The Good Fire Now: Love Letter to Educational Leaders

• In Event: Dare Everything: Love Letters to Educational Leaders During an Era of 47

Abstract

Purposes
The 47th presidential administration brought an onslaught of fascist policies and repressive tactics aimed at erasing decades of civil liberties. Through shock tactics (Klein, 2007) and repression (Althusser, 2001), the current administration aims to create disorientation, fear, and compliance of its people. As critical public scholars, we utilize tools of resistance to illuminate the power we hold as educational leaders. Drawing from a series of public-facing “love letters,” this paper proposes a four-pronged approach for educational leaders to enact “people power” in their praxis through: 1) coalitional critical consciousness, 2) nurturing interconnected insurgent communities, 3) challenging systems of supremacy, and 4) enacting collective creative action. Our purpose is to support educational leaders in operating with revolutionary love and praxis during the current sociopolitical climate.

Theoretical Framework
The project is grounded in decolonial theory, critical pedagogy, and Indigenous frameworks of relationality. It draws from Chela Sandoval’s (2000) framework of coalitional consciousness, which emphasizes building creative solidarity across difference through shared struggle. Informed by Indigenous principles such as the Seven Generations philosophy (Iroquois), Ubuntu (Bantu), In Lak’ech (Mayan), and Kapwa (Filipino)--each highlighting interconnectedness, mutual responsibility, and collective well-being–these frameworks help construct an analytical framework for creative insurgency and resistance.

Methods
Drawing from decolonial thought and coalitional consciousness (Sandoval, 2000), the methodology is both analytical and generative, critically interrogating mechanisms of power while developing long-term, praxisioner based tools for resistance (Giroux, 2001; Gramsci, 1971, Reyes, 2024). Our aim is not solely to theorize resistance; but equip communities with actionable frameworks for educational and community spaces. This methodology aligns with traditions of critical public scholarship (Burawoy, 2004) and Community Responsive Education (Tintiangco-Cubales & Duncan-Andrade, 2021), where scholarly knowledge is made accessible through tools and resources responsive to the urgency of the moment.

Data Sources
As scholar-activists committed to critical pedagogy, we treat the current sociopolitical conditions (e.g., the attack on DEI, the elimination of the Department of Education, banned words) as data sources informing our praxis. These moments functioned as critical texts, where we collectively read the world (Freire, 2000), theorized structural violence, and developed frameworks of resistance rooted in coalition and cultural sustenance.

Conclusions
The framework offers a timely, actionable model for educational leaders resisting fascist encroachment. The dissemination of three letters through open-source platforms, such as EdCal, and our participation in the web series Critically Conscious Classroom, offer examples of how public scholarship can serve as spiritual, political, and pedagogical grounding during otherwise isolating and demoralizing times.

Scholarly Significance
Aligned with the conference theme, this paper engages in a “practice of futuring, through engagement with historical pasts and current tensions and challenges…”. We contribute to the discourse of what it means to be a public scholar during fascist uprisings that threaten our democratic educational institutions and the very notion of democracy. Our work reminds us that the unraveling is underway, and that “future scholarship” loses its meaning if we do not engage with the crises now, as James Baldwin reminds us, “No more water, the fire next time” (Baldwin, 1993).

Author

• Orlando L. Carreón, Sonoma State University