It’s only by surrendering that we win, you know. Jesus surrendered himself. Gandhi and Bonhoeffer did. Mother Teresa surrendered. Anyone who has had something to lose (don’t we all), that has accomplished deep change, has surrendered him/herself. We can’t win the arguments that Doug Johnson’s George makes. It takes so much energy to fight those points.

Every time, the argument moves from censorship to “protection,” even though that’s NOT what we’re really arguing. Let’s agree to not play the “Ain’t it awful?”, or another popular game, “Ain’t Web 2.0 great? Check out this new gadget…” anymore.

The question is, how can we transform education? How can we get everyone to go Web 2.0? By being like the smudge on the road in the picture. We have to surrender. As teachers, we can’t win. We can only organize and agree to surrender together. Absolute surrender to the George’s in our districts. Let the tanks roll on, but make sure that you’re the smudge on the pavement. Be the Tank Man (or Woman).

This past Sunday, I grew tired of the blog posts that talked about how horrible it is that our schools are mired in NCLB, or joining the chorus of how great Web 2.0 was. I felt it was important to listen to my spirit, to act, to transform my writing and my approach to all of this. I imagined classroom teachers that felt like me, who found this quote regarding Elijah an apt description…

And now he found himself in the wilderness, a day’s journey from Jezreel, sitting under a common broom tree. He felt worthless, alone, frightened, a failure – overwhelmed by the world.

I’d rather surrender to the tank treads. If enough of us do it, maybe someone will notice. But, I do know that to NOT try to step in front of the juggernaut won’t change a darn thing. And, don’t we agree, to act with a small hope of success is better than doing nothing?

So, while this has never been about filtering MySpace.com to protect students, but rather, stopping censorship and the slide to authoritarian rule in our schools and our Nation, join me in doing something as insignificant, but powerful beyond measure, as adding “MySpace.com” at the bottom of every post, every web page you create. Go on, step in front of the tank.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. –Mahatma Gandhi

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