While my aim is for this blog to become a joint effort, including many voices from colleagues, friends, and students, for now this blog is the work of Zachary Casey, a PhD student in Culture and Teaching at the University of Minnesota.
The name stems from many progressive and critical educators’ insistence on education that takes both students’ and teachers’ lived realities as its starting place. The vision put forward by this website, through the analysis of education news, policy, practice, and theory, centers on the notion that self-appropriated knowledge is most valuable. Further, this site is dedicated to advancing the work of critical educators at every level.
To borrow from Henry Giroux, the aim of this blog is to advance a
Pedagogy that demonstrates its commitment to engaging the views and problems that deeply concern students in their everyday lives. Equally important is the need for schools to cultivate a spirit of critique and respect for human dignity that will be capable of linking personal and social issues around the pedagogical project of helping students become active citizens.
It is to this task that I begin this work here on livedreality.org. I hope that this work will grow to include many and serve as a site for conversation, reflection and growth, as we continue to struggle for a more fully democratic society.