On Sunday, May 25, 2014 - Professor Lois Weiner, PhD will be back - but from England - with her guest, Mary Compton, President of Teacher Solidarity to continue speaking about the global assault on teaching, teachers and their unions.

About Teacher Solidarity - see more at: http://http://www.teachersolidarity.com

"Education in almost every country in the world is subject to the grip of neo-liberal education 'reform' which is slowly starving out public schooling, promoting privatisation, destroying teacher professionalism and aims only to produce a minimally educated workforce, which can read instructions and advertisements but is discouraged from thinking critically about the world.

Teachersolidarity is an independent website which records the resistance to such reform of teachers, their unions, communities and researchers, who are fighting to defend public and democratic education. It aims to bring such people together, through sharing experiences, learning from one another and giving and receiving solidarity."

Lois Weiner is a professor of education at New Jersey City University, where she coordinates a Master's degree in Urban Education for experienced teachers. She has published widely on urban teacher education, school reform, and teacher unionism and is a past president of the Special Interest Group on teachers' work and teachers unions of the American Educational Research Association. She taught high school for 15 years, in California and New York, and was an activist in the teachers union. Currently she is a member of the New Politics editorial board and maintains a website with information about the global project to de-professionalize teaching.

Her Story: "Throughout my work life, as a classroom teacher and union officer, then college professor and researcher, I’ve believed that teachers need to work with parents as respectful partners and stand up for social justice. I think transforming teachers unions is an essential part of that project. When teachers unions live up to their potential, they plant the seed of democracy in the schools, giving teachers voice. That’s one reason the unions are being attacked so viciously in the media.

But democracy at the school place also means sharing power with parents, community, and students. As a former teacher and parent of a child in the NYC schools, I’ve seen the inequality of the system and the marginalization of critics. It’s easy under these conditions for parents to blame teachers - and vice versa - for what are actually the system’s failings. That’s what occurs in New York City, and it’s a dynamic we have to stop. Teachers Unite, from its inception, has been committed to bringing teachers, students, parents, and community together as allies in fighting for social justice in the schools and in our city.

Today more than ever we need to create mutually respectful relations between teachers unions and communities who want quality schools for their children. Many teachers are fearful of speaking out for kids. Others are just starting to realize the extent of the danger facing us. We need to build a social movement that pushes back on reforms that use the rhetoric of equal opportunity to privatize our schools, increase competition for scarce resources, and worsen conditions for the vast majority of students.

Teachers Unite embodies my goals for education, and I am proud to have served on its Board of Directors. I think its work is so essential to New York City that I make it the recipient of the royalties from my new book, “The future of our schools. Teachers unions and social justice.” We need to work fast and smart to save public education in NYC, and I think Teachers Unite is one of our best hopes to do that."

Lois Weiner, Professor
Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education
Coordinator, MA in Urban Education/Teaching and Learning
New Jersey City University
2039 Kennedy Blvd.
Jersey City, NJ 07305
201.200.2432

email: drweinerlo@gmail.com

 

Michele Avanti has been teaching metaphysics since 1972. She is a metaphysical minister, an ISAR certified astrologer, an accredited Fixed Star Analyst, an EFT professional and an award-winning author. Michele mentors clients through individual consultations. 

Tina Malia’s prodigious talent spans many musical genres and disciplines. As a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer she has distinguished herself in styles ranging from pop to world devotional to electronic. Her own diverse and growing catalog of albums is complemented by studio and live work with iconic artists such as Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Jai Uttal, Kenny Loggins, India.Arie, Idan Raichel and Bassnectar. 

There are two unifying factors in all of this. One is Tina’s remarkable voice. An instrument of exceptional purity, it can be as tender as an angel’s sigh or as powerful as a deep ocean current. The other unifying factor in Tina’s musical universe is her vision — an all-encompassing artistic perspective that embraces many of the world’s musical cultures, languages and spiritual traditions. 

Creativity and diversity are her very lifeblood. Of Korean and Yugoslavian descent, Tina was tutored in classical piano and voice from an early age by her mother. But it was her dad who fostered her interest in choral singing and popular music forms.

