Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/bring-back-the-10-chairs-educating-a-new-generation-of-cultural-workers/5026866/
It is time to bring back the 10 Chairs. I once thought that this stark simulation of economic disparity would take its place in a giant leap toward the systematic disruption of an inherently unfair structure. My Pollyanna disposition had surmised that confronted with the “10 Chairs” encounter, an educational awakening would overtake systems and institutions, leading the charge toward equity. Schools could become genuine venues of democracy and social justice.
But dominance and supremacy are wily forces woven into a social fabric that shrouds economic oppression right in front of our very eyes. I have realized that revisiting and reviving 10 Chairs is one tool that pierces through the shroud.
The inequitable distribution of resources is a known fact, but knowledge, like intelligence, seems to have multiple ways of getting itself inscribed in the knower. There are graphs, and data, and certainly the grim reports about, for example, how COVID-19 has walloped Black and brown communities at a disproportionate rate. There is also physical knowledge. And as smart as teachers are, many of us are helped by a physical representation of challenging data.
We need to bring back the 10 Chairs.
I first learned about the 10 Chairs activity from an article by ...