Missing a Moment?

Are we missing the moment? Reflections from practitioner-scholars about teacher activism, Foundations, and punk meanderings

*CC BY-SA 4.0

William Estes, University of South Carolina

@williamestessc

Timothy Monreal, University of South Carolina

tmonreal@email.sc.edu

@Tim_Monreal

Intro and Purpose

Motivated by Hilton Kelly’s (2009) call for a moratorium to reflect on the social significance of our scholarship, we use this essay to think through our shifting positions as doctoral students, researchers, public education advocates, wage earners, and classroom teachers in relation to a resurgence of teacher activism in our state of South Carolina. In particular, we ask whether the field of Foundations is missing an opportunity to work with, learn from, and gain “energy” from this moment of teacher action? In these exciting times when teachers are standing up and walking out, is the field missing a grand chance to dissolve the disconnect between “what we do and what they do” (Kelly, 2019, p . 2), especially as what teachers are protesting for/against have long been foci of Foundations scholarship (i.e. neoliberal logic, lack of teacher respect/autonomy, racialized school inequities, improved school funding)? To explore these questions, we (Will and Tim) share brief vignettes about our participation with the group South Carolina for Education (SCforED) as practitioner-scholars (classroom teachers/doctoral students).

Context: This moment, teacher activism, and SCforED

It is necessary to contextualize SCforED within this moment of teacher activism.[1] The past year saw statewide teacher strikes/walkouts in Arizona, Colorado, and Oklahoma as well as district-wide strikes in Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and perhaps most famously in the Los Angeles Unified School District. As such, Wong (2019) claims, viewed purely in numerical terms (teachers striking), we are in the most significant period of teacher strikes and walkouts since 1968. Similarly, SCforEd is one of the largest grassroots teacher movements in South Carolina since the Civil Rights Movement. SCorED has grown through the use of social media, particularly Facebook, to mobilize large numbers of classroom teachers. Although Krutka, Asino, & Haselwood (2018) speak to the local context of Oklahoma and the #OklaEdWalkout movement, we agree that the teacher activism in South Carolina “has signaled their [teachers] power to alter narratives, cause disruption, and effect some desired legislative change” (p. 389).

In our own ways we have embraced the SCforEd movement. In what follows we share a brief vignette about how SCforED speaks to us and has engaged us as practitioners, doctoral students, citizens, and emerging scholars in the field of Foundations. In the discussion/conclusion we ask specifically how Foundations speaks to this moment and if largely absent, we ask how that might change?

Vignettes

Will’s Vignette

I am a 16-year-old son of a military family from the Midwest, enamored with the fighter jets that fly drills overhead. I possess a naive nationalism that some children develop while hiding under school desks as nuclear air raid sirens reverberate off the town’s buildings and your father wears the uniform of people tasked with preventing such things. As I enter high school, the President is accused of sexual misconduct, a federal building is bombed by a white nationalist, and we endure two government shutdowns. I am a 16-year-old son of a military family from the Midwest, soaking in the raw energy of the mid-90’s hardcore punk scene. I am introduced to radically progressive, and sometimes anti-government ideas, that give me an outlet to negotiate the competing and evolving dichotomy of a young military brat, in a red state, that bounces around to punk rock music.

I am a 36-year old teacher in a public high school devoted to the bright students in my charge as we negotiate a challenging curriculum. I am garrisoned by the idealism of meritocracy and faith in legislators to provide the basic funding necessary for education. I coach sports for stipends and work odd jobs over the summer to finance a barely middle-class lifestyle even after earning my second Master’s degree. I have lost faith in a system that over-tests and underfunds. I who enters a Foundations Ph.D. to better understand the brokenness of our system. I am learning that the system is not broken, but working exactly as designed. The optimistic energy of teachers in SCforEd elicits memories of a galvanized and hopeful punk consciousness. It may become the best forum to negotiate the dichotomy of a public school teacher that is increasingly distrustful of the “public” education system.

Tim’s Vignette

“Maybe what you all don’t understand is that we’re darn close to a walkout.”

There I said it. The rest of the red-wearing room had been dancing around the “W-word” for the last hour. During that time, three South Carolina state representatives listened patiently to teachers express how they can’t pay bills, don’t have paper, and spend their careers testing students. The lawmakers nodded their heads and expressed agreement, but were they listening? The “W-word” changed the tenor of the meeting and journalists lined up to get a statement from me. The next day my quote headlined a number of South Carolina papers (Adcox, 2018; Marchant, 2018) and although reaction to my use of the “W-word” varied, most responses were overwhelmingly positive. A few teachers whispered I was probably going to get fired, but many more thanked me, shared the newspaper articles on social media, and asked what they could do to be more involved in teacher activism.

