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Abstract

In a world that is growing increasingly politically divisive, it is hard to imagine school structure and leadership leading us to a more democratic and transformative future. Instead, teachers should take action themselves. This begins with seeing themselves as policy actors and rejecting both the neoliberal and far-right ideologies and the related scholar academic and socially efficient educational orientations. Educators should instead adopt a stance of social reconstruction, in which they examine with students the problems of society and socially dream of something better. To more deeply foster this sense of partnership between teacher and learner, educators should seek to enact participatory structures that enable young people to investigate and take action against the problems in their lives. Walking this "double path" on an imperfect trail while trying to build something better is not easy or linear. Educators who engage in such a way could certainly lose their job or worse. Teachers must make decisions about their practice with eyes wide open. It is important to consider things like identity, experience, and other personal factors. But we need teachers who dare to become political actors, are willing to deepen that agency with students, and actually take collective action with young people to make schools more democratic and transformational spaces.

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