Teaching Civic Literacy in Schools

This practical book provides teachers and teacher educators with concrete strategies for doing community-based work. By reframing the act of teaching to include working for social change, the author pushes readers to see school and community revitalization as reciprocal, not separate, projects. Drawing on the strategies and tactics of community organizers and activists, Charest describes an approach to schooling that addresses the social and economic concerns that students and families in under-resourced communities confront in their daily lives. He uses a decolonial framework to examine how schools can de-center Whiteness and reimagine curriculum and teaching. He also shows teacher educators how they can better prepare the next generation of civic-minded teachers to create a more just and democratic society. This model of intentional community engagement, when initiated by teachers and school leadership, is designed to re-position schools to take up questions of equity, racism, and the long-term health and well-being of individuals and communities.

“Charest urges us to imagine a path to teaching and learning that is inseparable from democracy . . . Let’s join the movement.”
—From the Foreword by Kevin K. Kumashiro, former dean, School of Education, University of San Francisco

“I am overjoyed that Brian Charest is brave enough to take a stance on justice-centered teaching as a relational and political act rooted in the principles of organizing.”
—David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago

“This book takes up the central problem of our country’s failed education system: how to move schooling away from structures that isolate, stigmatize, and disempower students and communities towards structures that prioritize democracy, relationships, and organizing for power.”
—Jay Gillen, teacher and organizer