Occupy Movement Targets America's Youth

Occupy Movement Targets America's Youth: In my conversations with young people in and around New York City, I have discovered that many have already embraced the Occupy movement--though, ironically, it seeks to devour their creative potential, their innate love of freedom, and their ability to reach great heights by virtue of nothing but their own personal hunger for success. It is imperative that we work actively to set the Occupy record straight.

Having recently interviewed Stephen K. Bannon about his upcoming film, Occupy Unmasked, I found myself somewhat immersed in the literature of the Occupy movement.

Years of working in education—as a teacher, Dean, and Student Adviser—instilled in me a heightened interest in academia, and I couldn't help but be drawn to a column titled "Step 1: Occupy Universities Step 2: Transform Them" in the December 2011 issue of Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy. In that column, Conor Tomás Reed defines what the Occupy movement sees wrong with America's educational system: "Competitive individualized learning, rigid demarcation of disciplines, shallow celebration of difference, grading systems that all-too-viciously distort self-worth—these are the pedagogical tools of the 1%."

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