Welcome!

This blog was created for an Adult Education program course, but I have wanted to do this for a long time and now I have a valid reason to spend time doing it. I want it to be something of value to others in my field, and perhaps we can work together to change the face of education.

I have this recurring nightmare that educators are being held back from what they can accomplish, and I want to find ways to change that. I am a parent, I am the PTK (it's the same as a PTA-don't ask me, I didn't name it) President, and in my spare time I teach English to Korean students (elementary through high school) on-line in the middle of the night. I am the curriculum developer for the Personal Performance Academy course, which is my brainchild, to help students transfer classroom learning into applicable knowledge for real-world, real-life living. This said, I have done a lot of research, and I have seen all of the red tape that surrounds the world of education (I am NOT a fan of the word "policy" or the word "by-laws"; what horrible words). I think that as educators we often times allow ourselves to be reigned in, to be pulled back to what is comfortable for everyone else...but what is not necessarily comfortable for us. Yet, we allow ourselves to live with it.

A great lady by the name of Marianne Williamson once wrote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyone measure. It is our light, not our darkness which frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightend about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles," 1992 (Commonly misattributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inauguration speech)

If we never hold back, if we never let great ideas die (although they might get put away for a time when others are ready for them), our students will never hold back; they will give everything of themselves, and they will not play small and they will be the change that we want to see in the world. Education Rebels...are those who are not afraid to go rogue for the sake of their students. I do not think that it is any small conincidence that the acronym for Education Rebels is ER...because we have an educational emergency on our hands! And it is those of us who do not play small, that"dare to be different" who will resuscitate our country's education system!

So please contribute; add your ideas, your mistakes, links, efforts, successes, failures, what makes sense and what does not, and your desire to play big to our pages, and let's dare to do this together! I will add new research, my ideas about learning, the transference of knowledge, and ideas for creating a living and breathing, real-life classroom experience. Together, let's dare to do it differently!
Rebel1