Call for Papers: Dispatches from the First Day of School
The 2025-2026 school year opens as K-12 and higher education are in crisis. Funding at every level of public and private education is at risk, from the cancellation of grants from federal agencies such as the NSF, NIH, NEA, NEH to the threat to the very existence of the Department of Education. The futures of our immigrant and undocumented students and colleagues are unpredictable at best. And across the country, educators’ freedom to choose what and how they teach is being compromised or even erased.
Given all these challenges, Radical Teacher wants to hear what you did on the first day of school, from pre-K to PhD, from Massachusetts to Oklahoma, from Oregon to Hawai’i, from Puerto Rico to Idaho. And how has that experience shaped what you’re planning to do at the beginning of the Spring 2026 semester. Some questions you might think about:
- How much does your geographical location determine what and how you can teach? What strategies can you use to both work within and push against those limits?
- If you’re working with a significant student population who are immigrants and/or undocumented, how do you navigate your students’ concerns, anxieties, and traumas?
- What effect has the ongoing organizing of Mutual Assistance and Defense Compacts (MADCs) had on your campus? Do you see MADCs as a potential site of resistance to attacks on higher education?
- How did the suppression of teaching accurately about US history and culture affect your plans for the coming academic year and especially for your first day? How did that play out and/or refocus your priorities for the rest of the school year?
- How can we as educators at all levels start the new calendar year with hope not despair?
These “dispatches” should be short pieces, no more than 1,000 words. To submit, go to https://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/radicalteacher, and be sure to choose “First Day of School” on the “Section” drop down menu.
All submissions are due September 15th, 2025.