arts group. Ruth Howard introduces the collection:This publication was conceived in 2007, out of enthusiasm for Jumblies’ new public seminars, which grew, in turn, from our learning and mentorship program – the Jumblies Studio – and the realization that there is a lot of

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-44342066106430408582010-06-16T08:09:00.003-04:002010-06-16T08:21:14.853-04:00

What About Me? Trailer - USA from Double D Productions on Vimeo.A good friend who lives with CFS/ME sent me the links to two trailers being used to raise funds to produce a feature length documentary. CFS/ME remains misunderstood, misrepresented, disbelieved in and ignored by medical systems and practitioners around the world. The suffering that people living with CFS/ME is made all the worse by

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-7103485436458796452010-06-10T19:51:00.007-04:002010-06-11T23:50:35.069-04:00

I learned from my aunt in Bath many years ago that my scottish grandmother's favourite expression was, "and this too shall pass." I learned these words from the story of King Solomon's ring:King Solomon once commanded his councillors to fashion him a ring and inscribe on it something that, when read, would turn his mood of joy to sorrow and of mood of sorrow to joy. The councillors worried over

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-92222168985705799472010-04-19T15:51:00.009-04:002010-04-19T19:24:25.484-04:00

I picked up John Banville's new novel The Infinities, read the first paragraph and was instantly hooked. Narrated by none other than the ancient winged-helmeted trickster Hermes, the prose packs a poetic wallop that brought tears to my eyes. Here's how the novel opens:Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works. When darkness sifts from the air

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-85000173344570838692010-02-28T23:01:00.001-05:002010-03-01T06:45:50.354-05:00

What are you carrying?Two monks, one old and one young, were walking through the forest from one monastery to another when they came upon a woman standing beside a river. She was finely dressed in delicate fabrics and was clearly afraid to attempt crossing the river however shallow it might be. The old monk approached the woman and offered to carry her across. The young monk was shocked. Once on

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-71029314007035010942010-02-27T23:28:00.000-05:002010-02-27T23:29:16.819-05:00

AlmostOne day, a talmudic student was meditating in the synagogue when the rabbi came in, went to the front of the synagogue, fell down on his knees, shouting, “I am nobody! I am nobody!” The student, so overcome by this display joined his rabbi and also shouted, “I am nobody! I am nobody!” This went on for a while when the caretaker of the synagogue witnessed this strange scene and, also

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-71201879750858227252010-02-27T22:14:00.002-05:002010-02-27T23:15:02.185-05:00

Tetsugen was a zen monk in 17th Century Japan and he had a dream to publish the sutras (buddhist teachings) in Japanese for they were only available at that time in Chinese. His plan was to carve wood blocks with which to print the sutras in 7000 copies. And so he began to travel and collect money. He would ask for donations wherever he went. He thanked everyone equally, whether they gave him 100

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-53223283129325217032010-02-15T11:38:00.003-05:002010-02-15T12:21:38.630-05:00

I've just learned about this 5th Int'l Conference of the Popular Education Network and am urging people to connect with it. If anybody trips across a pot 'o gold and feels like sharing... hint, hint. More likely, if someone from the Toronto-area can make it, please bring back news. Edinburgh, folks! Sweet. (It's my father's land).I learned about this network a year ago and, despite a number of

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-2548119929400037842010-02-15T11:32:00.002-05:002010-02-15T11:35:26.345-05:00

This music video, featuring the most adorable sock puppets i've seen in a while, tells a very sad story. There's one moment in this puppet performance that is an act of genius. And, overall, this work demonstrates what beauty can be created by simple things. Thanks to Dana for sharing.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-76843371484820893772010-01-30T21:22:00.001-05:002010-01-30T21:23:50.021-05:00

And a Horse Came BackCupDanceEscapeFaithFate of a BirdFill ItGod in EverythingGood FriendsHeaven and HellListening to the LandNatureOne WishOrigin of WritingParable about DissentParable for OrganizersRiding BicyclesSearchingSimple GiftsStop Eating SugarStrawberryThat's PlanningThe 36 Just MenThe CureThe Master ArcherThe New DogThe Old Man and the ScorpionThe Old Woman and the PotThe PickpocketThe

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-64666805989370170472009-12-25T12:13:00.001-05:002009-12-25T12:13:57.883-05:00

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-40775503412426920812009-09-05T11:02:00.007-04:002009-09-05T22:55:29.219-04:00

