Category Archives: Rouge Forum Update

Rouge Forum 2016 – Teaching for Democracy & Justice in an Age of Inequality

THE ROUGE FORUM CONFERENCE 2016

Teaching for Democracy and Justice in an Age of Inequality

May 27-28, 2016
Calgary, AB, Canada

#RougeForum16

Keynote Speaker: E. Wayne Ross, Professor, University of British Columbia
Location: St. Mary’s University [map]
Registration information and form
Submit Proposal
Housing Information
Program and schedule
Session abstracts
Conference web site

The Rouge Forum holds meetings on a regular basis at both local and national levels. The national conferences have been held on a more or less annual basis; all meetings are action-oriented and the national conferences usually include workshops for teachers and students; panel discussions; community-building and cultural events; as well as academic presentations. Many prominent voices for democracy and critical pedagogy have participated in Rouge Forum meetings. On this site you’ll find the latest information about upcoming Rouge Forum meetings and conferences as well information on past conferences, including abstracts, papers, and videos.

Rouge Forum 2014 – The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom [Program]

THE ROUGE FORUM CONFERENCE 2014

The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom

 JUNE 5-7, 2014

Denver, Colorado

Metropolitan State University of Denver

 

Program

All sessions at MSUD, Auraria Campus, Downtown Denver, West Classroom Building. Map:http://goo.gl/hvIWiH

 

THURSDAY JUNE 5

Conference dinner, location TBA

FRIDAY JUNE 6

8:00-8:30am
Outside West Classroom (WC) 164
Registration/Coffee

8:30-9:00am
WC 155
Opening Session
Chair: C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University)

9:00-10:00am
WC 155
Plenary Session
Chair: E. Wayne Ross (University of British Columbia)
Featured Speaker:
Hacking Away at Pearson and the Education-Foundation-Industrial Complex
Alan J. Singer (Hofstra University)

10:00 – 10:15am
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break

10:15 – 11:30am
Breakout Sessions 1

 Breakout 1A – Children and the Social Justice Conversation
WC 259 Presenters:

  • Secret City Secret Scourge, Nancye McCrary (St. Catherine College)
  • Imagining Ourselves in Children’s Literature:  Power Dynamics and Epistemologies amid the Pages and in the Classroom, Mia Sosa-Provencio, University of New Mexico

Breakout 1B – Panel: Engaging Foucault: Rethinking Our Questions
WC 261
Panelists: David Gabbard, Angela Crawford, Marilena “Lenny” Martello, Kelli Kinkela, Sarah Ritter, Mike Boyer, Jennie Moyett, Gregory Martinez, YuWen Chen (Boise State University)

Breakout 1C –  Panel: Mapping Knowledge Wealth and Resources in Diverse School Communities
WC 257
Panelists: Kelli Woodrow, Todd Bell, Melanie Bruce, Cathi Brents, Shana Mondaragon (Regis University)

11:30am-1:00pm
LUNCH

1:00 – 2:15 pm
WC 155
Plenary Session
Chair: Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)
Keynote / Adam Renner Memorial Lecture
Saving The Future
David Barsamian (Alternative Radio)

2:15 – 3:00pm
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break

3:00 – 4:15pm
Breakout Session 2

Breakout 2A – Creating Counter-narratives to Mainstream 
WC 259
Presenters:

  • The Neoliberal Agenda for Public Education: An Obituary, John Elmore (West Chester University)
  • Push It Real Good: Challenging Dominant Discourses on Race in Teacher Education, Madhavi Tandon & Kara M. Viesca (University of Colorado, Denver)

Breakout 2B – Dialogue Session 
WC 261
Presenter:

  • Changing minds: Teachers’ Perspectives Towards Issues of Diversity and Power, Kelli Woodrow (Regis University) & Victoria Caruana (Regis University)

