After my recently published article, “Teach for America: The Hidden Curriculum of Liberal Do-Gooders,” went semi-viral, thanks in no small part to Valerie Strauss, who republished it in its entirety at her Washington Post education blog, I received quite a bit of interesting feedback from readers. Some of it was negative (coming mostly from TFA alums), but most of it was positive. The most interesting correspondence I had, however, was with filmmaker Jonathan Lee, who created the new documentary Paul Goodman Changed My Life. My article was forwarded on to him, and he got in touch with me, because I conclude my piece with a reflection on Paul Goodman’s writings on education, which included his most famous book, Growing Up Absurd, and his less famous but I would argue equally important book, Compulsory Mis-Education. My concluding paragraph:

Goodman was not against education in the strict sense of the word. For him, the question of education was always of kind. In Goodman’s world, which I imagine as a sort of utopia, those who seek to institutionalize the poor are the enemies of the good. And teachers — real teachers, those who commit their lives (not two years) to expanding their students’ imaginative universes — they are the heroes. I can hardly imagine a better inoculation against the hidden curriculum of liberal do-gooders.

Lee got in touch with me because he hopes to promote his film among those historians and educators who might eventually consider screening it for students. So he sent me a DVD, which is awesome because I was regretfully unable to attend the brown bag session at our last conference when Lee was present to show clips of his film, and, alongside Casey Nelson Blake and Michael Waltzer, engage the audience in discussion of Goodman. I promised to watch the film, which was a pleasure, and to blog about it. So here I am.