I am both scare-proof and creeped-out-proof on account of a life of reading and watching science fiction and horror literature and film. So when a story or film gets under my skin I know two things right away: it will be with me a long, long time; and it is an unusual and powerful work of art. Such is my subjective measure for such things. Only a few minutes into the film and I knew District 9

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-58789535858977169122009-08-10T22:38:00.019-04:002009-08-22T12:38:13.654-04:00

What will it take for the ruling forces of our nations to admit that capitalism isn't working? Of course capitalism is almost never overtly talked about in the popular/mass media and certainly not in our governments. It is effectively veiled behind the supposedly neutral jargon of "the market" and "economics" both of which are used in place of "the capitalist market" and "capitalist economics".

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-37795026654121041462009-08-09T20:44:00.006-04:002009-08-10T14:32:49.876-04:00

To organize or not to organize? Is that the question? Or perhaps the more truthful question is: To be organized or to organize?Our world organizes us. History (written to favour certain interests over others - see Howard Zinn's work), class (see Marx), racism, gender and more all precede the (hopefully) happy accidents of our birth. We all begin life as unwitting participants in processes that

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-44503173262736092912009-08-04T06:56:00.010-04:002009-08-08T00:01:43.422-04:00

Popular education, for me, has always been about exercising the most loving and respectful disposition towards people and the world of which i am capable. Thus have i often returned to Paulo Freire's words from Pedagogy of the Oppressed about the necessary qualities and values of democratic dialogue: love, faith, hope, humility and critical thinking (Continuum, 1993, pp. 89-93). Love remains a

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-55927272612725426452009-07-16T15:27:00.007-04:002009-07-18T23:39:48.098-04:00

Bayou by Jeremy Love (ZudaComics/DC) is gorgeous. I've glanced at webcomics over the past few years and i've been amused and even delighted by some - particularly Scott McLoud's brilliant work. But i can't say as i have been wow'ed by any and my loyalty to the crisp, new still-got-the-smell-of-fresh-ink comic book has remained strong and intact. Now i am wow-ed. i noticed a print edition of

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-88947812909138670202009-07-16T07:24:00.008-04:002009-10-21T09:52:59.928-04:00

Now that i am a father of a soon-to-be 10-month-old (as well as a step-father these past two years to a teenager and an 8-year-old) i find that all that i do, read, see, and know gets immediately evaluated for its relevance to the kids. Ahhh, parenting.My thoughts this week have turned to the teaching and learning of the young. Robert Strange McNamara's death has evoked an outpouring of renewed

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-34432410359531066002009-07-13T17:08:00.004-04:002009-07-13T20:48:02.385-04:00

I thought i'd write a fresh intro to the Naming the Moment process looking at it from the point of view of community development.Naming the Moment is a popular education method for doing social change and community development work.There are two fundamentals upon which NTM is based:Creating just relationships (i.e. anti-oppression alliances, coalitions, etc.) for the long term necessitates making

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-40514393510178896552009-07-03T21:53:00.003-04:002009-07-04T00:24:35.524-04:00

My mum sent me this video (thanks, mum) knowing that the cleverness of the "rainstorm" would appeal to me. As it turns out the hand-rubbing, finger-snapping, thigh-slapping, foot-stomping sequence is an activity that i have done with groups for over 20 years. I've always used it as a focusing or calming exercise. It works wonderfully as a way of closing a workshop and it has many other uses, i am

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-72602358640527553032009-06-21T08:55:00.002-04:002009-06-21T09:11:26.804-04:00

This popular education manual for workshops on precarious employment contains a dozen basic activities plus a handful more in the appendices. You can use some of the activities as workshops unto themselves (e.g. jobology, precarious work wheel) or use them in combination to support workshops of between three and six hours. Produced for the Immigrants and Precarious Employment Project, which:

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-701672368813589032009-06-17T21:17:00.008-04:002009-06-22T09:12:49.451-04:00

A community mapping workshop at PARC (the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre on Queen St.) was a great success this week. With 40 people attending from both the neighbourhood and across the city and including members of the PARC community, we spent two and a half hours talking about food, our experience of getting it and doing some community mapping together. You can read the proceedings of the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-77486757656423529252009-06-08T23:55:00.017-04:002009-06-09T21:34:05.486-04:00

Community mapping is a practice that seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. This 'zine, featured here (it's a 4 meg PDF), is the project of a graduate student at York University. Hannah Lewis is in the process of researching community mapping practices in Canada and she has turned up an amazing diversity of practices and theory. Research from which i am learning a great deal.In 1986 i learned

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-71386969061122087452009-06-07T10:48:00.003-04:002009-06-07T11:03:07.313-04:00

I remember this video from 2000 and i was enchanted then by the choreography and mildly, self-mocking dancing by the band members. I'm delighted to see it show up on YouTube. This is one of my favourite pop songs, second only to my favourite pop song of all time (a carefully guarded secret).