Breakout 2C –  Panel: Angels for AP Excellence: Increasing Students of Color Enrollment and Success in AP Classes
WC 257
Panelists: Kate Greeley, Amanda West, Nathan Merenstein, Niesha Smith, Joey Halik, Ray Pryor, Janae Brown, Rheadawn Chiles, Christine Miller (Denver Public Schools)

 

4:15 – 4:30pm
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break

4:30 – 5:45pm
Plenary Session: Performance & Discussion
 WC155
Celebrating Pete Seeger
Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)

   [End of Day 1. Dinner location TBA]  

SATURDAY JUNE 7

8:00-8:30am
Outside WC 164
Registration/Coffee

8:30-10:00am
Openning Plenary Session
WC 155
Chair:  Greg Queen (Detroit, MI)
Featured Speaker:
Why it is Possible and Imperative to Teach Revolution—and How!
Rich Gibson (San Diego State University)

10:00 – 10:15am
WC 164
Coffee & Tea Break

10:15 – 11:30am
Breakout Session 3

Breakout 3A – Models of Resistance and Activism
WC 164
Presenters:

  • Art, Alienation, and Resistance in the Classroom, Chris Steele (Regis University)
  • Faculty Unites with Student Activists to Redesign Education Policy, C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University)

Breakout 3B – Responding to Educational Exclusion
WC 259
Presenters:

  • Praxis: The Exclusion of Native American Teachers, Richard M. Jones  & Terry Albers (Oglala Lakota CollegRe)
  • Increasing Options for the Equality of Returning Veterans in the Classroom, Ashley O’Connor (University of Denver)

Breakout 3C – Virtual and For-Profit Higher Education: Implications of Critical Education
WC 257
Presenters:

  • Destabilizing Post-secondary Education for Profit, Yvette Powe
  • Keeping the Techne in the Classroom: What Marcuse Can Tell Us About MOOCs and the Status of Higher Education, Tyler Suggs (University of Vermont)

Breakout 3D – Voices (Panel)
WC 143
Chair: Lauren Johnston (St. Catharine College)
Panelists: Nancye McCrary, Casey Baryla, Rebecca Just, Rebekah Sams, Amanda Conrad (St. Catharine College)

 

11:30am-1:00pm
LUNCH

1:00 – 2:15 pm
Breakout Session 4

Breakout 4A – Critical and Revolutionary Pedagogy
WC 259
Presenters:

  • Coming to Critical Pedagogy: A Marxist Autobiography in the History of Higher Education, Curry Stephenson Malott (West Chester University)
  • What Then Must We Do?. Doug Morris (Eastern New Mexico University)

Breakout 4B Counter-narratives and Critical Consciousness
WC 261
Presenters:

  • Teaching Counter-Narratives: Indigenous Peoples, History, and Critical Consciousness, Glenabah Martinez (University of New Mexico)

Breakout 4C Transformative Social Studies Teaching and Learning
WC 257
Chair: E. Wayne Ross
Panelists: Abraham DeLeon (University of Texas, San Antonio), Four Arrows (Fielding Graduate University), C. Gregg Jorgensen (Western Illinois University), Curry Stephenson Malott (West Chester University), Greg Queen (Teacher, Detroit, MI), E. Wayne Ross (University of British Columbia), Doug Selwyn (SUNY Plattsburgh)

 

2:15 – 3:00pm
WC 164
Coffee/tea Break

3:00 – 4:15pm
Breakout Session 5

Breakout 5A – Planning Lessons to Combat Capitalism
WC 259
Presenters:

  • Class as the Organizing Principle of History Education, Greg Queen (Teacher, Detroit, MI)
  • What Does Lesson Planning Have to do with Capitalism?, Kathryn Young (Metropolitan State University of Denver)

Breakout 5B Social Justice vs. The Psychosis of Success
WC 261
Presenters:

  • The Psychosis of Success, Mike Sliwa
  • Narrow Focus Classroom Affection, Heightened Social Injustice, Perception of Nigerian Educators, Aladegbola Adebusayo

