Across time and cultures, certain people quietly challenge the limits of the systems they inhabit. They don’t necessarily burn institutions down, but they do inhabit them differently, expanding what is considered legitimate knowledge, authority, creativity, and participation.
This essay explores Positive Deviance: a concept that began in public health research but reveals a much larger cultural pattern. From Hypatia and Confucius to Montessori, Freire, Rachel Carson, Fred Rogers, and Bob Ross, these figures demonstrate how deviation from the norm can become a powerful force for human flourishing.
Positive Deviance is not rare. It is simply quieted, almost invisibly, by power and tradition. But once we begin to notice it, we realize it has been shaping culture all along.
When Education Took a Wrong Turn: How Dewey Lost to Fichte (and Why We’re Still Paying for It)
What if the purpose of school was never to raise thinkers, but to train obedience? This deep dive traces how Johann Fichte’s authoritarian vision for education eclipsed John Dewey’s democratic, curiosity-driven approach, and how that legacy still shapes our classrooms today. But it’s not too late to choose differently. A must-read for anyone rethinking what school and education should be.
Epistemicide Part 2: The Classroom as a Battleground
School is supposed to be a place for learning, but what if it’s also where knowledge is erased? In this second part of our Epistemicide series, we explore how modern education narrows what counts as “real” knowledge. From standardized tests to sanitized curricula, we unpack how classrooms became battlegrounds and how the battle has changed.
There’s a reason people have kept boxes of old letters, dog-eared books, ticket stubs, and notebooks filled with half-thoughts. These objects hold more than memories, they hold presence. In a world more and more in favor of speed, convenience, and endless scroll, analog asks something different of us. It demands attention. It slows us down. And in that slowing, in the tactile act of holding and making, we begin to recover meaning, connection, and a deeper sense of ourselves. Analog is not nostalgia. It is a way of staying human in an increasingly weightless world.
Epistemicide Part 3: Who Got Erased And How to Recover What Was Lost
What happens when stories, songs, and structures are rewritten or erased altogether? In this final part of our Epistemicide series, we trace the loss of knowledge across the arts, architecture, music, literature, and language. But this isn’t just about mourning the erased. It’s about recovering what was lost, resisting with curiosity, and building a culture of memory and imagination. From banned books to folk art to fast food buildings, nothing is too niche, too “lowbrow.” And it's never too late to learn or to remember.
We’re taught to believe knowledge builds upward, layer by layer, always advancing to a pinnacle. Could this towering cathedral of “universal” knowledge have been built on the ruins of erased worlds? In this first post of our four-part Epistemicide series, we dig into the deliberate destruction of diverse knowledge systems, from Mayan codices to women’s oral histories, and we ask: Who gets to be a knower? And who gets forgotten? Why and what can we do?
Across time and cultures, certain people quietly challenge the limits of the systems they inhabit. They don’t necessarily burn institutions down, but they do inhabit them differently, expanding what is considered legitimate knowledge, authority, creativity, and participation.
This essay explores Positive Deviance: a concept that began in public health research but reveals a much larger cultural pattern. From Hypatia and Confucius to Montessori, Freire, Rachel Carson, Fred Rogers, and Bob Ross, these figures demonstrate how deviation from the norm can become a powerful force for human flourishing.
Positive Deviance is not rare. It is simply quieted, almost invisibly, by power and tradition. But once we begin to notice it, we realize it has been shaping culture all along.
There’s a reason people have kept boxes of old letters, dog-eared books, ticket stubs, and notebooks filled with half-thoughts. These objects hold more than memories, they hold presence. In a world more and more in favor of speed, convenience, and endless scroll, analog asks something different of us. It demands attention. It slows us down. And in that slowing, in the tactile act of holding and making, we begin to recover meaning, connection, and a deeper sense of ourselves. Analog is not nostalgia. It is a way of staying human in an increasingly weightless world.
When Education Took a Wrong Turn: How Dewey Lost to Fichte (and Why We’re Still Paying for It)
What if the purpose of school was never to raise thinkers, but to train obedience? This deep dive traces how Johann Fichte’s authoritarian vision for education eclipsed John Dewey’s democratic, curiosity-driven approach, and how that legacy still shapes our classrooms today. But it’s not too late to choose differently. A must-read for anyone rethinking what school and education should be.
Epistemicide Part 3: Who Got Erased And How to Recover What Was Lost
What happens when stories, songs, and structures are rewritten or erased altogether? In this final part of our Epistemicide series, we trace the loss of knowledge across the arts, architecture, music, literature, and language. But this isn’t just about mourning the erased. It’s about recovering what was lost, resisting with curiosity, and building a culture of memory and imagination. From banned books to folk art to fast food buildings, nothing is too niche, too “lowbrow.” And it's never too late to learn or to remember.
Epistemicide Part 2: The Classroom as a Battleground
School is supposed to be a place for learning, but what if it’s also where knowledge is erased? In this second part of our Epistemicide series, we explore how modern education narrows what counts as “real” knowledge. From standardized tests to sanitized curricula, we unpack how classrooms became battlegrounds and how the battle has changed.
We’re taught to believe knowledge builds upward, layer by layer, always advancing to a pinnacle. Could this towering cathedral of “universal” knowledge have been built on the ruins of erased worlds? In this first post of our four-part Epistemicide series, we dig into the deliberate destruction of diverse knowledge systems, from Mayan codices to women’s oral histories, and we ask: Who gets to be a knower? And who gets forgotten? Why and what can we do?
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