I won’t go so far as to say that I made a New Year’s resolution for 2017 to start a blog because I’m not exactly sure how long this will last. But, here it is. A blog. About activist pedagogy.
First, this is a space where I get to explore the concepts laid out in my book, The Pedagogy of Teacher Activism, which was really the impetus for this site. I have some neat ideas for unpacking the three core pedagogical concepts (purpose, power, and possibility) through a series of posts throughout 2017. If I learned anything in grad school, it was how to unpack things.
One of those ideas is to think through an “Activist Pedagogy Syllabus” via a monthly blogpost sparked by my reading of core texts that will deepen, complicate, critique, and expose the pedagogical meaning of purpose, power, and possibility. Each month, I’d reflect on a book to put in conversation with the pedagogy of teacher activism. With three core concepts and twelve months, that makes for four books per concept. These might be books I think I know well or brand new ones that are brought to my attention. (Send me suggestions please! The syllabus is in formation.)
Another idea is to think more broadly about what Activist Pedagogy really is. To think about what the pedagogy of various forms of activity can teach us about how to make change in the world. While there is a pedagogy of teacher activism that I have attempted to lay out in my book, there are pedagogies of many other things activist. With the help of others who think more deeply about other things (guest bloggers – contact me if interested!), I hope this space can be a place to explore the public pedagogies all around us, to better understand what these pedagogies would have us think/reflect/act.
Finally, I might just use this space to sound off about whatever might be going down in my activist brain or in the activist world.
Whatever becomes of this blog, thank you for reading this first post…and hopefully more to come!