Breakout 5C Public Memory and Revolutionary Pedagogy 
WC 257
Presenters:

  • Hip-Hop as Revolutionary Pedagogy, Brad J. Porfilio (Lewis University)
  • Distance Makes the Heart Grow Stronger: The Legacy of 9/11, Martin Haber

 

4:15 – 4:30pm
WC 164
Coffee/tea Break

 

4:30 – 5:45pm
Plenary Session: Performance & Discussion
WC 155
Chair: Gina Stiens
Sex, Death and Other Deviations from the Common Core
William R. Boyer

  Sunday JUNE 8

9:30am – 11:30am
WC 155
Conference Debriefing & Reflections

Steering Committee brunch (location TBA)
[Anyone interested in participating in the RF Steering Committee is invited to attend this meeting]

Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture at Rouge Forum 2014

renner-adam

Rouge Forum 2014 runs from June 5-7 at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Check out the details here.

Every year the Rouge Forum honors the life and work of Adam Renner (August 18, 1970 – December 19, 2010) by inviting a critical scholar, educator, or activist to deliver the Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture.

Adam was a teacher, scholar, musician, revolutionary activist, martial artist, and lover of life. His courage took remarkable forms, from being willing to sacrifice to help others, to always learning, and altering his views, on the path to discover what is true in order to make the world a little better. What could be a more powerful legacy?

He received his BA in Mathematics from Thomas More College. While teaching mathematics at Seton High School in Cincinnati, OH, he completed his MEd at Northern Kentucky University. In 2002, Adam received his PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and subsequently worked as a professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY.

His scholarship focused on service learning, social difference, social justice, and pedagogy and he published in numerous journals including Educational Studies, EcoJustice Review, High School Journal, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Rethinking Schools and more. (Many of Adam’s publications are available to read here.)

Along with his life partner, Gina Stiens, he created a service partnership with schools and social service organizations in Jamaica and taught an ongoing course, “Education for Liberation or Domination: A Critical Encounter in Jamaica.” He was a key leader and organizer in the Rouge Forum serving as Community Coordinator and as editor of the Rouge Forum News.

In the fall of 2010, Adam left his professorship at Bellarmine University and returned to the school classroom, as a math teacher at June Jordan School for Social Equity in San Francisco.

In an article for Substance News, published just weeks before he died, Adam wrote,

“For me and my K-12 classroom, for instance, I have been searching for the intersection of liberation, curriculum, and student experience (comprised of individual traumas, structural oppression, nine years of mis-schooling, varying levels of confidence and skill, etc.). How can I shape the revolutionary subjects necessary to help tip the inflexion point toward the necessary qualitative changes?

“When we teach math, social studies, language arts, and science, can we credibly do so in a way that is separate from the growing militarization of our schools and society, gang and drug infestations in our communities, rampant unemployment, a school to prisons pipeline, the assurance of our students’ ignorance through standardization and a teach-to-the-test mafia-like pressure on teachers?

“So, if we shouldn’t teach our classes that way, can we organize in such a way that militates against such explorations?”

Theses are powerful questions that challenge us to embodied the interaction of critical, ethical theory and determined practice, just as Adam did everyday of his life.

Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Memorial Lecturers

2011
Peter McLaren, Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences, UCLA, world renowned critical pedagogue and author of over 40 books, including Life in Schools and Revolutionizing Pedagogy.

2012
Susan Ohanian, public school teacher, author, and winner of the National Council of Teachers’ of English “George Orwell Award,” for her outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.

2013
Patrick Shannon, Professor of Language and Literacy at Penn State University, former primary grade teacher and author of over 16 books, including Reading Wide Awake and Reading Against Democracy.

2014
David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio and author of Occupy The Economy: Challenging Capitalism and Targeting Iran. He is best known for his interview books with Noam Chomsky, including What We Say Goes.

 

 

Mapping the Rouge Forum from 1998-2014

Join us in June 5-7, 2014 in Denver, CO on the campus of Metropolitan State University of Denver for Rouge Forum 2014.

