Educational resistance in a runaway world: Poetic meditations on power and surveillance

Abstract

It is becoming clear that standard, linear solutions to the problems ofresistant children are problematic because they imagine a world of schooling inwhich place and power do not matter. Poetry can challenge the typically linear,prescriptive, and modernist assumptions that are central to much educationaltheory and practice. In this article, drawing on original poetry composed inand around schools, I analyze a series of reflective disruptions in the interplayof strategy and tactics in my own teaching career. The broad argument of thispaper is that educators ought to recognize, promote and embrace the messinessand complexity of our work rather than retreat into simplifications andtechnical fixes.