Keywords

In honoring Paulo Freire, whose 100th birthday we celebrated last year, we have taken some time to collectively reflect on the current status quo of science education. Consistent with the themes of this book, we have been asking ourselves, and each other in our science and education communities, why, what, and who are we educating for in science education? We recently wrote of how we came to see ourselves as working within a larger critical-liberatory paradigm for science education (Frausto Aceves et al., 2022) and as part of a broad and ever-expanding sociopolitical movement in science education (Tolbert & Bazzul, 2017). In this chapter, we aim to take up a provocation that emerged from that article (Frausto Aceves et al., 2022)—differentiating between false versus true generosities, as part of the project of what Freire referred to as building solidarity in and across differences.

Paulo Freire’s ideology has been characterized as “equal parts Jesus Christ and Karl Marx” (Harvard Divinity School, 2022, n.p.). Freire’s theories were certainly influenced by his Catholic upbringing, and the notion of generosity in Freire’s writing has roots in Christianity, which later influenced the development of liberation theology (Gutierrez, 1988). In fact, Freire is known by some Latino-American theologians, such as Leonardo Boff, as “one of the founders of liberation theology” (2011, p. 241). Freire rejected two guiding pillars of Christianity, however: divine intervention (i.e., that salvation will be granted through prayer and moral living) and charity. He viewed both of these pillars as mechanisms for social reproduction; he believed that they do little to dismantle oppressive systems and, in many ways, make it possible for oppressive systems to stay intact. While Freire maintained a spiritual practice in his personal life, he rarely addressed in his writings and teachings—with some exceptions, that is, Pedagogy of Hope—the ways in which his spiritual practice influenced Freirean critical pedagogy. However, his work, his praxis, and his hopeful outlook and belief in the possibility of liberation can be characterized as a critical spirituality (c.f., Dantley, 2003). Dantley writes about critical spirituality in the context of relationships between African American spirituality and critical theory, while also drawing from Cornel West’s (1988) concept of prophetic pragmatism. Boyd (2012) analyzes how Freire’s work also brings together spiritual and critical pedagogical tenets—with similarities being a focus on conversion to the oppressed and a prophetic utopian, revolutionary vision. Along these lines, Freire himself constantly revised his notions of humanity and increasingly contested the false dichotomy between the material and the spiritual world. In a 1997 interview,Footnote 1 Freire argued, “the more I read Marx, the more reasons I encounter for my spirituality.”

While it is not our goal in this chapter to delve deeply into the relationships between spirituality and generosity, we think it is important to historically contextualize these relationships, particularly because the very notion of generosity as it pertains to Freire’s work has roots in Christianity. We also feel that Freire’s hesitation to include his own spiritual orientation in his writings was likely deliberate so that his work could be a call to action for all, regardless of one’s spiritual beliefs. However one identifies—spiritual or not—we find that Freire’s constructs of false versus true generosity are generative tools for reflecting on the field of science education. Specifically, these constructs can serve as a heuristic for helping the field develop more political clarity, especially as equity and diversity initiatives move toward the center of science education reform efforts.

In the three sections that follow, we start with an account of what Freire called false generosities and how false generosities are often used to give the illusion of liberation, but, in fact, do not equate to limit-acts. We then describe how true generosities are limit-acts (liberatory action, i.e., seeing beyond and acting upon a limiting situation; acting to transcend a constraint that seems to be intractable) that must be guided by political clarity, autonomía, and solidarity. In closing, we reflect on the implications of true generosities and false generosities for fostering a critical imaginary in science education.

False Generosities

Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity”, the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity,” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source. (Freire, 1970, p. 44)

According to Freire, false generosity masks oppression by creating opportunities that appear to bring equity but allow injustices to remain intact. False generosity is charity versus systemic change. A false generosity is motivated by capitalist notions of liberty and individual freedoms. That is, generosity within a capitalist system is undergirded by the notion that individuals are “free” to allocate their capital as they see fit. In capitalist systems, making a social impact is linked to accumulation of capital. Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz, for example, has stated that “the price of admission to have a social impact agenda is to have financial performance” (Mohn, 2017). Starbucks is often lauded for its “generous” health benefits, including gender-affirming healthcare, and “social do-gooderism” (Mohn, 2017). Meanwhile, the company engages in illegal retaliatory tactics against employees such as withholding raises, firing, closing stores, and other activities to intimidate their workers and prevent them from unionizing (Spauster & Campbell, 2022). Other extreme examples of false generosities are billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg investing 120 million dollars to “improve” the San Francisco Bay Area schooling system to support “educational innovation” (Philanthropy News, 2014), while local school districts plea with residents to rent out rooms to teachers (who can’t afford on their own to buy or rent housing in the area), and while minoritized students and their families are pushed out of increasingly gentrified neighborhoods (Hernandez, 2022). As Darder and Torres (2004) argue, false generosity can also be seen in “the process of unequal privilege and entitlement … camouflage[d] under the guise of ‘fair and equal’ opportunity for all students” (p. 92). We outline several forms that false generosity can take, as we see it, in science education.

