LatinaLista — Education expert Henry Giroux was named by the Toronto Star in 2012 as one of the top intellectuals changing the way the world thinks. The founder of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project, Giroux has written over 50 books on the topics of education, youth, and democracy.
They are topics he knows both academically and professionally, starting his career as a high school teacher in Rhode Island. These days he lives in Canada with his wife and holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship in the English and Cultural Studies Department at McMaster University and is a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University.
Giroux draws upon his vast knowledge of education to deliver an honest assessment of today’s U.S. educational system — and it’s not flattering.
According to Giroux, impoverished and working-class children attending urban schools are subjected to a system that isn’t controlled by educators but law enforcement, where children are being criminalized for minor infractions.
Giroux sees these events as an extension of a “racist logic that has seeped into the schools,” along with an attitude by some educators who feel that children, who are not as evolved in their learning as their peers, are ‘disposable’ and not wanted by schools out of fear these children will bring down the school’s test scores.
All these negative factors add up to an environment not conducive to learning or allowing any child to believe they have a future.