Since that moment, my activism with SCforED has taken me across the state. I have organized community meetings, attended forums, spoke at legislative committee meetings, lobbied at the State House, chanted at rallies, run Facebook pages, written op-eds (Monreal, 2018), and guided hesitant teachers in my own school building to take their first steps towards activism. This work culminated with a day of “reflection,” in which over 10,000 individuals (see pictures below), gathered at the South Carolina State House on May 1 to rally for public education. The response was so strong for the May 1 rally that seven school districts in South Carolina closed down because high numbers of teachers took personal or sick days. All of this in South Carolina, a right-to-work state that outlaws unions for public employees. Thus, this type of bold and courageous action, led by classroom teachers, has serious risk, but ultimately runs counter to narratives of teacher complacency while simultaneously modeling activism and expanded democratic engagement for students. Perhaps most striking, I do this all as a doctoral candidate that publishes, presents at conferences, teaches undergraduate students, and is a full-time middle school teacher.

Reflection/Discussion/Conclusion

Drawing largely on Will’s connection between the revival of his idle, energetic, punk consciousness through involvement in SCforED, might Foundations also draw inspiration(s) from a new teacher movement that is full of “radical hope(s),” one that inherently, albeit unconsciously, erodes the false dichotomy of theory/practice (Kelly, 2019)? Just as punk stresses The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos, teacher activists too have employed any and all tools at their disposal to move toward action. Perhaps Foundations needs to take a page from punk while asserting that “punks [read: academics] should not be content with being consumers and spectators but instead should become active participants” (Moore & Roberts, 2009, p. 275, emphasis ours). In this case, how might (more public) academic participation and scholarship be in support of, and useful for, teachers? Punk (and the new teacher movements) offer a tangible “resistance to dominant hegemonies, boredom, conservatism and elitism” (Parkinson, 2017, p.7), ideologies that Foundations has ardently worked to destabilize. How might Foundations start doing what they (teachers and punks) are doing, actively challenging systems through practice? In step with Malott (2006), might our new energy (evident in both vignettes) make a case for embracing the “punk rock pirate pedagogy of hope and liberation”( p. 7)?

Thus our (Will and Tim’s) passion and fervor to shift South Carolina’s political treatment of teachers and public education toward a “radical hope and [the] promise of a sociality and polity underpinned by equity, intersectionality, justice, and love” (Coloma, 2018, p. 114) is a direct result of our experiences as doctoral students in Social Foundations of Education. This dare to build a new (global) social order (Coloma, 2018; Counts, 1932/1978) is unique to our field. Yet, even as faculty in our institution have supported our efforts tremendously by organizing summits, events, and lobbying alongside us (huge thanks and shout out to the University of South Carolina, by the way), we feel the field of Foundations, broadly speaking, has so much more to offer in this moment. If Foundations scholars, especially those in a position to do so (i.e. tenure, institutional support), are to pause and reflect on “where this train is going?” (Kelly, 2019), then how might social significant research support teachers in their efforts to build better schools and communities? Are we missing an opportunity to engage in (academic) work that directly relates to public school activism? To reference Kelly (2019) once more, “our scholarship must be tied to the real world of classrooms and schools” (p. 7). If we (as a field) aren’t committed to explicitly supporting, even leading, teacher activism, what are we doing?

In closing, we offer a few ideas that might serve as a bridge between Foundations scholars and teacher activists. First, university scholars can leverage the resources of their institutions. Universities have meeting spaces that can facilitate small intimate gathers as well as larger group events. Universities have access to technology, like video conferencing rooms/services, that small grassroots groups might use to coordinate people from different locations. Additionally, scholars can call on the expertise of other people at their university, for example law school instructors and marketing scholars, to help teacher groups sustain their efforts. Second, Foundations scholars can work with teacher activists to help tell/legitimize their stories. This type of work calls to mind op-eds, blog posts, media interviews, department letters of support, teacher-led panels, and social media support. For example, in the lead up to the May 1 teacher rally in South Carolina, University of South Carolina Foundations faculty Jon Hale penned a contextual essay about historical organizing in the South (Hale, 2019) and appeared on a local new interview (WLTX, 2019). As classroom teachers in states like South Carolina who may be on annual contracts, fear reprisals for speaking out, and are afraid of losing their jobs, the strong support of university scholars is a crucial step to changing the restrictive labor conditions in certain states.[2] The Foundations of Education department at the University of South Carolina also published a letter publicly supporting the actions of teachers. Finally, the field must be willing to truly listen and learn from teachers.

