During my career as a high school English teacher in North Carolina, I directed most of my energy toward daily classroom work with students. Like other educators, planning and delivering lessons, assessing student work, attending meetings, and other teaching responsibilities dominated my time. Despite the gravity-like pull of the classroom, I also sought to keep one eye on political developments that affected public schools and the communities these schools serve.
I watched anxiously as legislators in my state removed advanced degree pay and career status for teachers, slashed corporate tax rates to starve public schools of much-needed funding, and repeatedly refused to expand Medicaid, a politically motivated decision that harmed underprivileged families across the state and students in my classroom.
Watching these disastrous political developments unfold convinced me that in addition to delivering high-quality lessons and supporting students in classrooms, educators must also act outside the classroom to support schools, students, and communities through activism directed toward policies, political figures, and dominant belief systems.
This realization spurred my own increased involvement in teacher activism, and it also led me to initiate a form of professional development to support the activist growth of educators, a project detailed in my article in the latest issue of the Kappa Delta Pi Record.
That article features a story of this project, a process of participatory education and action involving a small group of public school teachers. The project was a form of professional development cocreated by participants and deeply rooted in their experiential knowledge. Through this project, we learned valuable activist skills from one another, such as how to hold a press conference, write an op-ed, and craft an effective infographic; we researched educational issues and explored theoretical concepts to deepen our critical consciousness; and we took action to confront dangerous education-related myths and invite other educators to become more politically engaged.
The days of closing one’s classroom door and shutting out the political developments beyond the school walls are long gone; teachers’ political detachment is no longer an option, if it ever was. Amidst the rise in attacks on public education, vulnerable communities, and the disparaged teaching profession, educators must now also serve as activists, and my article offers one approach for developing the knowledge and skill set associated with this important role.
Today’s blogger is Chris Gilbert, who teaches at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. His article, “Making the Invisible Visible: Professional Development to Support Teacher Activism,” appears in the January 2022 issue of the Kappa Delta Pi Record. Get free access to the article through the month of March.