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-58692785660454491122009-05-06T23:27:00.004-04:002009-05-06T23:34:31.635-04:00

Just learned about this from Chiara (thanks) and BoingBoing. According to this website, Because We Love You, this is a Danish campaign to persuade bicyclists to wear helmets. I gotta say that a hug and a helmet is pretty persuasive! I'm posting this one for J'net (and the kids).

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-38085673951754584362009-05-05T23:12:00.003-04:002009-05-05T23:23:42.448-04:00

Democracy Now! broadcast the news of Augusto Boal's death this week and included an excerpt from an interview done a few years ago (it starts at about the 30 second mark). In this interview Boal quotes the much-quoted poem by Antonio Machado which includes the line "we make the road by walking". Here's the transcript of the excerpt from Democracy Now!'s website:“And I only have one dream. It’s

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-37279172074757878832009-05-02T21:53:00.004-04:002009-05-03T20:20:21.296-04:00

Augusto Boal passsed away in Rio de Janeiro early this morning after being hospitalized on April 28 on account of a respiratory infection, according to the Brazilian website Zero Hora. Augusto has been living with leukemia for some time and had just cancelled his travel plans to attend the annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in Minneapolis in a few weeks.Zero Hora writes:Born

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-9981726178300393072009-04-30T11:15:00.003-04:002009-04-30T11:25:21.009-04:00

Dan Yashinsky shared the following story with many years ago. Not long after the first Gulf War, as matter of fact. A woman he had met in the airport in Tel Aviv had learned the story in Baghdad and had written it down on some very wrinkled loose leaf paper. I volunteered to decipher the tale. And now, after so many years of Baghdad dominating the news and as the US occupation continures, I feel

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-87821199996714734022009-04-28T10:39:00.002-04:002009-04-29T23:07:46.292-04:00

On Monday evening i participated in an art workshop given by Favianna Rodriguez as part of Mayworks: Festival of Working People and the Arts which runs until May 3 here in Toronto. It's not often that i'm a participant in a workshop given that i am, so often, the one giving them. It was great to kick back and learn about Favianna's work as a printmaker and digital artist. Amongst other things (

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-59209106960666757312009-04-26T20:38:00.006-04:002009-04-26T22:17:19.895-04:00

A long time ago i decided that there was something wrong with the way we made, followed, elevated leaders such that i eschewed ever wanting to be such a thing. I learned the language of "leadership" from the work of Movement for a New Society gang as represented by books like Resource Manual for Living Revolution and Leadership for Change: Toward a Feminist Model. And i reflected (principally

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-42144050192299300552009-04-19T15:28:00.008-04:002009-04-26T20:19:11.183-04:00

Chanda Mama from Playing For Change on Vimeo.Well, i've got J'net keeping me honest about writing towards one of the many books i fancy gestate within me, and yet are perpetually deferred in favour of innumerable (if always seemingly worthy) endeavors (or distractions?). And i'm reminding myself of advice i learned from writer Alan Garner (a childhood favourite and author of one of my favourite

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-62722281406874581062009-04-17T16:21:00.003-04:002009-04-22T07:24:28.474-04:00

A big thank-you to Almira for sharing this. I'd not heard of Playing for Change and as beautiful as is this first gorgeous 20C spring day here in Toronto, it is the more beautiful still for learning of this global collaboration. I've been singing a whole lot of lullabies and gospel and folk songs and shape notes hymns lately (it's great to have the audience of such singular devotion that an

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-14837163831444381852009-03-28T16:01:00.005-04:002009-03-28T22:25:29.383-04:00

There is an excellent forum on socialism on The Nation website that starts with a piece called Rising to the Occasion by Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher, Jr. and which includes provocative commentary from Tariq Ali, Mike Davis, Rebecca Solnit and others. There's also additional response from Michael Albert of Znet here. It's good reading. And yet my feeling is one of frustration. For it's

