The fierce urgency of now has, understandably, made its way into our education reform vocabulary. It has come to mean that the heinous educational conditions that cause children to lose their educational lives and social and economic futures exist because we fail to consistently teach many of them to read and think adequately for these times.
We interpret the phrase, the fierce urgency of now, as urging that schools, teachers, researchers, policymakers, and others need to stop dithering and wasting time, and get down to the business of eradicating unacceptable educational problems with all deliberate speed.
In short, we interpret it to mean, “Get to it now!” and “Produce results!” and “We have no more time to waste!”
By far, the most famous person to utter the phrase the fierce urgency of now was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The day honoring Dr. King’s birth is a fitting moment to consider how we might understand the fierce urgency of now and how we might take our insights forward to confront the problems we educators face today.
Louis Gomez, 2017, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: A Reflection on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Call to Action and Educational Equity”, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching