The disobedient professional: Applying a nomadic imagination toward radical non

“Professionalism was basically a ton of petty shit, nothing ever to do with standing up for children in the face of harmful rules, curriculum, other teachers, administrators, etc. It was basically how to comply.” As the student quoted here makes clear, a “professional” teacher must learn to comply, even when doing so does harm to children. This article serves to disrupt the narrow and striated notions of professionalism promoted in many teacher education programs—notions that beg clarity on what is really believed about teaching, children, and what really matters. In school(ed) places, accepting—even welcoming—constraints and blinders that serve to sustain the broader injustices, inequities, and ignorance that infect society is common practice and is often shrouded in the cloak of professionalism. In examining the consequences of compliance disguised as professionalism, it becomes clear that what is necessary to reimagine school places is a nomadic and radical non-compliance. Radicalizing a teacher’s professional life requires deep inquiry, skepticism, integrity, and a nomad’s willingness to challenge and disrupt. Included in this article are examples of critique in the context of reimagining school spaces as spaces of joy, generosity, and justice; of creative maladjustments in the face of mundane mandates; and of the ways in which teachers can radically and nomadically non-comply in order smooth the striations of school(ed) spaces