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-47548543665994534512009-03-22T18:47:00.005-04:002009-03-22T19:26:55.738-04:00

I think it's the most magical corner in the neighbourhood. Every spring the crocuses have exploded on this corner in wondrous abundance. My daughter and i were out for a walk this Saturday past (the second day of Spring) and we took a detour to see how the crocuses were doing. Only a few had opened and most were probably waiting for today's glorious sun. Year after year the crocuses return, as do

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-78484899228553808642009-03-15T10:24:00.005-04:002009-03-15T12:46:34.642-04:00

In my ongoing search for and development of trickster pedagogy, i have just come across Avner the Eccentric's "Eccentric Clown Principles" which i found through Mady Schutzman's site: Jokers Run Wild and which includes some of her writing on Guru Clown (the site is a bit tricky to navigate and i recommend using the site index). However, these principles are relevant to more than clowning. One

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-73458683177655906192009-03-13T21:01:00.004-04:002009-03-15T12:47:35.456-04:00

Watching this video filled my heart with such delight that it spilled out in tears. I am very grateful for this piece of sublime art. The emotions that sweep over me as i watch this are legion. I think of the grief and loss, the brutality and inhumanity of the recent attacks on Gaza and the hate and anger that continues to reverberate around the world in defense of Israel's actions and in

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-35674236486010743092009-03-07T22:58:00.001-05:002009-03-07T23:00:56.224-05:00

(Thanks, Paula, for passing this on!)

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-8168440978176893822009-02-20T19:27:00.002-05:002009-02-20T19:40:31.124-05:00

Interface: A Journal For and About Social Movements is a new on-line journal (everything is accessible) that includes looking at popular education. I like that the editors identify themselves as ranging from activists to academics. Their mission statement includes:We are activists from different movements and different countries, researchers working with movements, and progressive academics from

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-47502665707994948532009-02-16T13:37:00.002-05:002009-02-16T13:47:36.488-05:00

I posted about these videos a couple of years ago, but now they've both made it to YouTube as well as having grown substantially. You can check out their original material here: Tetes a claques; and they now also have an English site here. I'm afraid the stuff isn't half as funny in English - especially this Halloween one which is one of my favourites. So if you can enjoy the French it is well

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-87641491523094985632009-02-15T15:46:00.003-05:002009-02-15T16:22:51.982-05:00

The house is strewn with pins and needles and a rainbow array of strips of fabric. It looks like a crazy wind has blown through leaving this varicolored chaos. Or it's like a wake that you can follow to find J'net hunched over her sewing machine at all hours of the day and night. True, i flee for the couch downstairs when the sewing machine in churning out the workings of J'net's imagination.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-9156077792253716282009-02-08T09:45:00.004-05:002009-02-08T10:41:21.705-05:00

More than anything else during all the hullabaloo of the proroguing of parliament last December i was discouraged by the spectacular ignorance of Canadian democracy that was exposed. Nor was this simply ignorance of the Canadian populace. A citizen not otherwise specializing in democratic process can be forgiven for failing to understand the (often arcane) formalities of parliamentary democracy

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-18113115798394232742009-02-07T21:37:00.002-05:002009-02-07T21:57:17.181-05:00

I just tripped across this Crowd-Sourced Reading List which is worth spending some time with. It's ostensibly about writing ab out science, but there's more to the collection than that, of course. It includes some of my faves like Stephen Jay Gould (i hope when i grow up i can write like him), David Quammen (who Matt & Sally have turned me onto), Oliver Sacks (who's simply too brilliant and kind

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-88829548572101314372009-02-07T13:40:00.004-05:002009-02-07T13:50:31.703-05:00

A Sustainable Writing Lab Workshop with moi ;-)Wednesday, Feb. 18, 12:30 - 2:00 pm, room HNES 142 at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University.Hegemonic common sense trains people to believe that writing somehow exists apart from reading - that these are two separate acts. And yet one cannot exist without the other. Light needs dark, work needs play, meat needs salt (or so says an old

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-77118371053897320792009-02-07T13:05:00.002-05:002009-02-07T13:28:41.433-05:00

This storytelling concert is sure to be a rewarding outing if you can take it in. I've been listening to Jan's telling since i moved to Toronto in the early 90s and i'm never less than impressed. Jan has a knack for bringing to life old tales that yet have remarkable relevance in our modern world. I've always admired how she manages to convey the complex layers of meaning that exist in these

