There may be a time when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but
there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
–Elie Wiesel, as
quoted in Survival
and resistance: The Netherlands under Nazi Assault

Powerless? Protest. Treated unjustly? Protest. That’s the answer Elie Wiesel suggests in his sentence above. How we protest needs to be carefully considered, but is necessary. It feels like walking on the edge of a sand dune, each step could be the beginning of a fall downwards. Yet, failure to protest, to resist can be even more dangerous. If we don’t actively resist where we are going in education today, we’ll end up with this reality:

Worksheets and bookwork are safe. I have never been reprimanded for
failure to follow policy as it applies to worksheets distributed in the
classroom. . .Fire up the copy machine … I am book work bound.
Source:
Haulin’ Net
Comment by Joe

Perhaps, some are already experiencing it. I like what Wes has to say on the subject…

Can any US legislative body ban all digital social networking in schools
and public libraries and stop these technologies from not only becoming
more robust and powerful, but also from being utilized by increasing
numbers of people– students included? No, they can’t. Even authoritarian
China cannot stop our web 2.0 enabled conversations and our voices.
Source: Choices are More Problematic than tools, Speedofcreativity.org

When I was younger, I imagined that the human race was evolving, moving as fast as it could to the one point when we would all be connected, when there would no longer be isolated remnants of humans, but a mass of people exchanging/fighting over ideas, constantly interacting. It would be at that time, I imagined, that the end of the world would come. It seemed obvious to my twenty-year old mind that once we all achieved spiritual awareness–or perhaps not–all of us would find ourselves pitched in a war that would divide us down the middle. We see the dichotomies in everything we do, I see the divided nature of humanity

fighting against itself. One group is fighting to ensure one-way, top down, authoritarian control of communication, while another group is fighting to ensure two-way open communication.

Technology then, boils down to communication–access to ideas and expression of those ideas. There may be a time, when authoritarian individuals and governments are fighting to ban social networking. And, the only response may be to be powerless and protest. Fortunately, that
day has not yet come…powerlessness can be powerful beyond measure when the powerless join together and their voices are heard. It makes no sense, and that may be because we’re looking at the truth with one eye closed.

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