"Poverty is not a personal characteristic. It is social, it is political, it is one of the ways the world is organized, and it has a history. Radically accepting the poverty of one’s own life and community while simultaneously depersonalizing it makes possible a certain kind of growth/development—especially if one...
"No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child." Maria Montessori ...
This week's words are from Fred Newman's and my book, Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist—restructured from text* to poem. To reshape our emotional practice— to decide for ourselves what it is we want to do with anger, joy, humiliation and the rest of our incredibly complex subjectivity (which is nameless) and with the emotions newly created through/in the activity of building community that redefines...
Don't miss Jackie Salit (president, independentvoting.org) in the Huffington Post. "Mother Hillary and Uncle Bernie: A Theatrical Review" helps you see things you might have missed. "Like many a mainstay in American theatre, the CNN debate was a family drama. Like A Raisin in the Sun, or Death of a Salesman, or...
The Castillo Theatre, housed in the NYC headquarters of the All Stars Project on 42nd St, is a special place. It's my favorite theatre. In my inbox today was an email from Castillo's artistic director Dan Friedman. It personally and eloquently gives expression to Castillo's values and aesthetics.—and I share...
"Some people would say that we need a ground from which to act. We need a shared collective ground for collective action. I think we need to pursue the moments of degrounding, when we're standing in two different places at once; or we don't know exactly where we're standing; or...
I'm looking for people interested in exploring the politics, ethics and activity of a relational psychology of becoming. Social Therapeutics and the Practice of Method: An Advanced Online Course with Lois Holzman and Faculty February — May 2016 Social therapeutics is a “practice of method” for human and community development. What Lois Holzman and Fred...
This week's words are from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass—a very playful practical-philosopical book containing hundreds of thinking/speaking muddles. Here's two of them. I. White Queen: Let's consider your age to begin with—how old are you? Alice: I'm seven and a half exactly. White Queen: You needn't say "exactually: I can believe it without that....
Can We Perform Our Way to Power? The ninth Performing the World (PTW) conference will be held in New York City, Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25, 2016. As the practice, understanding and appreciation for performance and play continue to grow, the world context in which it spreads becomes more conflicted....
This week's words to ponder are a few of the wonderfully ponderable quotes atrributed to the great Yogi Berra—baseball legend and a bona fide American wordsmith. (There are lots more in The Yogi Book.) Yogi Berra passed away September 22, 2015 at the age of 90. “I really didn’t say everything I said.” “Don’t...