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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Schools Matter: Coercing Silence

Schools Matter: Coercing Silence:


Coercing Silence

I began blogging about "education," in an attempt to define and understand the word when applied to a social system as well as in an attempt to discover the ways we are "taught" how to behave outside of those curricular and pedagogical walls.  I asked myself, and what audience I might have imagined having, "What is a school?"  I'm not sure I have met a definition that I would want to stand by as a "good."

Much of what follows seems compelled out of me after reading this column by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian, "Free Speech v 'Community'," and the impetus for this column comes out of this Op-Ed by Georgetown Law Prof. Jonathan Turley in the Washington Post, "Shut up and play nice: How the western world is limiting free speech."

Turley writes (and Greenwald quotes)
"Free speech is dying in the western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for