Principled Resistance: How Teachers Resolve Ethical Dilemmas

Principled Resistance: How Teachers Resolve Ethical Dilemmas brings together senior scholars and activist teachers to explore the concept of resistance as a necessary response to mandates that conflict with their understanding of quality teaching. The book provides vivid examples of the pedagogical, professional, and democratic principles undergirding resistance, as well as the distinct perspective of each of its contributors: teachers who reflect on their acts of principled resistance; teacher educators who study teachers and support their professional growth; and historians who demonstrate that a tradition of teachers’ principled resistance has had a significant impact on American society, not only on schools and teaching. They also show the steps teachers take, in their reasoning and in their actions, to resist policies and mandates they are expected to enact. This volume offers a critical and unique resource for teacher educators who are preparing prospective teachers to navigate the contentious terrain of education politics, teachers who are interested in leading change, and others interested in educational ethics.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION Doris A. Santoro and Lizabeth Cain Part 1 Pedagogical Principles 1. THE CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION’S REJECTION OF THE COMMON CORE A Case History of Teacher Resistance Michelle Strater Gunderson 2. PRINCIPLED RESISTANCE TO SYSTEM MANDATES AMONG EARLY-CAREER TEACHERS Clive Beck, Clare Kosnik, Judy Caulfield, and Yiola Cleovoulou 3. RESISTING NO-EXCUSES CULTURE AS A BLACK MALE TEACHER Valuing Critical Thinking and Relationships over Compliance Randy R. Miller, Sr. 4. WORKING THE SYSTEM Teacher Resistance in a Context of Compliance Alisun Thompson and Lucinda Pease-Alvarez Part 2 Professional Principles 5. THE UNITED TEACHERS OF NEW ORLEANS STRIKE OF 1990 Emma Long 6. PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION Principled Responses to an Ethos of Privatization in Teacher Education Margaret Smith Crocco< 7. BUILDING FOUNDATIONS FOR PRINCIPLED RESISTANCE Tom Meyer, Christine McCartney, and Jacqueline Hesse 8. TEACHER RESISTANCE Personal or Professional? Jocelyn Weeda Part 3 Democratic Principles 9. DEDICATED, BELOVED, AND DISMISSED Teachers as Public Intellectuals in New York City Public Schools of the 1950s Lizabeth Cain 10. STAKING A CLAIM IN MAD RIVER Advancing Civil Rights for Queer America Karen Graves and Margaret A. Nash 11. TEACHING AND LEADING AS A PRINCIPLED ACT How Ethel T. Overby Built Foot Soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement, 1910–1957 Adah Ward Randolph and Dwan V. Robinson 12. TWEETING TO TRANSGRESS Teachers on Twitter as Principled Resisters Jessica Hochman, Doris A. Santoro, and Stephen Houser 13. NAVIGATING DILEMMAS IN A DEMOCRACY Lizabeth Cain and Doris A. Santoro Notes About the Editors About the Contributors Index