Thursday, October 31, 2013

Why I will not be speaking at Southeast TESOL next week


I will not be speaking at the Southeast TESOL Association Meeting to be held in Myrtle Beach next week, because of a disagreement about my keynote topic.  I learned only recently that the conference theme was supporting the common core, that it was  "dedicated entirely to providing teachers with strategies for working with common core and all of the states in attendance have adopted it."

I therefore changed my topic to "The case against the common core." This was rejected by the SETESOL Executive Committee.  I was told that "this topic cannot be presented to this group of attendees. "  

I cannot in good conscience speak at a conference dedicated to the common core without presenting what I know about it.  I offered to present on my original topic as an extra talk, but this was rejected because of lack of space and time.

3 comments:

  1. It is their loss. Very sad when educators will not be intellectually honest enough to challenge their assumptions.

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  2. This is outrageous Stephen – as I have RT (@TESOLacademic) such a shame when the neo-liberal agenda prevents even a debate. I look forward to meeting in December. Huw Jarvis

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  3. What a shame. I can only hope this area can open its eyes in the future!!

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