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-1557024451627138832009-02-01T09:02:00.009-05:002009-02-06T10:45:42.122-05:00

Trickster pedagogy is also about clowns. And to honour this belated point i am belatedly adding Culture Collective to my list of favoured resources (see the right hand column). I met Jacob ad Elizabeth of Living Folklore many years ago and despite the miles between us their work has inspired me (and my funny bone) ever since. For i do believe that clowning represents an ancient pedagogy (

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-12534807089853254102009-01-17T12:51:00.002-05:002009-01-17T12:59:30.431-05:00

Getting Tricky :: Asking Challenging Questions with Trickster Pedagogy from Christopher Wulff on Vimeo.Last summer i was interviewed about "trickster pedagogy" after having given a wee talk about it to a group of alumni of a leadership program. I'd forgotten all about it when i bumped into Christopher Wulff who had loaded this up to a website some time ago. It's 11 min and 28 seconds long and i

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-38540374957659255102009-01-16T19:28:00.004-05:002011-01-30T10:23:30.440-05:00

I learned about this demonstration just as my friends were being arrested. What courage!Yet again i come close to despairing of the situation between Israel and it's colonized territories. The brutality against Gaza is horrific. And the media war of pointed silences, contradictory information, propaganda and misinformation is enough to make me want to crawl under a rock. But i was amazed to

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-55837137370136409672009-01-12T11:12:00.005-05:002009-01-12T12:04:34.488-05:00

Life's Gifts I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift—in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, "Choose!" And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!" And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-6638931598525590252009-01-04T21:43:00.002-05:002009-01-04T22:02:55.054-05:00

The season of revels is coming to an end. Tomorrow is Twelfth Night and i had hoped to finish preparing a bankelsang of a raven story based on a story from J'net's culture found in E. Richard Atleo's Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview. Well i'm still working on the story, but i offer you this clip from the 1990s TV show Northern Exposure. The winter solstice has, for many cultures, been a time

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-79382609123393631062009-01-04T07:57:00.002-05:002009-01-04T08:12:26.140-05:00

There was this woman who was stressed out. She’d got dragged out in front of the Media and the Vatican and her Dad. Everyone was looking angry and mean and they had big yonnies in their hands and they were gonna chuck ‘em at her. They reckoned she’d had an abortion and was on the pill and was gay. They really wanted to kill her.She was pretty scared. Her heart kept banging against her ribs

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-64592514170144221592009-01-01T16:30:00.007-05:002009-01-02T09:40:22.129-05:00

I confess that if there is a spectrum of relationships to books that runs from bibliomania (the only officially recognized mania pertaining to collecting things) to bibliophile to just-don't-give-a-damn-i-watch-TV-anyway, that i am somewhere between the "phile" and the "mania". I do love books. And if i have a passion for collecting them, i am still safely distant from the pathological extreme.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-48643811104481375052009-01-01T10:35:00.003-05:002009-01-01T13:11:55.505-05:00

In 1984 and 85 i spent a good deal of time in Nicaragua where i learned spanish, volunteered on farms (planting potatoes and talking about Salvadoran guerilla's need for very good watches), taking thousands of photos and cutting coffee, amongst other things. This photo of Umberto, one of the worker-owners of the coffee farm where i worked for a few weeks, is one of many i hope to scan and share

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-70449696396890177842008-12-30T11:46:00.003-05:002008-12-31T19:28:44.027-05:00

Still more about the bittersweet: the popularity of the phrase "we make the road by walking" finally compelled me to do my own translation of the Antonio Machado poem from which it comes. While i appreciate the way the phrase is used as a pithy statement making-it-up-as-we-go-along of self-organizing, the phrase, taken out of context, is seen as an optimistic and hopeful sentiment. However, the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-86764921758718372162008-12-30T10:57:00.002-05:002008-12-30T11:18:31.761-05:00

I just learned of Neutral Milk Hotel from a friend (thanks, Rani) who says that they're lyrics are wonderful. And i agree. I am struck by the bittersweet (hardly surprising for me) nature of this short piece. And i am once again amazed and enchanted by the human capacity to make beauty from pain and suffering. This is a complicated truth about us wordy creatures. The philosopher David Spangler

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-47080959797247611182008-12-28T23:09:00.002-05:002008-12-29T00:11:41.838-05:00

