What Schools Can Be: A Guide for Educators

The final parts of this book return to the problem of dialogue between philosophy, thinking, and university education in times when the political and ethical framework is no longer determined by the continuity of tradition, but the caesura of twentieth-century totalitarianism.

The new edition integrates 13 critical themes that are foundational to the field today: the importance of children’s literacy development, teaching in increasingly diverse classrooms, applying developmentally appropriate practice, closing the achievement gap, integrated special education and early childhood education services, teaching in inclusive classrooms, closing school readiness gaps, meeting the challenges of teacher accountability, integrating STEM subjects into the curriculum, providing for children’s mental health, using technology to support learners, developing as a professional, and guiding children’s behavior to promote personal responsibility.

Helping professionals of all types are everyday heroes who routinely and selflessly improve the lives of others. But they often don’t believe or realize that they also form a valuable pool of future leaders—that their specific characteristics, distinct aptitudes, and servant leader’s mindset not only prepare them, but already uncommonly equip them, to rise to the highest tiers of their organization’s leadership structure.

This is a book about teaching with disobedient pedagogies from the heart of empire. The authors show how educators, activists and students are cultivating anti-racist decolonial practices, leading with a radical call to eradicate development studies, and counterbalancing this with new projects to decolonize development, particularly in African geographies. Building on the works of other decolonial trailblazers, the authors show how colonial legacies continue to shape the ways in which land, well-being, progress and development are conceived of and practiced. How do we, through our classroom and activist practices, work collaboratively to create the radical imaginaries and practical scaffolding we need for decolonizing development? Being intentionally disobedient in the classroom is central to decolonizing development studies.