For over 15 years, Mr. Martell has also been one of the leading researchers and lectures specializing in ancient civilization technologies. Mr Martell’s research has been featured worldwide on numerous television and radio networks such as The Discovery Channel, Syfy Channel, and the BBC. He is currently a regular guest on the show “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel. His latest book “Knowledge Apocalypse” is available on Amazon.com.

Most recently Mr. Martell garnered worldwide attention by recreating a working model of one of science’s most profound mysteries – the “Baghdad Battery”. Residing in the national museum of Iraq, the discovery of this 2,000 year old device suggests the modern day battery was not invented in 1800 by Count Alassandro Volt, but was in use two millennia earlier. Mr Martell’s recreation was instrumental in proving the Baghdad Battery was capable of generating current.

Lecturing throughout the world, Mr. Martell has dedicated his studies to Ancient Artifacts, Planet X, Ancient Astronauts and the structures on Mars. Due to growing interest in his research, Mr. Martell created a network, of what is now, one of the world’s most visited websites attracting over 1 million new visitors each year. The website ranks in the “Top 10″ most visited paranormal websites on the Internet according to Google.

Today, Mr. Martell is planning stages of several groundbreaking international research expeditions. The expeditions focus on gaining access to ancient locations, ancient artifacts, and other archaeological relics not currently accessible to the public. By bringing worldwide attention to these hidden artifacts, Mr. Martell hopes to usher in a new era in the Ancient Astronaut theory and the Lost Cycle Of Time.

Aside from Mr. Martell’s research and lectures, he is also the founder of Booya! Media, a successful mobile app company. Mr. Martell has founded several successful companines in the digital and mobile technology space over the last 10 years.

In the winter of 1981, while working as an account executive for an LA investment company, Debra attended an evening seminar entitled, "Money Magic." Thinking she was walking into another dry financial tutorial, she sat transfixed as the seminar leader shared radical ideas about how prosperity is really created – ideas that had nothing to do with working hard or investing wisely but rather using energetic tools like the now popular “Law of Attraction” to create prosperity. Feeling as if every fiber of her being was resonating with the seminar leader's words, she knew that night that her life's work was to study this knowledge and share these principles with the world.

The next morning she quit her job and spent the next several months studying the laws of true success and prosperity as expounded on by icons of western “esoteric” thought such as Napoleon Hill, Wallace Wattles, Earl Nightengale and Florence Shin. In early 1982, she founded Yes to Success Seminars, Inc., a company dedicated to teaching enlightened, timeless principles of success and prosperity – in modern day language.

By 1983, Debra's seminar was being taught in over a dozen major US cities. By 1984 she had reps teaching her ever-growing body of knowledge in seven countries internationally.

Debra soon became a favorite talk show guest and appeared on radio and TV and in print media from coast to coast. As a sought-after speaker, her client list included Mattel Toys, McDonnell Douglas, the Xerox Management group, International Trade Management, Women in Management, Women in Banking, Business and Professional Women, and more.

Her seminar was the launching pad for many now-renowned transformational leaders including Marci Shimoff, Janet Attwood, Peggy O'Neill, and Extreme Leadership’s Steve Farber.

By 1987 she was being represented by a top literary agent and had a book deal in the works with a major publisher—and she was in the middle of negotiations for her own day-time talk show.

In 1988, her world stopped. No, there was no accident or catastrophe. Her world stopped when the mid-wife handed Debra her new baby girl. And, being true to her own teachings, she chose to follow her heart and for the next two decades devoted her life to being a mom-at-home to her daughter and her son who was born three years later.

Although she fit in a few keynotes, wrote a book on how to cook for your vegetarian children as well as the best-selling Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul, and ran a successful home-based business, she only worked when there were no basketball games to cheer at, recitals to attend, or birthday parties to throw--and she was almost always home to tuck her children in, read them a story and kiss them good night.

Fast forward to 2012. With her baby girl happily employed in the world of fashion and her son running his own successful business in the basketball world, although she took a break from her career as a professional speaker to be a professional mom, the timeless principles of her Yes to Success seminars are as useful today as they were when she first founded her company in 1982.

Debra is once again sharing these principles with the world and helping thousands more say Yes to Success. Adding richness to her already vast wisdom is the profound and invaluable insights into the human spirit that she gained from being a mom.