My life has been turned topsy turvy in the past couple of years. If you'd told me two and a half years ago that i would be rounding out 2008 with a new born child, two step-children and a brilliant and beloved partner, calling you crazy would have been the merest hint of my skepticism. This year has been one of learning to live with many more people in my life. While yet keeping up with the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-66852521979884719282008-12-06T23:21:00.007-05:002008-12-06T23:38:07.250-05:00

Yup, things aren't looking great for the strike at York University. With the newborn to care for, i'm feeling the pinch like i've never imagined i might. Alas...i"m reposting this Australian video about unions that i simply adore. It's as funny the 50th time as it was the first. Humour is such a wonderful weapon. and we need to speak truth to power as the Quakers say. As well as being mindful of

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-8269341484313673332008-12-06T23:15:00.003-05:002008-12-06T23:38:48.890-05:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or DieI was deeply disturbed to hear of the success of Prop 8 in California this past election cycle. It amazes me to hear that homophobic society is as strong in California as it seems to be. With the film about Harvey Milk coming out soon i am reminded of how deeply moved and influenced i was by the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. I am anxious for the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-81807245632589614732008-11-11T16:16:00.001-05:002008-11-11T16:17:51.128-05:00

Michael Franti is a god!

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-9306345787337396332008-11-11T16:09:00.002-05:002008-11-11T16:15:30.357-05:00

As some of you know, i am on strike with CUPE 3903 at York University. It is a perennial struggle. And it reminded me of this video which i posted last winter and is worth re-posting.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-28359040133057040132008-11-10T11:28:00.004-05:002008-11-10T11:42:18.928-05:00

I've extracted some descriptions of collective mural activities from a 'zine i'm working on about art and popular education. You can download the murals descriptions here. You can use this document to guide your production of any one of a variety of mural methods. They are good both for popular education work as well as political action.Murals have a long and respected history in social justice

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-50494701188927615662008-10-28T18:47:00.003-04:002008-10-28T19:20:47.058-04:00

Some years ago we developed a popular economics course. It's about 40 hours of activities over about ten sessions (of three hours each). And it barely scratches the surface of the topic. We developed a number of tools for that course including this one here which we call JOBOLOGY. I used it a couple of weeks ago in the popular education class i teach at the Faculty of Environmental Studies and i

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-28481760880682812852008-10-23T18:43:00.004-04:002008-10-23T19:02:23.463-04:00

Here's a couple of videos from Old Crow Medicine Show (whom i have Matt to thank for introducing me). While i have an expansive love of all music, i have a special place for the those types of music that catch the bittersweet of life: acadian fiddle, cajun zydeco, bluegrass and bagpipes. A cajun or bluegrass waltz can transport me. And a lament played on bagpipes will often bring tears to my eyes

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-75347923359187123272008-10-04T23:59:00.004-04:002008-10-05T08:31:03.790-04:00

Check out www.voteforenvironment.com (see below for explanation).Okay, Stephen Harper scares me. But it is less anything that he says that scares me than what appears absent, i.e. some humanity, a bit of doubt, perhaps. While U.S. vice-presidential Sarah Palin performs a blithe, arrogant and contemptuous certainty about her conservative values with a winking (vapid) vim and vigour, Harper

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-65725526973117374422008-10-04T10:22:00.003-04:002008-10-04T10:29:05.491-04:00

As some of you may know, outgoing prime minister (i hope) of Canada Stephen Harper thinks that artists are whiners. As reported by the Canadian Press, Harper said:I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see ... a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala all subsidized by the taxpayers, claiming their subsidies aren't high enough when they know those subsidies have

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-41151178879057448052008-09-30T18:49:00.002-04:002008-09-30T19:30:28.129-04:00

Well, i'm well into a new season of teaching and work and, of course, baby-raising (Oy!). And this year, in addition to the Popular Education for Social Change graduate class that i teach at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University i am also teaching an undergraduate class called Perspectives in Environmental Studies. It's a very popular class that my colleague Peter Timmerman has

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-67649137754830441742008-09-29T22:10:00.002-04:002008-09-29T22:33:35.878-04:00

I just learned about more on-line manuals for human rights and facilitation:Action for the Rights of Children (ARC) Reach Out Training Kit: Facilitator's Toolkit (also available here as Word docs and in Spanish, French and Arabic)People's Watch in India - a great collection of curricula

