The author--in the role of one teacher observing another--documented a spring 2021 remote introductory art history course during the COVID-19 pandemic when graduate student teaching assistants called a campus-wide strike. Forced to improvise, the professor replaced formal analysis papers and exams with an ungraded journal. Drawing from the content…

This article describes through six brief stories or illustrative examples the impact of Patricia Carini's work on the practice of two maestras bilingües at a large urban school in the Southwest. Carini supported the school's community for several years in apprenticing descriptive inquiry, as they developed a stance of attending to children and…

In this tribute to Patricia Carini's lifework and her influence on our work, we wrestle with a challenging question: How do we understand and hold onto a focus on the individual as a key practice of education as liberation, given the ways that a radical centering of the individual has buoyed systems of racial oppression? We end with the kind of…

This article describes what it means to be a comprehensive teachers union, one that integrates industrial unionism, professional unionism, and social justice unionism, providing a historical context for this evolution. The author relates his own journey in becoming a union organizer and then in building public spaces for teachers to find their…

"Because Democracy Is Difficult and Dangerous" is an excerpt from "Woke Is Not Enough: School Reform for Leaders with Justice in Mind" (2022). Each chapter of the book focuses on a domain of school reform relevant to school leadership today: racial justice, democratic governance, restorative justice, student activism, and…

Democracy is a process, one that needs to be continually renewed to fit new experiences and new circumstances; in other words, it's a process of education. The enrichment of experience through education is a task that must be carried on every day, in both formal and informal settings.

We have elaborate systems of formal instruction--schools, universities, and training institutes--all to facilitate learning within the walls. At the same time, there are ample opportunities for learning in the wild--in nature, libraries, and museums, online, in play and work, and through daily interaction with others. But the potential for…

In the United States of America, democratic education has evolved philosophically over 200 years from Jeffersonian ideas of educated citizenry to Deweyan principles of democracy as a "mode of associated living." In contemporary society, Dianna Hess has written about democratic education as a process of deliberative democracy. Yet the…

During the 2020-21 school year, remote instruction due to COVID-19 significantly limited children's access to school-based social interactions. As schools return to in-person instruction, we ask: Can poetry and metaphor be used to develop theory of mind (ToM)/reflective functioning and emotional literacy in the early elementary setting? This…

In this scholarly article, teacher researchers explore the disparity between modern classroom pedagogies and the almost complete absence of a key component of identity. It advocates for religious language inclusion, examines students' religious engagement during the study of Anne Frank and the Holocaust, and serves as a practical support for…

This article discusses the ways that labeling students can contribute to epistemic injustices. The harms of labeling are discussed, and Patricia Carini's practice of descriptive review, along with her general philosophical approach to teaching and education, are offered as ways of mitigating against these harms. The main goals of this article are…

In this personal reflection, the author explores her own learning in becoming a language teacher educator who aims to develop preservice teachers' critical intercultural praxis. By revisiting the course reflections of one of her preservice teachers, the author confronts her failures and perceptions about what it means to be a "critical"…

In this paper, I am concerned with the ways in which one is habituated into looking at students through Descriptive Inquiry as meditation. In exploring this question, I trace my own journey from student to teacher educator--marking the ways in which Patricia Carini's (2000) means of attending with care influenced and marked my journey at every…

This article provides an opportunity to listen to a master teacher describe the achievements that go into having a good day in school with kindergarten children. It can look deceptively easy to achieve. We visit Vivian Gussin Paley's classroom, listen as she describes her goals, and get a glimpse of how she strives to achieve them. We then witness…

"Pieces of Magic" is a letter examining the three coincidences that resulted in a 20-year friendship between UK-based Trisha Lee (author of Princesses, Dragons and Helicopter Stories) and Chicago-based Vivian Gussin Paley. From letters to meeting face to face in both the United States and the United Kingdom, Trisha talks about the many…