Full Description
In a time of great U.S. and global social unrest and unravelling, Systemic Collapse and Renewal presents a blueprint for how Americans can respond to that unrest by reclaiming and rebuilding our democracy. Part I of the book traces the deep, underlying sources of the disintegration and collapse. Through storytelling, case history, and ethnography, it examines how a small group of "elites" used ethnic diversity resulting from global migration to the U.S. as a distraction while they implemented a planned, behind-closed-doors strategy to seize the democracy and ruin the middle class. With the former representative democracy hijacked by these moneyed interests, this book demonstrates that it remains quintessentially American to believe that there is always a way out, and that the encroaching acts of fascism by "elites" can be pushed back and defeated. Tapping into this optimism, Part II of Systemic Collapse and Renewal sets forth a path for democratic rebirth. That path begins by examining that which was taken away: the shared meanings (cultural norms, beliefs, and behaviors) that are deeply American and can be re-taught, celebrated, and once again used by Americans to build social cohesion as a country. Part II also urges a new U.S. educational and social movement based on mutual reliance—and on the healing of wounds—for an increasingly diverse country. Democratic renewal begins with the simple step of sharing our stories and our dreams about how to make a better world.
Contents
Figures and Tables - Acknowledgments - Peter L. McLaren: Foreword - Gregory K. Tanaka: Part I: Sources of Collapse - After the Rage - Losing Culture, Losing Soul - Baseball and the Decline of Myth - The End of Democracy as We Knew It - On Collapse and the Next U.S. Democracy - Gregory K. Tanaka: Interlude: From Systemic Collapse to Social Reconstitution - Part II: Sources of Renewal - Gregory K. Tanaka: Letting Go - Ruth Cotton/David Reed: Looking Past the Target - Gregory K. Tanaka: Casting Steppingstones - Derek Fenner/Evangelia Ward-Jackson: Extending the Aura - Gregory K. Tanaka/Roberto Flores: Going Back to the Source ("Caminando Juntos") - Epilogue - Gregory K. Tanaka: In Any Infrastructure Rebuilding, the Step That Comes Before Action Is Dreaming - Shane Maldonado: "The Eden Project" - Merritt Richmond: SunUp and the Educators' Renewal Consortium (ERC) - Emily Kaplowitz: Education—Funding and Systems - Jaguanana Lathan: Rethinking Education: A Moral Imperative - Jacque Roby: Morality in Public Education: Evoking the Common Good - Lars Henrich: Why a New Leadership Model Is So Important in This Time of Systemic Collapse: Adding "Initiator Training" to the Basic Curriculum - Benita M. Baines: A Humanities-Based Approach to Education Reform - Andrew Urata: "Gamification" and Its Untapped Potential in U.S. Public Education - Adrienne D. Oliver: Utopia - Jason Cook-Harvey: "A City of Villages" - Stephen Gawrylewski: Final Thought for the Evening Sky - Laurence Brahm: Afterword - D'Andrea Robinson: Appendix: Proposed Legislation for a New Division Within the United States Department of Education - Contributors - Index.