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-42880648454272268572008-09-29T21:22:00.002-04:002008-09-29T21:43:45.151-04:00

Just got sent this video (thanks, Clara). Stephen Harper who is running for Prime Minister in Canada has said he would cut arts funding to the tune of $45 million saing, at one point, "You know, I think when ordinary, working people come home, turn on the TV and see … a bunch of people at a rich gala all subsidized by the taxpayers, claiming their subsidies aren't high enough when they know the

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-70547183941442894022008-09-29T21:11:00.002-04:002008-09-29T21:16:40.661-04:00

A few things have changed in my life. A new life in this house. Meet our wee mister.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-1028418855897042682008-09-12T08:06:00.000-04:002008-09-12T08:08:35.095-04:00

There are some excellent articles in this publication from the McGill University-based Paulo and Nita Freire Project for Critical Pedagogy. A couple of the articles i'll be reading include: "But What Can I Do?": Fifteen Things Education Students Can Do to Transform Themselves In/Through/With Education by Paul R. Carr and Notes from a Fan: Paulo Freire Comes to Idaho by Dale T. Graden

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-91311651565468472602008-08-18T14:08:00.003-04:002008-08-18T16:15:42.986-04:00

Brett Dennen's song and video (in preceding post) reminded me of two other similar productions. One is this rather elusive video called Drop the Debt. I believe it was first produced by Comic Relief in Britain but it has since been hosted on an Australian World Vision site. It looks like it's been on YouTube a couple of years now. It's a wickedly clever production with numerous layers of irony.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-15645943735647355112008-08-17T23:21:00.002-04:002008-08-17T23:40:06.829-04:00

Listening to Thursday's episode of Democracy Now i was grabbed by the song played at the last break: Ain't No Reason by Brett Dennen. The lyrics cut straight into my heart. It's a rare song that does that so quickly. I'd not heard of this fellow before today. And i'm impressed. This video that i've linked is a heartbreaker - not sentimental heartbreak but rather the heartbreak of truth. It's

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-88925767813747541562008-08-13T10:33:00.005-04:002008-08-15T07:18:47.395-04:00

Remembering Freire/Reinventing Freire is a two DVD set that has long been needed by popular educators. The occasion of this production was the "Conference and Dialogue on the 10th Anniversary of the Death of Paulo Freire" held on May 2, 2007 at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto (and coordinated by the Ontario Region of the Canadian Association for

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-44131762314904806942008-07-31T15:11:00.003-04:002008-08-02T14:40:56.396-04:00

I've just learned about Uncle Earl recently (i am so out of the loop) and they rock (if you can say that about a bluegrass band). I'm a sucker for bluegrass waltzes amongst other things. This mashup is a hoot - and makes me remember fondly the trek out to Greenfield Park in the Montreal suburbs (where i barely survived blandland until moving to the Plateau in my late teens) to see those

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-33116097999546562392008-07-16T13:58:00.003-04:002008-07-16T14:03:23.219-04:00

by Vincenza Spiteri DebonisEvery Friday morning we met, the seven of us. We were the circle. Our power was in our vulnerability with each other. We meditated, we read, we were present in dialogue. We were the circle. Illness took one of us away. Then there were six. Every Friday morning we met, the six of us. We were the circle. The questions were asked by the others, “What do you talk

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-26564673875532638582008-07-13T22:27:00.004-04:002008-12-10T04:54:47.173-05:00

As i re-design the Popular Education for Social Change class that i teach at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, i've been re-reading Pedagogy of Freedom (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998) by Paulo Freire. Paulo's work has guided me my whole adult life and i'm always surprised and delighted to learn new things from words i've read and assumed i'd understood. Once again i'm

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-45768463999739383232008-07-10T16:19:00.000-04:002008-07-10T16:21:57.623-04:00

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-5823563129363423182008-07-07T20:53:00.004-04:002008-12-10T04:54:47.300-05:00

This manual is on-line and well worth checking out. Even if you think workplace safety and health is incidental to your work (and you shouldn't think that, since the "workplace" is where a helluva lot of us spend a lot of time), this manual includes some great material on group process, self-study and more. For example, it includes "committee basics" such as "ground rules" and "effective

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-4576852141808114282008-07-04T19:35:00.006-04:002008-12-10T04:54:47.464-05:00

