Politics & Power Quote by Daniel Greenberg

Longevity is doing the heavy lifting here. By leading with “since 1968,” Daniel Greenberg isn’t just timestamping an institution; he’s borrowing the moral authority of an era when “free” and “democratic” were fighting words on campuses and in school board meetings. The date functions like a credential: we were radical before it was a branding exercise, and we’re still standing. That implied survival story matters more than any abstract claim about pedagogy.

The phrasing “identified as an example” is strategically passive. Greenberg sidesteps self-congratulation while still cashing the check of outside validation. It suggests legitimacy conferred by reputation, not marketing. At the same time, “example” quietly positions the school as a model organism in the ecosystem of education reform: something observers can study, replicate, or use to challenge their own assumptions.

Then comes the real tell: “many professors want to expose their students.” “Expose” carries a double edge. On the surface it’s benign, even generous - a field trip for future teachers. Underneath, it hints at how marginal democratic schooling still is. You don’t “expose” students to the standard; you expose them to the anomaly, the controversial case study, the thing that tests the boundaries of what counts as “real school.”

The subtext is a subtle critique of mainstream teacher education. Professors, Greenberg implies, know their programs can become doctrinaire, so they outsource imagination to a living counterexample. His “philosophy” isn’t presented as a curriculum tweak; it’s an alternative civic arrangement, one that keeps attracting visitors precisely because most schools still aren’t built to trust students that much.