Author, Teacher, School Leader, Arts Education and Creativity Specialist, State-Level Arts Administrator
An out-of-the-box thinker who fought bureaucracy and big-systems entrenchment for three decades in the American public school system and at the State level as a Member and Chair of the California Arts Council from 2014-2021, as a writer, Harris tackles a range of moral and philosophical subjects with real-world applications. Significant written works include:
To Awaken Again Tomorrow (2023): In 300+ pages across thirteen essays, Harris takes on the danger of recall elections, Ranked Choice Voting fallacies, the misguided methods of the U.S. Census, #Black Lives Matter and gives us fascinating portraits of Colin Kaepernick (athlete caught in a maelstrom of racial controversy) and Adrian Lamo (the Homeless Hacker, Wiki Leaks nemesis turned unappreciated patriot).
The Seven Deadly Sins of the Millennial Era (2021): Territoriality, Conformity, Judgmentalism, Fear, Narcissism, Rigidity, Cognitive Dissonance. The first three form a Triangle of Terror, describing our hostile social interactions and creating the collective menace that results in war, genocide, oppression and slavery. The four sins that complete the cohort are characterological traits that prime the ground for the horrors of war, genocide, oppression, and slavery.
Everyone Under the Bus (2022): A year in the life of HS principal Eric Tuico, his experimental school under siege from all sides: social chaos, legal maneuvering, petty fiefdoms with shifting agendas, the campus hounded by threats of violence, at the mercy of entrenched forces of inertia and fear. We see the underbelly of bureaucracy and the hypocrisy of political expediency; also, we see moments of touching humanity and surprising courage. Thought-provoking and at times shocking, a panoramic narrative with a cast of 200+ carrying the wavering hopes of a still-undefined Millennial generation, Eric Tuico is a protagonist for the ages, filled with fury and tenderness, inspiration and despair, his explosive backstory bringing the American millennium into sharp relief: our time of reckoning.
The Synesthesia Series (2023 – ongoing) A precocious child, rebellious adolescent and uncertain adult maneuvers through a world he finds stunted and unimaginative as he is in the grips of the extraordinary neurological condition known as synesthesia – blending words, numbers, colors, graphs, and ratios into an experience and a narrative that brings him into conflict with teachers, employers and the U.S. military. ‘You’re going to have a hard time,’ he is advised by an elder, ‘trying to live in blazing color in a greyscale world.’
The work of Donn Harris can be accessed at donnkharris.medium.com and donnharris.com.
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