Rouge Forum meetings and conferences
The Rouge Forum holds meetings on a regular basis at both local and national levels. The national conferences have been held on a more or less annual basis; all meetings are action-oriented and the national conferences usually include workshops for teachers and students; panel discussions; community-building and cultural events; as well as academic presentations. Many prominent voices for democracy and critical pedagogy have participated in Rouge Forum meetings.

  • Detroit, MI (June 1998) International Social Studies Conference of the Rouge Forum
  • Detroit, MI (January 1999) International Social Studies Conference of the Rouge Forum
  • Rochester, NY (February 1999) Developing Democratic Citizens: Teaching Social Education K-16 (with Whole Schooling Consortium)
  • Detroit, MI (June 1999) Whole Schooling Consortium and The Rouge Forum Summer Institute
  • Albany, NY (June 2000) Standardized Testing in K-12 Schooling: Tool of Reform or Tool of Tyranny? (with Whole Schooling Consortium)
  • Detroit, MI (June 2000) International Education Summit for a Democratic Society (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
  • Chicago, IL (June 2001) Freedom to Teach, Freedom to Learn: Critical Literacy for Caring Democratic Classrooms (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
  • Bethesda, MD (July 2002) Restoring the Passion: Thriving in a Standards Environment (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
  • Louisville, KY (June 2003) Rouge Forum Summer Institute on Education and Society
  • Detroit, MI (November 2003) Lessons of War Teach-in for a Democratic Society
  • Sryacuse, NY (June 2004) Rouge Forum Summer Institute on Education and Society
  • Detroit, MI (March 2007) Their Wars Left Behind: Education for Action
  • Louisville, KY (March 2008) Education: Reform or Revolution?
  • Ypsilanti, MI (May 2009) Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads
  • Williams Bay, WI (August 2010) Education in the Public Interest
  • Chicago (Romeoville) IL (May 20-22, 2011) Education and the State: A Critical Antidote to the Commercialized, Racist, and Militaristic Order
  • Vancouver, BC, Canada (April 13, 2012) The Rouge Forum at the American Educational Research Association
  • Oxford, OH (June 22-24, 2012) Occupy Education! Class Conscious Pedagogies for Social Change
  • Detroit, MI, (May 16-19, 2013) Winning the Class Struggle Against Corporate Education Reform
  • Denver, CO (June 5-7, 2014) The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom

Education for Revolution special issue of Works & Days + Cultural Logic launched

Education for Revolution a special issue collaboration of the journals Works & Days and Cultural Logic has just been launched.

Check out the great cover image (Monument to Joe Louis in Detroit) and the equally great stuff on the inside. Hard copies of the issue available from worksanddays.net and Cultural Logic will be publishing and expanded online version of the issue in the coming months.

Rich and I want to thank David B. Downing and his staff at Works & Days for the fabulous work they did on this issue, which is the second collaboration between the two journals. Read Downing’s foreword to the issue here.

Works & Days + Cultural Logic
Special Issue: Education for Revolution
E. Wayne Ross & Rich Gibson (Editors)
Table of Contents

Barbarism Rising: Detroit, Michigan, and the International War of the Rich on the Poor
Rich Gibson, San Diego State University

Resisting Neoliberal Education Reform: Insurrectionist Pedagogies and the Pursuit of Dangerous Citizenship
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia
Kevin D. Vinson, University of The West Indies

Reimaging Solidarity: Hip-Hop as Revolutionary Pedagogy
Julie Gorlewski, State University of New York, New Paltz
Brad Porfilio, Lewis University

Learning to be Fast Capitalists on a Flat World
Timothy Patrick Shannon, The Ohio State University
Patrick Shannon, Penn State University

Contesting Production: Youth Participatory Action Research in the Struggle to Produce Knowledge
Brian Lozenski, Zachary A. Casey, Shannon K. McManimon, University of Minnesota

