# data[].attributes.body
“…prioritizing the state’s ongoing and manifold strands of assault…to make visible the profound restrictions and harm that comes from the everyday, routinized violence inherent in particular social, economic, and political formations….that work to ‘structure possible fields of actions’…[which thereby] authorize and naturalize violence in the everyday through the dehumanizing controlling processes (Nader 1972) inherent in racialization and the attendant forms of settler colonization.”

# data[].attributes.body
“…revolutionaries don’t make revolutions. Millions of ordinary and oppressed people do."

# data[].attributes.body
“Accounts of movements thus become tales of strong, charismatic individuals, smart authors, and great ideas become the centre of social change rather than the organizing work it takes to build movements."

# data[].attributes.body
“It means overcoming blindness due to present-focused thinking, opening our eyes to the importance of the past and future, to the relevance of our biological and cultural heritage and to the significance of the long-range consequences of our choices. It means overcoming blindness due to either/or thinking, opening our eyes to the ambiguities in our lives, to subtle gradations of value, multiple influences and complicated linkages, to webs of mutual dependence."

# data[].attributes.body
“Radical change may be initiated by spontaneous revolts that are supported by subterranean free spaces, but these revolts are almost always the product of prior political movement building, and their gains must be consolidated by political organizations, not the spaces such organizations use. Social movements, then, are central to radical change."

# data[].attributes.body
“Of course, it is the educational system and not the students that should be singled out for criticism."

# data[].attributes.body
“[T]he multiplicity of voices in the room can help move the research from the individual to the structural."

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“[S]kills are socially constructed and are driven by social institutions."

# data[].attributes.body
“...blaming, as it does ‘failing schools’ and ‘dumb workers’ for ‘the economic calamity actually caused by a deregulated financial sector following a massive redistribution of income and wealth."

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“A strategically insidious way to avoid accountability [when confronted with an injustice]...is to create frameworks of pathology (criminal, drop out, hooker, troubled youth) that position [an individual victim] as solely responsible for the ‘choices’ she has made…”

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“The methods used will be process-oriented."

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“These are pedagogical questions, meaning they are meant to be asked in community, in conversation with lived life. The answers are important, yes, but more important is the opportunity to think and feel through these questions collectively.”

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“The absence of memory that creates openness to change is unavoidably accompanied by missing experiences that would otherwise put such change into perspective."

# data[].attributes.body
“Sometimes we think we are facing something new or for the first time, but we are not aware that people who came, struggled, and thought before us might have grappled with similar dilemmas."

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“…the importance of…accessing resources, time to plan and network, and for inspiration.”

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“Any educational agenda requires materials….[d]ialogues and networks.”

# data[].attributes.headline
Gow, 1997, pp. 278-9, partially quoting Spivak, 1996

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Gow, 1997, pp. 278-9, partially quoting Spivak, 1996

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“If they are heard, they are heard on ‘our’ terms, not theirs: ‘The effort required for the subaltern to enter into organic intellectuality is ignored by our desire to have our cake and eat it too: that we can continue to be as we are, and yet be in touch with the speaking subaltern.'"

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“Innovative thinking at the margins of disciplines may also leave such scholars isolated, heightening the need for a broader interdisciplinary community."

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In this “insurgent…centripetal process….scholars interested in intersectionality strike out mainly in the margins of their disciplines and are often skeptical about the possibility of integrating mainstream methods and theories into their intersectional research. As they are less beholden to disciplinary conventions, their projects may draw on a variety of methods and materials, integrating them into innovative insights that might otherwise have been obscured."

# data[].attributes.body
“…the necessary, difficult, slow, and inspiring process of building movements falls through the cracks between sabotage and the autonomous zone..."

# data[].attributes.body
“You need a much better compass than one provided by a single technique; there are no good shortcuts."

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“Change takes time and moves slowly, for what we really are talking about is changing people’s minds."

# data[].attributes.body
“There is a danger that hierarchy and specialisation act as barriers which discourage those who are not members of these groups from sharing their knowledge at these meetings. The danger seen here echoes the criticisms raised by those sceptical of LO [Learning Organization] discourse. Grieves (2008) has highlighted that ‘[t]he concept [of LO] discounts if not denies differences in power between a managerial elite and the bulk of ordinary employees’. This criticism points to a problem which seriously tests LOs: has the rhetoric of open and shared learning obscured deeply buried structurally unequal power relations?”

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“Using both a theory of universality…and a hierarchy of difference, colonizers justified their aggression and vindicated and enriched the homeland as they maintained control and dominance over Indigenous peoples worldwide."

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“Racial oppression is not simply one of many forms of domination; it has played a central role in the development of capitalism in the United States. As a result, struggles against racial oppression have a strategic centrality to them that other struggles do not.”

