This week’s reading from Freire and the other works building on his writing did a great job articulating the deeply political nature of teaching. This holds true whether the educator is purposefully trying to be political or not. Ideally, of course, all educators would be aware that their career is a political one (and they would obviously have the exact same political ideologies as myself). However, it seems that embracing the role of teacher-activist is a rare occurrence. We saw in both the River-McCutchen piece and the Miller et all piece that fabulous things can happen when educational leaders lean into the politics of their work. Yet, I am still curious what goes on in the majority of classrooms and schools where teachers and leaders do not lean into their political roles. What political ideologies are conveyed to students when they’re never explicitly mentioned or embodied? What do students learn from a politics of neutrality? Is that better or worse or different than an explicitly right-wing or conservative politics?

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