Donaldo Macedo is a professor of English and a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. A critical theorist, linguist, and expert on literacy and education studies, Macedo is the founder and former chair of the Applied Linguistics Master of Arts Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

In 2014, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in the Republic of Cape Verde. In 2015, he was also inducted into the Academy of Letters in the Republic of Cape Verde. In 2003, Macedo was named a member of the Laureate Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi—International Society in Education, one of the world’s most prestigious awards in education. Past recipients of this award include Albert Einstein (1950), Walter Lippman (1960), Margaret Mead (1962), Charles E. Skinner (1966), and Jean Piaget (1974). The award recognizes Macedo’s scholarly contributions over the years and the influence his work has had both in the United States and abroad.

I have received numerous accolades over the years, but my proudest accomplishment is the more than 30 million dollars I have secured in grants ( this includes grants I wrote for various school districts that serve large numbers of linguistic minority students), which have enabled me to award an average of 75 scholarships annually since 1981. These scholarships support students who would not be able to pursue their university studies without such assistance. My reward has been the gratitude of these students, many of whom are immigrants and who say that their lives were transformed by Macedo’s efforts, as they are now university professors, authors, doctors, lawyers, educators, and policymakers in the United States and abroad.

Macedo has been a central figure in the field of critical pedagogy for more than 30 years. His work with Paulo Freire broke new theoretical ground, as it helped to develop a critical understanding of the ways in which language, power, and culture contribute to the positioning and formation of human experience and learning. Macedo was Freire’s chief translator and English language interpreter. His published dialogues with Paulo Freire are considered classic works not only for their elucidation of Freire’s theories of literacy but also for adding a more critical and theoretically advanced dimension to the study of literacy and critical pedagogy. Macedo’s and Freire’s coauthored book, Literacy: Reading the World and the Word, is central to critical literacy in that it redefines the very nature and terrain of literacy and critical pedagogy.

In addition to his seminal work with Freire, Macedo has played a central role in constructing a literacy of power for use in critical pedagogy. Contrary to popular belief and the dominant ideology, schools do not always serve the best interests of their students. Both the schools and the cultural pedagogies of the media and other social institutions often perpetuate ignorance or, as Macedo puts it, stupidification. As schools and other institutions fragment knowledge and deny contextual understanding, students find it increasingly difficult to make connections between school information, their lived worlds, and relations of power and privilege. Macedo’s work directly challenges the educational experts who attempt to keep issues of power and social struggle outside the purview of education. Macedo argues that questions of power vis-à-vis socioeconomic class relations, gender dynamics, and racial discrimination are suppressed by many mainstream political and educational leaders. Their position, Macedo asserts, conveniently ignores questions of ethics. As long as such questions are suppressed and a literacy of power isignored, schools will remain tools of the status quo.

Macedo ties this literacy of power directly to what he describes as emancipatory literacy, which is characterized by students becoming knowledgeable about their own histories, experiences, and the culture of their everyday environments. They also learn to discern the dominant culture’s codes and signifiers in order to deal with them in their own environments. In an educational context shaped by emancipatory literacy, therefore, teachers must teach a dual curriculum. Macedo argues that a language of possibility permeates a two-tier curriculum, which both empowers students to make sense of their everyday life and gives them the tools that are valued in the dominant culture, which they need to achieve upward mobility. Macedo writes that students in this context celebrate who they are while learning to deal with ways of seeing and being that are not their own. In this way, students from marginalized backgrounds can create their own histories (see below, Freire & Macedo, 1987; Macedo, 1994; Macedo& Bartolomé, 2001). For more information on Macedo’s work in this area, go to www.freireproject.org/content/donaldo-macedo.

