Introduction: Forum on Radical Teaching Now

In the following forum, we wanted to reopen the old subject of radical teaching—to reconsider what it is we should be doing now as radical teachers. We hoped to initiate a conversation that included a range of perspectives and addressed a variety of issues impacting our classrooms and schools. So we invited editorial board members, frequent contributors, and other radical teachers to weigh in on the following questions:

What are the conditions for teaching radically in 2008? For opening students' minds to left, feminist, antiracist, and queer ideas? For stimulating them to work for egalitarian change? How do opportunities for progressive teaching vary with the ages, genders, populations, and classes of students? What pedagogies have the best chance of helping students become radicals? What barriers to any of this are thrown up by today's conservative educational forces, by the economic reorganization of schooling and higher education, by student aspirations and culture?

We were especially interested in the politics of teaching and learning—of pedagogy—that came forward in the 1960s and were critical to the founding of Radical Teacher in 1975. What did those of us who were around back then accomplish and fail to accomplish? What did we learn? How have spaces for radical pedagogy changed since then and how have we adapted our teaching to these changes? Also, how have younger generations of radical teachers shaped their pedagogy? What political work did they expect to do through their do through their teaching? How is that project going? And what next?

Radical Teacher now invites written responses discussing or disputing the ideas raised in this forum.

The images throughout the Forum, like the one here, are from the Celebrating People's History poster series by artists from Just Seeds, an artists cooperative. Find the full set here: www.justseeds.org/artists/celebrate_peoples_history/