Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture

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]

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.