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“Indeed the heightened focus on technology and social media brings with it risks of overestimating its significance in social movements and organizing spaces, and an over-reliance on what and who is being represented in these forums."

# data[].attributes.body
"[T]echnology predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments and to subordinate others. Every technology has a philosophy, which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards."

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“The transformative, transgressive forms of learning described all require engaged forms of pedagogy that involve multi-voiced engagement with multiple actors. They also have an emphasis on co-learning, cognitive justice, and the formation and development of individual and systemic agency. Their focus is the public and the personal good."

# data[].attributes.body
“[O]rganizations must learn to sustainably balance rational production imperatives in conjunction with personnel demands for irreducible personal value and active participation in political interest representation in organizational life”

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…not balancing collective and instrumental imperatives with personal or intrinsic priorities. 

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…not balancing collective and instrumental imperatives with personal or intrinsic priorities. 

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…mostly online or on social media, especially without critical reflection.

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…mostly online or on social media, especially without critical reflection.

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…treating everyone as equally powerful. 

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…treating everyone as equally powerful. 

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…failing to meaningfully include marginalized voices.  

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…failing to meaningfully include marginalized voices.  

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…lacking a support network to share resources and community.

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…lacking a support network to share resources and community.

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…disconnected from relevant past models or attempts. 

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…disconnected from relevant past models or attempts. 

# data[].attributes.headline
…focused on a deficit model and on changing individuals.  

# data[].attributes.subject
…focused on a deficit model and on changing individuals.  

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…disconnected from community organizing and movement building. 

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…disconnected from community organizing and movement building. 

# data[].attributes.headline
…sensationalized out of a supposed crisis or around a popular leader or text. 

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…sensationalized out of a supposed crisis or around a popular leader or text. 

# data[].attributes.body
“Lifelong learning has been marshalled as an ideological concept in two ways…it shifts the burden of increasing adaptability to the workers and at the same time, offers it as a ray of hope for a more democratic engaged citizenry.”

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“[D]espite emphasis on knowledge in policy documents, discussion about knowledge economies or knowledge societies, and curriculum reform, ‘knowledge’ is often used rhetorically, or as an empty category, with little thought going into what knowledge should be contained in the curriculum, and, in many countries…attempts to avoid specifying knowledge in the curriculum.”

# data[].attributes.headline
…using buzzwords to cover for manipulative or vapid thinking. (i.e. knowledge based, ‘stakeholder’, 21st century, design thinking, learning organization, lifelong learning.) 

# data[].attributes.subject
…using buzzwords to cover for manipulative or vapid thinking. (i.e. knowledge based, ‘stakeholder’, 21st century, design thinking, learning organization, lifelong learning.) 

# data[].attributes.body
“[W]hat some scholars call the ‘scientific method’ in educational research (quasi-experimental design) or ‘evidence-based policy planning’ serves international organizations to package existing projects, brand them as ‘best practices’ or a ‘global framework of education,’ and transfer them— as part of the programmatic conditionality of a loan or grant—to developing countries.”

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“We can pool our knowledge and let the best ideas win out in the ‘free marketplace of ideas.’ This is never true in the real world where knowledge is contested, and power governs the outcome of that contestation.”

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“[S]ince we can't measure what we care about, we start to care about what we can measure."

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“On the research side, evidence-based education seems to favor a technocratic model in which it is assumed that the only relevant research questions are questions about the effectiveness of educational means and techniques, forgetting, among other things, that what counts as ‘effective’ crucially depends on judgments about what is educationally desirable. On the practice side, evidence-based education seems to limit severely the opportunities for educational practitioners to make such judgments in a way that is sensitive to and relevant for their own contextualized settings. The focus on ‘what works’ makes it difficult if not impossible to ask the questions of what it should work for and who should have a say in determining the latter.”

# data[].attributes.headline
…evidence or results-based, especially if the evidence is internally generated—like with the World Bank (Hickling-Hudson & Klees, 2010). 

# data[].attributes.subject
…evidence or results-based, especially if the evidence is internally generated—like with the World Bank (Hickling-Hudson & Klees, 2010). 

# data[].attributes.body
"The consensus among top economists [in the face of the evidence] is that the skills gap is a myth. High unemployment is mainly the result of a deficiency in aggregate demand and slow economic growth, not because workers lack the right education or skills."

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“Social Interaction does not require the mutual mirroring of cultural clones….[i]t depends on the mutual self-transformation of those who open themselves to what they are not, and find the experience educative….Reconciling our difference does not mean obliterating them. Relationality in the sense relevant to life in a pluralistic society find our differences an opportunity instead of an obstacle. Weaving is a good metaphor because it suggests that elements with sharply differing features can work together to create a single fabric, the value of which is a function of the ways in which its parts contrast and complement one another….Learning to compromise our demands for the sake of a common good is not to sacrifice them but to transform them. In the long run, after all, the common good is our good.”

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“…perceptions of fairness largely centred around communication and involvement, for example the receipt of regular, honest information about the objectives of change and its progress, together with the opportunity to express views and concerns. Employees also wished to be involved in the decision-making process, with their suggestions taken seriously and acted upon. Communication and involvement helped individuals to understand the rationale for change and to make sense of the new environment. In turn, this prompted them to sustain their commitment and loyalty to the organization.”

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“We know how to do this so they’ll be into it. Hand out the flyers first. Have a community meeting. Ask permission. Listen to their paternalistic bullshit and feedback. Let them have influence. Let them bask in the plight of the Native people so they can feel self-righteous. Make them feel better, and when reconciliation comes up at the next dinner party, they can hold us up as the solution and brag to their real friends about our plight.”

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…surreptitiously prescribed and subtly imposed by a particular leader or group.

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…surreptitiously prescribed and subtly imposed by a particular leader or group.

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“…balancing different purposes, choosing between better and worse courses of action rather than self-evidently right and wrong ones….intellectual work of the most serious and sustained kind—work that makes a difference to whether the changes are meaningful, practical, and sustainable.”

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Fullan, 2011, p. 5, partially quoting Mintzberg, 2004

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Fullan, 2011, p. 5, partially quoting Mintzberg, 2004

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“Action learning is good, but it must be accompanied by reflective insight tied to an underlying theory that guides further action….Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fullan, 2011, p. 5, partially quoting Mintzberg, 2004

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Fullan, 2011, p. 5, partially quoting Mintzberg, 2004

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.title
Fullan, 2011, p. 5, partially quoting Mintzberg, 2004

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“Look for the argument and the evidence behind the claims. Go deep in trying to understand the meaning of my advice. Develop your own theory of action by constantly testing it against situations and ideas”

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“...teachers’ being allowed to adjust their implementation to local conditions and their own collective capacities, and being encouraged to unleash their energies and enthusiasms in curriculum development by being accorded a high degree of professional discretion….[that] enables teachers to create a curriculum that is rigorous and relevant for culturally and intellectually diverse groups of students who bring different forms of prior knowledge, understanding, interests, and concerns to their classrooms.”

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…transplanted from a different context without critical care. 

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…transplanted from a different context without critical care. 

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…claiming to be the solution to unemployment rates.

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…claiming to be the solution to unemployment rates.

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Beware: Educational change efforts may BS if they are…

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Beware: Educational change efforts may BS if they are…

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When approaching educational reform, many movements or efforts work to engage people as leaders at various levels (educators, administrators, parents, students, community members, policy makers, etc.) and in authentic ways. As a public right in a democratic context, an authentically collaborative approach to changing education is vital. Unfortunately, many of these efforts give the impression of earnestly engaging leaders at many levels despite the reality that the change is overly prescriptive and enforced from the top-down. When approaching or analyzing educational change, it is imperative to be on guard for superficially built efforts to engage so-called “stakeholders” that are, in effect, just trying to bias these people towards a predetermined so-called “shared” vision.

I have tried to articulate various aspects to approaches that BS (Bias Stakeholders or Build Superficially) towards educational change. These aspects come out of patterns induced from the cited sources and my own experiences in high school teaching and community organizing. Although these patterns are varied, many highlight the innate value of collaborative processes. To that end, I enlisted the help of almost 50 friends to audio record relevant quotations. This process was symbolic of the innate value of collaboration, while enacting it. For each aspect explored in these quotations, I have included a title to clearly frame the aspect. To invite you to be part of the collective process, I have also added a question of complication for each aspect which you can respond to, challenge, or just think about. I have provided sources for the quotations which you can look into for more information on each aspect.

What follows can be used as a tool—both as a resource and a network—for those engaged or engaging in educational change and who want to detect whether certain aspects of their experiences are meaningful and authentic or likely to just BS. I approach this BS detector with a post-structuralist lens, as reflected in this piece’s formal structure, that limits my role as an “autonomous” (Peters & Wain, 2002, p. 61) explicatory master. The non-linear structure of the accompanying piece invites you to interact with and contribute to the aspects, quotations, cautions, and sources towards personal meaning and connections in process-oriented ways. Wary of generalized truths, or “transcendental arguments and viewpoints” (Peters & Wain, 2002, p. 64), this piece is ongoing; it is becoming an open-ended, mosaic of various voices exploring aspects of educational change efforts likely to BS. The mind map format, upon the background of a mesh, honours the indiscrete and blending nature of these aspects.

Beware: Educational change efforts may BS if they are… (follow the arrows)

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“…a growing general gap between people’s increasing learning efforts and knowledge bases on the one hand, and the diminishing numbers of commensurate jobs to apply their increasing knowledge investments on the other hand.”