Teacher education (TE) in Finland is based on strong university autonomy, including the right to decide the curriculum content and the teaching methods. Democracy and its values are generally seen as central principles for TE, and the normative basis for education promoting democratic culture is strong. However, in practice, education for…

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 study investigates the hopes of a group of Finnish of ninth-graders and how hopeful they are. This study also explores how to teach in a way that promotes hope. The theoretical framework of this study combines two different theories of hope, C. R. Snyder's psychological hope theory and Paulo Freire's philosophy of hope. This study holds that…

This article follows Mary Hebron's journey alongside Patricia F. Carini for more than 30 years. The journey begins with the author's first visit to the Prospect School and Center in North Bennington, Vermont, and continues across her work alongside Pat Carini in the Mamaroneck School District and in the Art of Teaching Graduate Program at Sarah…

This article reports findings from an ongoing study that examines the experiences and engagement of pregnant and parenting youth (PPY) attending an alternative school in Chicago and the sorts of instructional approaches and activities that can promote their social justice-oriented advocacy and leadership skills. This project used Youth…

In a time of for-profit schooling, continuing segregation, racism, book banning, unconscionable inequality, and antiquated approaches to pedagogy, the prescription for democratic schooling seems daunting. Yet the path is clear: We need to change society to enable democracy in schools; we need democratic schooling to bring the public out of its…

This piece describes how the faculty of City-As-School used Descriptive Inquiry to generate shared educational principles during the 2020-21 school year during the coronavirus pandemic. City-As-School is a public experiential learning school in New York City serving older adolescents seeking an alternative to traditional high school. Descriptive…

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…

Patricia Carini (1932-2021) was a progressive educator and thinker who was among the key figures of open education. This article reflects on her work, illuminating its quality as an art of listening. The idea of listening has been of primary importance within the tradition of progressive education in the United States and internationally.…

This article describes the author's journey into the world of teaching. The author begins with his transition into academia and his goal to become an antiracist educator. He reflects on teaching (and observation) moments in the classroom and moves to descriptions and insights of specific lessons teaching Eve Ewing's "1919" poetry…

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…

This article details the demise of a small multicultural and democratic school in a large urban district. After a successful 25-year run, a public school built on principles of progressive and democratic education was dismantled and destroyed. The article attempts to expose the contradictions and untruths in the story of Mission Hill School's…

"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…

The author considers the context of COVID-19 as a catalyst for (re)thinking about how teacher educators might better teach preservice and early-career teachers' need to attend to holistic wellness as part of their preparation and induction work. Using narrative inquiry, interviews with three early-career teachers were conducted and analyzed, and…