Overview
As of April 2023, we’re still in process of compiling our proposal, and while we don’t have any active calls open, if you are excited about an area of the book and have a vision of getting involved, we’d love to hear from you!
Below, you’ll find an overview of the six sections of the book, as it stands, with some notes on framing, the content of the section, and where we see openings right now for additional authors or collaborators.
Now is the Time of Monsters
Navigating a world in permacrisis
In this section we discuss many of the challenges we are facing, as humans and educators, in all of their complexity and urgency. While many more people have become attuned to the magnitude of crisis surrounding us, many communities have faced apocalyptic conditions before and have wisdom, clarity, and even hope to share. With insight from Indigenous and Disabled educators, this section is our problem statement, but also an important call to recognize the expertise of those who have weathered crisis too often.
We Got us
Communities of care
With the assumption of ongoing permacrises, the need for care work and harm reduction is critical. Here, we explore the concept of Liberatory Harm Reduction, as articulated by Shira Hassan and others, and consider the role of responding to crises as a function of education in and out of school. We hear from scholar activists, and about community members creating solutions to address direct needs.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for
Building containers of critical consciousness in action
In addition to addressing the immediate harm caused by permacrisis, space is needed to heal. We propose a need to build containers and relationships for ritual, healing, comfort, and joy as a critical tool for learning in these times. We hear from educators reflecting on school as community care, what finding ourselves after catastrophe can look like, and building space that cultivates growth, even without the assurance of stability.
Don’t ignore the pain behind the curtain
Confronting what is unveiled
Core to our framing is the idea of apocalypse as an unveiling. What can we learn and address from what is made plain by crisis? We know that too much was not working before March 2020. Before schools shut down, before 8 minutes in Minneapolis. So what did 2020 force us to confront? How have we begun to do that? How have we tried to pull the curtain back over it? How do we take the space to reflect and examine? In this section, in particular, we are welcoming ideas for formal writing or dialogic work in this area.
Another world is necessary
Building resilient realities
How do we move from reflection to action? In this section, we learn from educators that are incorporating play and joy into learning, from organizers whose communities that have been abandoned by government and corporate investment, from parent and student support spaces. In this section, in particular, we welcome creative writing and poetry on this theme.
Nothing About us without us
Growing solidarity through reflexive and relational action
Through this ongoing reflection and action in communities of care, with plans for addressing harm, we know it is critical to center those most impacted and build reflexive practices. In this section we learn from Gen Z educators who have come of age since the beginning of the pandemic, from educators and young people working to center youth voices in their education, and from organizers reclaiming land for community space. In this section, in particular we welcome creative writing and poetry on these themes.
Have an idea?
Let us know how you might want to get involved! While there are some specific places we’re looking for certain types of content, we are wide open to thinking about including the right stories in the right places. We’d love to hear from you!