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[1] We want to make clear that although we use the word “new” as a descriptor, teachers have continuously found ways to advocate for more just social and educational conditions. In particular there is a proud and important line of Black teacher organizing stretching back at least to the Jim Crow era (Hale, 2018, 2019).

[2] We are indebted to our reviewers Amanda Pate and Nora Devlin who not only made this piece stronger by their superb suggestions, but also stressed we consider the power dynamics and structures inherent in teacher marginalization. We do not wish to place the burden of changing unjust systems squarely on the shoulders of those (teachers) who feel its weight disproportionately. Rather, we are using this piece as a way to think through how Foundations might (better) work and partner with teacher practitioners to achieve the changes both groups work tirelessly to achieve.

References

Adcox, S. (2018). SC teachers warn legislators: “We’re darn close” to a walk out. Retrieved April 20, 2019, from Post and Courier website: https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/sc-teachers-warn-legislators-we-re-darn-close-to-a/article_3d68be02-fe47-11e8-8b21-53d7dddc9ffb.html

AESA. (n.d.). 2019 Call for proposals. Retrieved April 20, 2019, from http://educationalstudies.org/conference.php

Coloma, R. S. (2018). Dare we build a new global order? Educational Studies, 54(1), 114–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2017.1406856

Counts, G. S. (1932). Dare the school build a new social order? Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Hale. (2018). “The development of power is the main business of the school”: The agency of Southern Black Teacher Associations from Jim Crow through Desegregation. The Journal of Negro Education, 87(4), 444–459. https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.87.4.0444

Hale, J. N. (2019). ‘We are not merging on an equal basis’: the desegregation of southern teacher associations and the right to work, 1945–1977. Labor History, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2018.1561103

Hale, J. (2019, April 29). Honor the past by respecting teachers today. Retrieved May 18, 2019, from Post and Courier website: https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/honor-the-past-by-respecting-teachers-today/article_9a7cf250-6a8c-11e9-af8d-f3aea4ba44a2.html

Kelly, H. (2019). Toward a moratorium on publishing in the field of Educational Studies: Where is this train going? Educational Studies, 55(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2018.1560296

Krutka, D. G., Asino, T. I., & Haselwood, S. (2018). Editorial: Eight lessons on networked teacher activism from #OklaEd and the #OklaEdWalkout. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 18(2), 379–391.

Malott, C. (2006). From Pirates to Punk Rockers: Pedagogies of Insurrection and Revolution: The Unity of Utopia. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS), 4(2).

Marchant, B. (2019, December 12). ‘Let teachers teach’: SC lawmakers push a ‘Bill of Rights’ to reduce classroom burden. The State.

Monreal, T. (2018, December). Commentary: South Carolina teachers are already walking out over tough conditions. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from Post and Courier website: https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/commentary-south-carolina-teachers-are-already-walking-out-over-tough/article_91b10a86-0302-11e9-8418-373f579be8f7.html

Moore, R., & Roberts, M. (2009). Do-It-Yourself Mobilization: Punk and Social Movements. MOBILIZATION, 14(3), 273–291.

Parkinson, T. (2017). Being punk in higher education: subcultural strategies for academic practice. Teaching in Higher Education, 22(2), 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2016.1226278

WLTX. (2019, May 1). South Carolina Education Professor weighs in on teacher rally. Retrieved May 18, 2019, from WLTX website: https://www.wltx.com/video/news/south-carolina-education-professor-weighs-in-on-teacher-rally/101-1e2a7773-0a71-4d8e-a3bd-630405805227

Wong, A. (2019, January 22). America’s Teachers Are Furious. Retrieved April 20, 2019, from The Atlantic website: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/01/teachers-are-launching-a-rebellion/580975/

Biographies:

William Estes is a first year PhD student in Foundations of Education at the University of South Carolina. He had 10 years of high school social studies teaching experience before accepting a middle school administrator job this summer (2019). His burgeoning research interests include teacher retention and support, whiteness in education, comparative funding issues in the public schools, and punk music culture as a guidepost for teacher resistance.

Timothy Monreal is a middle-school social studies teacher and a PhD candidate in Foundations of education at the University of South Carolina. He has over 10 years of K-12 teaching experience, mostly in California and more recently in South Carolina. His research interests include the new Latinx South, Latinx teachers in the Southeast, social studies teaching, and teacher education. His work has appeared in journals such as Educational Policy, Latino Studies, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Journal of Latinos and Education, and Middle Grades Review. He was recently awarded a 2019 NaED/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship.