Month: May 2011

Mayor Bloomberg has gone too far. And we are fighting back!!!

Over the past year, at least 50 schools have participated in the many Fight Back Fridays that have occurred across the city. NYCoRE is teaming up with other teacher activist groups to pull in as many schools as possible to this important day of action.

May 20th is the next city wide FBF and it needs to be huge!!

What is Fight Back Friday?? Read on or Email: sam@nycore.org FBF gives every school community a chance to stand up and say NO to the cuts and lay-offs at whatever level the community can be organized.

-Everyone wears black (Wear black, take our schools back!). It can be as simple as just that.
-We have stickers people can print out with messages about the cuts and the kinds of changes we would all like to see in education that folks can wear and give out.
-We have fliers that you can adjust to fit your school, which you can use on the day of.
– Many schools have a picket outside of school either before or after the school day. We have fliers you can use to publicize the picket during the week leading up to the 20th.
– The fliers will be in at least English and Spanish, and if we can, Chinese.
– We have post cards that we are asking people to get signed that will then be delivered en-masse to city council members. You can print those out, or come get them at a couple of different locations.
– We ask everyone to take pictures to send in that then go on our fight back friday blog and face book page.

We will be putting out a press release and press statement and pushing the press to cover as many school events as we can. And the more schools participating the more coverage we will get. Please, even if it sounds hard or overwhelming, consider pushing your school community to join in. Email Sam at sam@nycore.org with any questions. We will send you the tool kit with all the fliers and stickers and such. We are happy to help you think through all the steps.

This is a way for your whole community to work together, parents, students and staff, to build solidarity within and across schools. These actions are great for training ourselves to do the organizing that we need if we are to turn the tide of the destruction of public education. In order to fight for the transformations we all want to see in our education system, we need to do the grassroots educating, organizing and mobilizing that it takes to move whole communities.

Thanks,
In solidarity,
Sam Coleman, for the Fight Back Friday Committee
CAPE, Grassroots Education Movement, Independent Community of Educators, NYCoRE, People Power Movement, Teachers for a Just Contract, Teachers Unite

PLEASE JOINI NYCoRE’s very own ITAG: My Class is Anti-Racist in an Undoing Racism Training which is open to all educators.

NYCoRE Members can attend this training at the reduced group rate of $250

REGISTER: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/173941

Undoing Racism/NYC/June 10-12 ,2011
NYCoRE NYC
NYC, NJ

Are You Challenged by How to Deal with Race Issues in Your Practice, Institution or in the Classroom? Are You Concerned about the Impact of Racism in your city and state?

The Undoing Racism/Community Organizing workshop is an intensive 2 day workshop designed to educate, challenge and empower people to undo the racist structures that hinder effective social change. The training is based on the premise that racism has been systematically constructed and that it can be undone when people understand where it comes from, how it functions, why it is perpetuated, and what we can do to dismantle it.

The workshop is offered by the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond, a national, multiracial, anti-racist collective of veteran organizers and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social change. Since its founding in 1980, The Peoples Institute has trained over 200,000 people in hundreds of communities throughout the United States and internationally. It is recognized as one of the most effective anti-racist training and organizing institutions in the nation.

The workshop addresses the following areas:

1)Analyzing Power: Effective organizing requires accurate analysis of the systems that keep racism in place. The training examines why people are poor, how institutions and organizations perpetuate the imbalance of power, and who benefits from the maintenance of the status quo.

2) Recognizing The Internalized Manifestations Of Racial Oppression:The training explores how internalized racial oppression manifests itself both as Internalized Racial Inferiority and Internalized Racial Superiority.

3) Defining Racism: In order to undo racism, organizers and educators must understand what racism is, and how and why it was constructed. The training explores how the idea of race was created to implement systems that benefit some people and oppress and disadvantage others.

4) Understanding the Manifestations of Racism: Racism operates in more than just individual and institutional settings. The training examines the dynamics of cultural racism, linguistic racism, and militarism as applied racism.

5) Learning From History: Racism has distorted, suppressed and denied the histories of people of color and white people as well. The training demonstrates that a full knowledge of history is a necessary organizing tool as well as a source of personal and collective empowerment.

6) Sharing culture: The training process demonstrates that even as racism divides people, sharing culture unites us. Cultural sharing is a critical organizing tool, and is central to the training.

7) Organizing to Undo Racism: The training explores principles of effective organizing, strategic techniques of community empowerment, the importance of community accountability, and the internal dynamics of leadership development.