Donaldo Macedo has published more than one hundred articles, books, and book chapters in the areas of linguistics, critical literacy, and multicultural education. His publications include Literacy: Reading the Word and the World (with Paulo Freire, 1987), Literacies of Power: What Americans Are Not Allowed to Know (1994), Dancing with Bigotry (with Lilia Bartolomé, 1999), Critical Education in the New Information Age (with Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Paul Willis, 1999), Chomsky on Miseducation (with Noam Chomsky, 2000), Howard Zinn on Democratic Education (with Howard Zinn, 2005), and Imposed Democracy: Dialogues with Noam Chomsky and Paulo Freire (2012).

LoveHuman Book

LoveHuman is a book about you; where you come from, where you are going, and why you are here. It offers valuable guidance regarding how to find comfort in a world where uncomfortable things happen.

Betsy Thompson will be our special guest on the Living Your Souls Journey with Dr Vikke.

At the first ever Globetrotters player draft, Ant didn't even have time to finish his soda before he was handed a red-white-and-blue jersey. He was the first pick, and it's easy to see why. In the 2007 NCAA Division II championship, Ant pulled off one of the most awesome comebacks in basketball history. With 45 seconds left and his Barton College team down 74-67, Ant turned the game around. He scored 10 points and sank a lay-up at the buzzer to win 77-75.

He also is in the Globetrotter record books with the greatest individual scoring game in team history.  On March 29, 2013, at Motorpoint Arena Cardiff in Cardiff, Wales, Ant set Globetrotter records with an unbelievable 22 made 4-pointers - the Globetrotter innovation that is 35 feet away from the basket – 12 made 4-pointers in one quarter and 93 points in the game.

But all that is nothing. When the Globetrotters were on "The Celebrity Apprentice," Ant stared down Donald Trump's hair and lived to tell about it.

Former MLB player Darold Brown is now an MLB Scout. 

Alan attended Forest Hill High School in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was the President of his student council, a National Merit Scholar, the ‘Boy of the Year’ for Palm Beach County (1978), graduated 7th in a class of 406, sang with Dimension 20, Florida’s #1 high school performing chorus, and won county and statewide awards for speaking and acting.

Alan received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting & Directing from the FSU School of Theater in Tallahassee in 1981, performed in the ’80 & ’81 summer stock seasons on Jekyll Island, GA, and was in the 1982 apprentice class at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Jupiter, Florida.

Alan lived in New York City from 1983 to 2007, where he:

* worked in film, TV & stage

* was a stripper, go-go dancer & promoter in the night club scene

* owned FootFriends.com, a company that hosted parties for thousands of men into men’s feet, from London to New York to LA, and produced men’s foot fetish films.

* launched GrandSpace, a warehouse community of artists & healers in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, that housed hundreds of people and served thousands in NYC from 2002 to 2008.

Alan’s mind/body/spiritual training include:

* Alan & his partner were diagnosed with AIDS in ’85. Alan’s partner died in ’86 and Alan experienced a miracle healing, then participated with the big Tuesday night Healing Circle in New York, that grew out of Louise Hay workshops and drew hundreds of people every week from the late ’80s to the early ’90’s. Here Alan learned many healing practices and received his first Reiki certification.

* Alan learned harmonic toning in the New York Healing Circle, and then brought it to the people of New York by generating hundreds of ‘Moments of Sound’ with all different kinds of communities, most notably in the 1994 Gay Pride March & Civil Rights March on the United Nations (5000 participants), the 1997 Gay Pride March (15,000 participants) and the 1st anniversary memorial gathering at the site of the World Trade Center, on 9.11.02 (3000 participants).

* Alan is usually 100% vegan and very, very green (he occasionally eats fish & eggs). He was a 100% raw vegan from 1999 to 2005, has ‘green juice fasted’ over 700 days since 1999, has fasted up to 33 days straight, and in 2007 juice fasted a total of 100 days. Alan has written articles for the Hippocrates Institute, produced and appeared at events with Dr. Gabriel Cousens & David Wolfe, and has been a speaker at the Raw Spirit Festival in Sedona, AR & the New Life Expo in NYC.

