Guardians of the Right to Learn
THANK YOU to all of our excellent panelists at the Guardians of the Right to Learn event! THANK YOU also to our community teachers who stepped up to ask the questions! We learned SO MUCH about the state of education here in North Carolina. WE HAVE THE ABILITY to truly fund the educational system that our children deserve!
The full recording is available here!
Some favorite themes:
Book banners were never the good guys (from Librarian and Guilford County Association of Educators President Joanna Pendleton).
Private schools are allowed to discriminate based on disability, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation (from Teacher and author at Notes from the Chalkboard Justin Parmenter).
Document what is happening in your schools during this period of chronic underfunding.
ORGANIZE with multiracial coalitions (organizing was a HUGE theme of all of the speakers, but especially from Monica Walker).
Assault on higher education leads to a lower estimated lifespan, decreased wealth creation, and a decrease in research funding (side note - NC is one of the top three states that is losing government research funding in the US).
START with an understanding of your source of power and then USE that power, especially VOTING (Justice Anita Earls).
Remember that change does not come about from worrying - it comes about from INVOLVEMENT and ENGAGEMENT (Monica Walker).
We will also be clipping the recording into shorter sections that are more easily shared and digested to keep the conversation going. Stay tuned for that!
