NHEG-September-October2022

September October 2022
NHEG EDGUIDE September - October 2022
It’s not about what teachers do to the students; it’s what students do to each other. This follows the tendency in any
incarceration: fellow inmates are generally more threatening than guards and wardens. Cruelty becomes habitual,
though often hidden and quiet, something whispered about between good friends.
You choose your tribe. In prison, it’s never safe to be without a gang. You denounce former friends and choose new
ones. You join others in making fun of the person in the out-group or rewarding those in the in-group. You have no
obligations to be courteous, decent, or kind, and you are neither punished nor rewarded for your treatment of your
peers except by peers themselves. You have no concern for the larger consequences of your actions. This cultivates
a certain pettiness and leads students to believe that savvy social navigation, even at the expense of others, is their
main task. This is what they get good at, and dehumanizing others is not only not punished, it is often rewarded.
In a professional workplace, in contrast, all employees learn to separate workflow conflicts from personal conflicts.
People who personalize gripes (through gossip, backstabbing, or passive-aggressive performances) do not earn
the trust and respect of others, and thus do not succeed, do not rise, do not last. The shortest-term employees are
those who play politics as if it were middle school. Those who rise above personality to focus on productivity earn
the respect of others and rise in the company. And there are certain conventions: for instance, you never, under any
circumstances, use your position or title to wage personal battles that have nothing to do with work. You can get away
with this for a while, but it doesn’t last.
At the end of 13 Reasons Why, there is a highly symbolic moment in which Hannah walks into the movie theater, turns
in her uniform, and walks out the door. This scene shows what it means to give up on something at which you are succeeding
because you cannot handle the failures that exist outside that space. She was brutally victimized by the other
half of life, the part that exists outside the civilized, courteous, and adult environment of the workplace. Her work
provided her solace, but it was not enough to overcome the impossible odds against her in school.
The story of Hannah is an extreme case with a terrible ending. But the case is neither purely fictional nor entirely isolated,
and it serves as a stand-in for the emotional sufferings of millions. All the anti-bullying campaigns in the world
will not fix the problem. Behavioral controls and counselling will not either. The core problem has to be addressed:
schooling as we know it is an institution built by force, funded by force, and populated through force, thus insulating
students from regular incentives toward civilized life and leaving them unprotected from unchecked exploitation and
abuse.
Source: The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
https://fee.org/
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2022
BY KERRY MCDONALD
Welcome to America: How One Education Entrepreneur
Is Transforming Refugee EducationEducation. How Do
They Do It?
Like so many entrepreneurs, Luma Mufleh saw a problem state’s educational voucher program. “We wouldn’t exist
and created a solution. In 2004, when she began coaching
a soccer team of young refugee boys in the suburbs of
Atlanta, she soon discovered that the local public schools
they attended were failing them. They would be passed
along to the next grade level without any literacy skills
and with no ability to master the academic content being
presented. They were also struggling socially.
An immigrant herself, Luma Mufleh decided to take action by creating the first American
school designed specifically for the distinct needs of refugee and immigrant children.
without school choice,” says Mufleh, explaining during our
conversation that school choice policies should be simplified
to make them more accessible to more students.
In Mufleh’s powerful new book, Learning America: One
Woman’s Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children,
she details her personal story of coming to the
United States, serendipitously connecting with refugee
children, and embracing the can-do American entrepreneurial
spirit. She writes:
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“Students were bullied and made fun of because of their
names or because of the fact that they don’t know anything.
It was just really hard to watch,” she told me during
this week’s episode of the LiberatED Podcast.
An immigrant herself who grew up in Jordan and is the
daughter and granddaughter of Syrian refugees, Mufleh
decided to take action by creating the first American
school designed specifically for the distinct needs of refugee
and immigrant children. In 2007, she launched Fugees
Academy as a tuition-free private school with six refugee
students and a teacher in a church basement in Clarkston,
Georgia. The first Fugees grew quickly, became an
accredited private school, and now operates as a Georgia
charter school.
In 2018, Mufleh expanded Fugees Academy by opening
a second location in Columbus, Ohio. There, refugee
and immigrant students attend tuition-free through the
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“There was never a grand plan. There wasn’t a moment when
I thought to myself—This is what I do now; I lead a school for
refugees. I saw kids being deprived of an education, families
struggling despite their coveted American addresses, and I did
what I could to make their lives better. No school I found was
considering the specialized needs of my community. It was
easier and more effective just to do it myself. I had grown up in
such a suffocating, restrictive culture. In America, the freedom
I had to fix the problem I saw in front of me was an irresistible
privilege.”
Mufleh has advice for other prospective education entrepreneurs
who may be contemplating getting started. “Do
it,” she urges in this week’s podcast. “There are problems.
We can’t just take time to overthink, overthink, overthink.
Sometimes the simplest solution is right in front of you.”