In today’s show, Chris Lievense, high school social studies teacher in Vermont and Kelly Junno 3rd grade teacher in Western Massachusetts, and Spark faculty, share with us their insights from the 2025 Socialism conference in Chicago and how those lessons are applicable to their work as K-16 educators.
A major theme Kelly and Chris found at the conference was, how does the progressive left recapture the narrative. Fascist can’t win unless they capture education and the narratives around it that normalize injustice. How does the progressive left ask for the unimaginable. How do we ask for a better world where we don’t have prisons, where we don’t spend billions of dollars and billions of lives to have them and instead ask for what are the kinds of care we need and what are the things that we need to meet, at minimum, the basic needs for people: food, clothing, shelter, health, education, transportation. How do we bring the majority of people in the United States along with the possibilities of abolition. Most Americans can’t imagine an abolitionist society. How do we as educators change the conversation which then changes the narrative around this and make it imaginable? Most importantly that Capitalism can’t solve capitalism
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In today’s show, Chris Lievense, high school social studies teacher in Vermont and Kelly Junno 3rd grade teacher in Western Massachusetts, and Spark faculty, share with us their insights from the 2025 Socialism conference in Chicago and how those lessons are applicable to their work as K-16 educators.
A major theme Kelly and Chris found at the conference was, how does the progressive left recapture the narrative. Fascist can’t win unless they capture education and the narratives around it that normalize injustice. How does the progressive left ask for the unimaginable. How do we ask for a better world where we don’t have prisons, where we don’t spend billions of dollars and billions of lives to have them and instead ask for what are the kinds of care we need and what are the things that we need to meet, at minimum, the basic needs for people: food, clothing, shelter, health, education, transportation. How do we bring the majority of people in the United States along with the possibilities of abolition. Most Americans can’t imagine an abolitionist society. How do we as educators change the conversation which then changes the narrative around this and make it imaginable? Most importantly that Capitalism can’t solve capitalism
We spend the hour with Umaymah Mohammad - Palestinian, organizer, and current MD/PhD student at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Umaymah speaks with us about her own history, rejecting the silence of the university in not protecting the safety of those students who have been targeted by racist, anti-Palestinian, xenophobic, and Islamophobic harassment , international solidarity, and what she calls "victory outside of empire."
Read Umaymah's Open Letter:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19WveLfyzyxalsmLg6SdKQ0O7oeLjqcbv/view
Read here: an Open Letter to Emory Jan 24, 2024 by a coalition of community and civil rights organizations, writing on behalf of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students and students perceived to be Palestinian or Muslim at Emory University.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/open-letter-on-the-anti-palestinian-and-islamophobic-environment-at-emory-university/
Indigo Radio
In today’s show, Chris Lievense, high school social studies teacher in Vermont and Kelly Junno 3rd grade teacher in Western Massachusetts, and Spark faculty, share with us their insights from the 2025 Socialism conference in Chicago and how those lessons are applicable to their work as K-16 educators.
A major theme Kelly and Chris found at the conference was, how does the progressive left recapture the narrative. Fascist can’t win unless they capture education and the narratives around it that normalize injustice. How does the progressive left ask for the unimaginable. How do we ask for a better world where we don’t have prisons, where we don’t spend billions of dollars and billions of lives to have them and instead ask for what are the kinds of care we need and what are the things that we need to meet, at minimum, the basic needs for people: food, clothing, shelter, health, education, transportation. How do we bring the majority of people in the United States along with the possibilities of abolition. Most Americans can’t imagine an abolitionist society. How do we as educators change the conversation which then changes the narrative around this and make it imaginable? Most importantly that Capitalism can’t solve capitalism
