Mapping a (R)evolutionary Education for a Just Future: Building on the Educational Lessons of the Late Anthropocene

Critical cultural pedagogies have emerged and been intentionally fostered often within, against, or as an alternative to compulsory state education, but always with compulsory state education in mind. Yet, racial capitalism’s incessant drive to exploit human and natural resources threatens the future of humanity and an earth inhabitable to us. This moment demands that we imagine an education through and beyond the ruins of the state and the settler colonial compulsory education it has put in place. Building on the fictional future foretold in Everything for Everyone (O’Brien & Abdelhadi, 2022), we ask: How do we, as educators, prepare ourselves and young people for the disasters that will come and the possibility of a world beyond? What is the role of education, if any, in preparing us individually and collectively? To answer these questions, we share key lessons from critical educational movements in America and what they have been able to actualize in our present society, note the institutional constraints faced, and then name six features of a (r)evolutionary educational practice that we imagine we will need to transition into a just future.