Locating Our Role in the Struggle: Lessons from the Past and Present on Teachers’ Persistence, Solidarity, and Activism for the Common Good
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Overview of This Article
2. Background
3. Three Orientations
3.1. Teachers as Classroom-Level Judges: Understanding the Policies and Applying Professional Judgment
3.1.1. Prior Conceptualizations of Teachers’ Work
3.1.2. Classroom-Level Judges
3.1.3. Avoiding Hyper-Interpretation
Legislators behind an Idaho bill said critical race theory ‘tried to make kids feel bad’. Tennessee lawmakers said teaching about racism promotes ‘division’, and a pending bill in Rhode Island bans teaching the idea that ‘the United States of America is fundamentally racist or sexist’.[33]
3.2. Teacher as Part of a Collective: Seeking Safety in Numbers
3.2.1. Professional Organizations
3.2.2. Local and Virtual Networks
3.3. Teachers as Historical Actors: Learning and Drawing Inspiration from Past and Present Successes
3.3.1. Lessons from the Past on Teacher Organizing
3.3.2. Current Social Movements for Educational Justice
4. Locating Our Role in the Struggle: Take-Aways
seek to inflame people through misinformation and cherrypicked examples, more than inform; to refuse more than discuss complex ideas; to control more than share public schools in a shared multiracial democracy; to surveil and censor, more than support the freedom to think and discuss; to stoke fear of addressing complex issues in education, more than foster conditions necessary for dialogue and disagreement; and to divide more than include or unify. Ironically, the movement thrives on calling antiracist efforts “divisive”.[1] (p. 7)
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Racelis, T.L.; Parkhouse, H.E. Locating Our Role in the Struggle: Lessons from the Past and Present on Teachers’ Persistence, Solidarity, and Activism for the Common Good. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 56. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010056
Racelis TL, Parkhouse HE. Locating Our Role in the Struggle: Lessons from the Past and Present on Teachers’ Persistence, Solidarity, and Activism for the Common Good. Education Sciences. 2024; 14(1):56. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010056
Chicago/Turabian StyleRacelis, Thea L., and Hillary E. Parkhouse. 2024. "Locating Our Role in the Struggle: Lessons from the Past and Present on Teachers’ Persistence, Solidarity, and Activism for the Common Good" Education Sciences 14, no. 1: 56. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010056