Education = Radical

A few weekends ago I participated in a Wikipedia editathon at the Interference Archive, in support of their newest exhibit “Free Education! The Free University of New York, Alternate U, and Learning Liberation”. It closes January 27th and is one not to be missed.

The curation includes wonderful archival documents from various education projects primarily across the 1960’s and 1970’s which led to the formation of FUNY (Free University of New York) and also evolved from FUNY. Exposing past efforts to democratize Education is important, especially in light of today’s sky-rocketing student debt and the further commodification of what should clearly be a public good.

It was also fun to peruse some of the brochures and pamphlets from programs which emerged from the “unschooling” movement like Not Back to School Camp. Overall the exhibit asked many questions about how communities at different intersections (local and global) can build an Education ecosystem together which is affordable, representative, equity-focused and places the learner front and center.

The highlight of the exhibit (for me) was this map of student protest across the African continent from the 1960’s onward. Great inspiration for Nairobi Play and other projects to come in 2019.