John Mink is a social studies teacher who works at the high school and adult school levels and refuses to hide his political radicalism from his students. He has been a contributing writer and editor for underground publications and zines including Slingshot, Absolutely Zippo, and Collapse Board. Editor of the Maximum Rocknroll monthly column “Teaching Resistance” and a vocalist/bassist for several internationally recognized punk bands, John lives in Berkeley, California, with his partner Megan March, who is also his bandmate in the truewave/punk group Street Eaters.
Teaching Resistance: Radicals, Revolutionaries, and Cultural Subversives in the Classroom
SKU: 9781629637099
Editor: John Mink
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 9781629637099
Published: 10/2019
Format: Paperback
Size: 6 x 9
Page count: 416
Subjects: Education/Music
Praise
“Teaching Resistance brings us the voices of activist
educators who are fighting back inside and outside of the classroom. The
punk rock spirit of this collection of concise, hard-hitting essays is
bound to stir up trouble.”
—Mark Bray, historian, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and coeditor of Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader
“Where was Teaching Resistance when I was in school? This
essay collection both makes a compelling case for why radical classrooms
are necessary and lays out how they can be put into practice. A perfect
guide for educators and anyone working with young people, this book
vitally also speaks to the student’s experience. Even for the
kid-adverse activists among us, Teaching Resistance reminds us
that kids can be our comrades if we meet them halfway. The younger
generations deserve more from us—this is the primer for how to start
providing it.”
—Shawna Potter, singer for War on Women, author of Making Spaces Safer
“This is an inspiring collection of reflections and stories from teachers working on the front-line in a range of both formal and informal educational spaces. Ever conscious of the harsh political and social realities facing teachers and pupils, the authors combine an activist stance with a wealth of pedagogical experience and a commitment to the emancipatory potential of educational encounters, without ever sinking into a romantic optimism or a politics of despair. Including discussions of racism, special education, early years education, prisons, art education and anarchist pedagogy, and ranging across diverse international contexts, the contributors offer an admirable combination of rigorous theoretical analysis and first-person accounts of practice. This collection is a powerful reminder that the radical voices of “outsiders” and the marginal are crucial in addressing the pressing political issues of our time, and that it is within our educational spaces that these voices must and can be heard and creatively engaged with.”
—Judith Suissa, author of Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective
“Schools are implicated in the reproduction of inequality in society,
but they don’t have to be. When educators are intentional about their
desire to challenge inequality, when they are unafraid of disrupting the
status quo and challenging hierarchies, and when they actively seek to
empower their students, schools can be-come a force for equity and
justice. Teaching Resistance is written by educators who are
currently doing this kind of work and it will serve as a source of
inspiration to others. Teachers who are willing to use their power in
the classroom to encourage critical thinking and creativity can become
genuine allies of their students and the communities they serve, and
they can indeed make a difference.”
—Pedro A. Noguera, author of City Schools and the American Dream and The Trouble with Black Boys: . . . and Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education
“In Teaching Resistance an extraordinary collective of
educators combines a sophisticated analysis with philosophical nuance
and original theorization of radical educational practices. This is a
great collection and one that we need to understand radical education at
the ground level—and to do so for a wide range of purposes.”
—Andrej Grubačić, coauthor of Wobblies and Zapatistas and Living at the Edges of Capitalism: Adventures in Exile and Mutual Aid
“At a time when white supremacist fascism has (re)asserted its
ascendancy in the U.S., the putrid effluent perpetually oozing from its
gangrenous societal tissues having become a torrent threatening to drown
us all, resistance of the most concrete and effective sorts is
imperative. In this respect, a book like Teaching Resistance couldn’t be more urgently needed.”
—Ward Churchill, author of Wielding Words like Weapons: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1995–2005
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Interviews
Teaching Resistance: Radicals, Revolutionaries, and Cultural Subversives in the Classroom at the Howard Zinn Bokk Fair 2019