Schooling for Capitalism or Education for Twenty-First Century Socialism?
Mike Cole, University of East London

Class Consciousness and Teacher Education: The Socialist Challenge and The Historical Context
Curry Stephenson Malott, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

The Pedagogy of Excess
Deborah P. Kelsh, The College of Saint Rose

Undermining Capitalist Pedagogy: Takiji Kobayashi’s Tōseikatsusha and the Ideology of the World Literature Paradigm
John Maerhofer, Roger Williams University

Marxist Sociology of Education and the Problem of Naturalism: An Historical Sketch
Grant Banfield, Flinders University of South Australia

The Illegitimacy of Student Debt
David Blacker, University of Delaware

Hacking Away at the Corporate Octopus
Alan J. Singer, Hofstra University

A Tale of Two Cities ¬– and States
Richard Brosio, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

SDS, The 1960s, and Education for Revolution
Alan J. Spector, Purdue University, Calumet

Rouge Forum 2013: Join Us at Wayne State University (May 16-19)

Rouge Forum 2013: Winning the Class Struggle Against Corporate Education Reform

See links below for Rouge Forum 2013 Conference details:

Conference Registration (click here)

Conference Housing Options (click here)

Conference program overview and keynote speakers (click here)

RF2013posterV3

Download Rouge Forum 2013 Posters: here.

Rouge Forum 2012

The Rouge Forum 2012 will be held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The University’s picturesque campus is located 50 minutes northwest of Cincinnati. The conference will be held June 22-24, 2012.

In addition to plenty of time for large group discussions, the Featured Speakers are:

SUSAN OHANIAN
Susan Ohanian will be a Keynote Speaker at the Rouge Forum 2012. Susan’s advocacy work keeps at its core her 20 years as a teacher. Her more than 300 essays on education issues have appeared in periodicals ranging from Phi Delta Kappan cover stories to The Atlantic, Nation, USA Today, Washington Monthly, Extra! (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and numerous education journals. One of her 26 book on education policy and practice introduced the word Standardisto.

Although currently censored at the NCTE online discussion site, Susan’s website received NCTE’s George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honest and Clarity in Public Language. She has delivered the annual MacClement Lecture for Excellence in Education, Queens University, Ontario, Canada, the Helen Oakes lecture at Temple University, and the Biber Lecture, Bank Street College, New York.

Susan notes that although she’s been a featured speaker at both the International Symposium for the Educational Welfare in Seoul, Korea, and British Columbia Teachers’ Federation events, her talk to the Progressive Caucus of the AFT was closed down by angry hoots from the audience.

Susan started a website to protest the passage of NCLB. She had hoped to shut it down by now, but things keep getting worse, so she persists.

MICHAEL PRYSNER
Mike Prysner is the co-founder of March Forward!, an organization of active-duty members of the US military and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict that encourages current active duty service personnel to resist deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a US army veteran that served in Iraq. His rank was corporal and duties in Iraq included ground surveillance, home raids and the interrogation of prisoners. These experiences led him to take a radical anti-war stand. In March of 2008 he testified in the Winter Soldier organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War. Later that year Michael ran a write-in campaign for the US House of Representatives for Florida’s 22nd congressional district (Boca Raton). He is a member of A.N.S.W.E.R. and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. In the recent Occupy movements, he has been active and arrested participating in direct actions.

PAUL STREET
Paul Street is a journalist, author, historian, and political commentator who has authored six books, including The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010). Street has a doctorate in U.S. History at Binghamton University and has taught at numerous colleges and universities in and around Chicago. He was the Director of Research and Vice President for Research and Planning at The Chicago Urban League from 2000 to 2005. Street has published a numerous articles, essays, reviews, and editorials in numerous outlets, including ZNet, Z Magazine, CounterPunch, Black Agenda Report, The Chicago Tribune, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of Social History, Mid-America, Critical Sociology, Chicago History,Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, Studies in History and Politics, History of Education Quarterly, Monthly Review, Iowa City Press-Citizen, In These Times, Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai, India), Tinabantu: Journal of African National Affairs (Cape Town, South Africa), Synthesis/Regeneration, International Socialist Review, Dissent, Capital City Times (Madison, WI), Black Commentator, Tom’s Dispatch, History News Network, MRZine, Dissident Voice, and Monthly Review.