* Alan has completed two 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreats and is a daily meditator.

* Alan has studied and practiced many styles of yoga, including a stint at Eddie Stern’s Ashtanga studio in SoHo/NYC, and now channels a synthesis of yoga styles that changes & evolves daily.

* Alan was active with Landmark Education from 1988 to 2002, as a participant, assistant and team leader. Alan was never on staff, but his outstanding speaking led several Forum & seminar leaders to invite Alan to go through the steps to become a Landmark Forum leader.

* Alan has participated in more than 50 ayahuasca ceremonies since 2003, and done two retreats in the Peruvian Amazon, with Don Diego at Sachavacay, and with the Shipibo Indians at the Temple of the Way of Light out of Iquitos.

* Alan received his Reiki Master certifications in January of 2009. In May of 2009, his hands began moving spontaneously at an ayahuasca ceremony in Miami, Florida. Since then, Alan has toured the U.S. and worked with nearly 13,000 people in sound healing ceremonies and individual healing sessions, and partnered with about 1000 healers and musicians, practicing countless modalities and paths. After a 5-year nomadic path of initiation, Alan is now based in Miami, Florida.

Ella, born Melanie Louise Stringer, grew up on the impoverished streets of Manchester, New Hampshire. Born to a single mother, who barely escaped her kidnapping while carrying the child. Ella would later find life turn adventurous…

By age 12, Ella was subjected to helping her mother raise her younger brother and taking care of her drunken grandfather after splitting because of the infidelity of her father. Ella found herself in a hopeless sea of reality, writing lyrics on herwalls, and singing to gun shot streets to cope with the pain of a household filled with mental and physical abuse.

By her high school graduation, Ella was approached by a spiteful source who revealed that the father she’d known growing up was not her biological parent. Feeling even more betrayed, after remaining loyal to a mother who had emptied her childhood bank savings and piled her and her brother in debt, Ella saved some money, bought a beat-up Honda and took off to find her biological father.

Zip-tying her bumper onto her Honda for the 3,000 mile ride, Ella made it to the West Coast and found herself submerged in the trudges of the Hollywood Music scene. There, Ella was discovered by manager and visionary Lika Tatsushima, who saw the potential and heart of a young girl’s tragedy. She found Ella singing demo's at Kevin Irving, of Club Nouveau, studios. Kevin committed suicide later that year, ending production for Ella.

But Ella and Lika did not give up. Instead they decided to stay strong and work harder. Lika spread the word of the girl's struggle and strife, attracting the attention of world renowned Japanese director Masashi Muto. Muto then created Ella’s first music video sponsored by Cutters Studio in collaboration with the Fantasia International Film Festival's "best animation and audience” award winning series “Tamala," sponsored by WWF.

In the short amount of time the two began campaigning, Ella’s strong, sexy, and fun attitude in what they liked to call “ELLATUDE.” This was a fierce new beginning for Ella, leaving her past in the dust of her travels. Her reality is stranger than fiction could dream.

In 2016, Audio Technica will be featuring Ella and her music in their world-wide advertising campaign promoting their new production line. This commercial campaign will serve as a platform for her discovery, Ella’s story and her music will soon spread throughout the world.

Zen Cryar-DeBrücke is an internationally renowned inspirational teacher, speaker, author and coach. Her passion is teaching people to tap into their innate inner guidance to generate consistent, successful results in life. The result is replacing exhaustion, anxiety, fear and dread with ease, joy, flow and fulfillment.

Zen's programs have helped thousands of people all over the world transform their lives for the better, with sustained positive changes in their business and personal lives. Her compassion radiates through her work, and her style is down to earth, practical, humorous and wise.

She was a founder and CEO of one of the first Internet design companies in the world. The company, in a four-year period, quickly grew from $250,000 to $4,000,000. She is known for creating innovative online strategies that are simple and work for fortune 500 companies, including Applied Materials, IBM, Electronic Arts, BP and VISA.