I just learned that Oliver passed away yesterday. I've been listening to his music daily for several months and am sad that he will no longer be among us. When i moved to Toronto almost 20 years ago one of the things i recall most vividly from the early 90s was going to see a play called The Storyteller At Fault - a storytelling and fiddle show. Dan Yashinsky performed a collection of his tales (

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-86568154490005177662008-06-12T11:14:00.005-04:002008-12-10T04:54:47.668-05:00

It was a moving day, though the emotions are complex. The government's apology was long in coming and did not come until it had been pushed and pushed. But the content of the apology was impressive. And if the emotion and sincerity was lacking at times, i would say that that that non-aboriginal Canadians simply have the greater obligation to open our hearts and imaginations to learn more and act

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-79147101865026711232008-05-22T21:21:00.004-04:002008-12-10T04:54:47.967-05:00

At this year's inaugural Toronto Community Development Institute, some community artists with ArtsAccess set up a button-making station for Institute participants to make their own buttons. It was a wonderful activity and you can see pictures of many of the buttons made on the Collection X website. The button above is titled "Spring Into Action" by Vincenza Spiteri DeBonis and seems a fitting one

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-40256756985676424452008-05-17T08:20:00.003-04:002008-12-10T04:54:48.125-05:00

You can find this curriculum on-line and freely available on the Income Security Advocacy Centre's website. The 120-manual is available as one not-so-large PDF (980K) and as separate MSWord files. The curriculum supports a basic three-hour workshop that ISAC and Campaign 2000 are delivering across Ontario (in 7 different communities). The objective of this workshop is to involve low income people

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-89369058160267646212008-05-17T08:12:00.002-04:002008-05-17T08:19:45.453-04:00

Well, we were both surprised and deeply moved to see how fast our friends and community responded to our appeal. We'd hoped to raise $2000 by May 6th and we had hit that target by May 1st - only two days after launching our appeal. By May 6th we had raised $3000 and as of this past week we have raised over $5000. The cheques and on-line donations continue to arrive. And we hope that we continue

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-85841439164229583392008-04-30T11:07:00.003-04:002008-12-10T04:54:48.371-05:00

Yup, we're hurting.It all started with an idea: could we create a popular education organization that practiced the very ethics, pedagogy and politics that we presumed we could teach (facilitate, develop, support, etc.) to others? Matt and i shared a history of conversations about social change, Gramsci, popular education, ethics and so on and, while working to support a North American coalition

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-73589181857098798472008-04-29T21:39:00.001-04:002008-04-29T21:40:41.483-04:00

Jennifer was working as a waitress when, one night, a group of nuns came in. Jennifer served them and was also curious about these women who had devoted their lives to god. Their exchange was lively and the nuns’ joviality infected Jennifer who joked and teased along with the Sisters. The Sisters were themselves curious about Jennifer. The nuns were on their way to see a play called Nunsense.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-34208779684870726642008-04-29T21:27:00.002-04:002008-12-10T04:54:48.576-05:00

The one on the right is J'net in a dress of her own making and which is part of an exhibit that starts in a couple of weeks at Six Nations Reserve south of Toronto.

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-91170394668335853472008-04-27T21:37:00.002-04:002008-04-27T21:56:43.853-04:00

Well, i've just come through a rather crazy-busy stretch that included moving house, living outta boxes, watching my partner's belly expand with new life, volunteering with the Toronto Community Development Institute which just ended (rather successfully, if i don't say so myself), a number of contracts including an "ending poverty" popular education curriculum (that you'll be able to download

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-38668522421266208032008-03-08T21:39:00.005-05:002008-03-08T22:25:38.896-05:00

i just learned about this "frozen crowd" event that took place in February at Grand Central Station in New York City. Pretty impressive. Here's the backstory. It's a pretty compelling performance art piece. Makes me think about Invisible Theatre invented and developed by Augusto Boal. The difference is that Invisible Theatre is aimed at provoking dialogue on issues of power, oppression and social

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5663593.post-21178837634143256012008-03-08T09:27:00.004-05:002008-03-08T09:43:25.487-05:00

I've just learned about The Pinky Show and i'm pretty impressed. The matter-of-factness of the little girl voice coming from the always-bewildered-looking Pinky gives wonderful life to facts (about resistance to immigration in the US) and quotes (as with Ivan Illich in this piece featured here). As much as racism, homophobia, mysogyny and all the other ways in which we do violence to each other

chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02985731064394035796noreply@blogger.com0