Rouge Forum @ AERA [Videos]

To Know is Not Enough:
Rouge Forum @ AERA

Friday April 13, 2012
Vancouver, BC
Videos on the ICESchannel at YouTube (or click on links below)

The Rouge Forum @ AERA brought together world-renowned scholars, teachers, community organizers, and other activists to discuss these questions and others related to activist scholarship, social change, academic freedom, and work in the corporate university as part of this one-day interactive conference at the Robson Square Campus of University of British Columbia in downtown Vancouver.

Introduction to the Rouge Fourm @ AERA 2012
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia 

Session I: What might happen when teachers and other academics connect reason to power and power to resistance?
Patrick Shannon, Penn State University
Ken Saltman, DePaul University
E. Wayne Ross on Canada Border Services Agency’s prohibition of Abraham DeLeon from Canada / the Rouge Forum 
Antonia Darder, Loyola Marymount University (unable to attend)
Abraham DeLeon, University of Texas, San Antonio (turned away at border)
Natalia Jaramillo, University of Auckland (unable to attend)
Discussion I
Discussion II
Sandra Mathison comments on recent labour dispute in British Columbia between the BCTF and government

Introduction to the Rouge Forum @ AERA 2012 Afternoon Session
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia 

Session II: How can academic work (in universities and other learning environments) support local and global resistance to global capitalism?
Peter McLaren, UCLA
Gustavo Fischman, Arizona State University
Jill Pickney Pastrana, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Ken Saltman, DePaul University
Rebecca Martusewicz, Eastern Michigan University (unable to attend)
Discussion I
Discussion II

Special Session – Great Schools Project
David Chudnovsky
Discussion I
Discussion II

Session III: How do we respond to the obstacles and threats faced as activist scholars?
Stephen Petrina, University of British Columbia
Nancye E. McCrary, University of Kentucky
Brad Porfilio, Lewis University
Elizabeth Heilman, Michigan State University (unable to attend)

ICES at Community Events

  • ICES at at May Day rally Vancouver (1 May 2012)
  • ICES at Occupy Wall Street (16 April 2012)
  • ICES at BCFed & BCTF rally Vancouver (7 March 2012)
  • ICES at BCFed & BCTF rally Victoria (6 March 2012)
  • ICES at BC Secondary Students’ Walk-Out (2 March 2012)
  • ICES at Occupy Vancouver (October-November 2011)

Rouge Forum 2012—OCCUPY EDUCATION! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change—Proposal deadline extended to May 1

The Rouge Forum 2012 will be held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The University’s picturesque campus is located 50 minutes northwest of Cincinnati. The conference will be held June 22-24, 2012.

Conference theme: OCCUPY EDUCATION! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change

Proposals for papers, panels, performances, workshops, and other multimedia presentations should include title(s) and names and contact information for presenter(s). The new deadline for sending proposals is May 1. The Steering Committee will email acceptance notices by May 15.

Details for submitting a proposal can be found here.

CFP: Rouge Forum 2012 (Deadline April 15)

The Rouge Forum 2012 will be held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The University’s picturesque campus is located 50 minutes northwest of Cincinnati. The conference will be held June 22-24, 2012.

Proposals for papers, panels, performances, workshops, and other multimedia presentations should include title(s) and names and contact information for presenter(s). The deadline for sending proposals is April 15.  The Steering Committee will email acceptance notices by May 1.

Read the Call for Proposals.

Featured speakers this year include Mike Prysner, Paul Street, and Susan Ohanian.