On Nov. 6-7 the Fourth Annual Critical Theories in the 21st Century: A Conference of Transformative Pedagogies was held at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
The conference featured Bill Ayers, DePaul University education professor, former elementary school teacher, and lifetime activist. Addressing over 200 undergraduate students, graduate students and professors Ayers argued that social justice educators need to lead by example, showing students how to be activists. While we cannot predict the future, as Ayers stressed, we can develop community, solidarity, and collectively work for a future with less suffering, less exploitation, and less bigotry. Ayers did not fail to remind people that defeating capitalism remains the historical mission of not only previous generations, but of the current generation.
Before Ayers’s keynote address, Kashara Omira, Co-Coordinator of the Philadelphia branch of the PSL, gave a speech highlighting the way capitalists are currently responding to deepening crisis in urban centers in the U.S. Drawing on Philadelphia as an example, Omira noted that the local government is funding a $400 million prison facility, while neglecting to fund the projected $360 million cost of updating the city’s public school system. Omira challenged liberal calls for reform and argued that the oppression of Black and Brown communities cannot be overcome without transforming the system from which it stems.
Walter Smolarek, Philadelphia public School teacher, followed up Omira’s talk and focused on how neoliberalism is not merely an ideological position but a response by capital to restore the falling profit margin in its current descending phase. The neoliberal defunding of public education outlined by Smolarek highlights how the school to prison pipeline is also a counter-measure to the potential of the Black liberation movement within the U.S.
The conference also featured speakers from British Columbia, to Gettysburg, Pa., to WCU itself. For example, Bernard Hall, from WCU’s English Department presented on hip-hop pedagogy. Dana Morrison, a Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware and an adjunct in WCU’s College of Education, presented on critical pedagogy through the lens of her experience as a doctoral student. Collin Chambers, a graduate student from Syracuse University and an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition there, gave a presentation on the changing global political landscape.
Delivering the final keynote Dr. Anthony Monteiro, lifetime resident and radical of North Philadelphia’s historic Black community, wove a unique Gramscian-inspired contribution to the Black radical tradition, which ended the conference on a revolutionary note.