False Generosity as “Well-Meaning” Yet Domesticating Discourse

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963) wrote, in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” of the dangers of the “white moderates” who claim to support civil rights but condemn its tactics, arguing that “direct action cannot be measured against the likelihood of white alienation”Footnote 2 (n.p.). More recently, civil rights leaders have admonished that “the so-called moderates’ call for compromise is drowning out King’s insistence that we cannot submit to the terms of white supremacy” (Barber & Wilson-Hartgrove, 2019). Appeals for compromise and polite discourse are often used to dismiss critical-liberatory projects, while radical or transformative ideas and activism are regularly dismissed as too far-fetched, or too impossible, or too agitating. Freire pointed out the impossibility of being a moderate, or maintaining neutrality, regarding matters of oppression; he remarked that this kind of neutrality always “works in favor of the dominant” (Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 104). And, as educator Kortney Hernandez has stated, “[P]edagogically deceptive notions of benevolent intentions coupled with well-meaning discourse serves only to camouflage so unapologetically the deep injustices that are constantly at work” (Darder, 2017, pp. 176–177).

In science education, this takes many forms. One of those forms we often observe are discourses which serve to position social justice work at the margins—or even outside—of science education. These discourses are ever present in curriculum and science education policy documents (e.g., justice-related issues in science are hardly addressed and only as Appendices in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)), or in manuscript reviews requiring citations of mainstream science education research, or in messages that get communicated to pre-tenure faculty about what is required to be “accepted,” get jobs, or get tenure, in our field—all in the name of rigor and/or compromise. Alberto J. Rodriguez (2006) has referred to these discourses as part of a larger project of politics of domestication, that is, “a negative process of acculturation by which one’s ideals and commitment to work for social justice are tamed and reduced to fit dominant discursive practices” (Rodriguez, 2006, p. 48).

False Generosity as Politics of “Inclusion”

False generosity often takes shape as liberal-progressivist initiatives, like inclusion and diversity which, as Sara Ahmed (2012) argues, “can be a way of maintaining rather than transforming existing organizational value” (p. 59). However, as Freire (1970) points out, “our insistence that the authentic solution of the oppressor-oppressed contradiction does not lie in a mere reversal of position, in moving from one pole to the other. Nor does it lie in the replacement of the former oppressors with new ones who continue to subjugate the oppressed—all in the name of their liberation” (p. 57).

Representational politics alone do not have the power to eliminate systems of oppression. Angela Davis reminds us that diversifying the workforce, such as the police, for example, does little to root out racism from a system that was built on white supremacy. Footnote 3 As Grande and Anderson (2017, p. 139) have also pointed out, multicultural or culturally responsive education that privileges “the cultivation of a respect for difference over critiques of power” is a form of false generosity that perpetuates the myth of meritocracy. Efforts at inclusive education are often driven by a commitment to bringing up members of marginalized groups into higher ranks of the current neoliberal, capitalist education system, and not on destabilizing the system that is designed to deprofessionalize teachers or commodify students for capital gain (Au, 2017; Lorde, 1984). (We point out here that even Raytheon has a vested interest in expanding the participation of girls in STEM and makes significant financial contributions to STEM education programs for girls.) Well-intentioned efforts at more inclusive science education can also have the (intended or unintended) effect of positioning minoritized students as lacking, in need of something, or, as Kirchgasler (2022) puts it, “not-yet-healthy citizens.”

False Generosity as Dehumanizing

Freire wrote that while focusing on the preparation of scientists and technicians was critical for Brazil’s development, an education for scientists and technicians must not lose sight of “the battle for humanization. … It was essential to harmonize a truly humanist position with technology by an education which would not leave technicians naive and uncritical in dealing with problems other than those of their own specialty” (Freire, 1974, p. 34). False generosity creates dehumanizing conditions for teachers, who are positioned not as professionals-who-care but rather as technicians who must implement the (corporate-backed or state-backed or NGSS-backed) curriculum (Eaton & Day, 2020), teach to the tests, and/or teach standards with fidelity (Darder, 2017).Footnote 4 Deterministic views of science education such as teaching the canon or the practices of science in better or more inclusive ways so that students will learn better or acquire more science knowledge can be grounded in false generosities.

This denial of humanity is evident in science education, particularly in physics faculties, where disciplinary epistemic assumptions implicitly communicate that by merely knowing content knowledge you are qualified to teach it (Larsson et al., 2021) and, therefore, content is prioritized over pedagogy in the education of future physics teachers (Torres-Olave & Dillon, 2022). Such assumptions dehumanize students as well as teachers (teacher educators, in this case, who in physics education are often physicists). For example, physics teacher educators are positioned as holders of knowledge and wisdom, rather than in a constant process of learning, under the premise that physics is an objective type of knowledge that can be “deposited” into someone else’s mind (see also Singh, 2023, this volume). This is a classic banking method approach; there is no dialogue, nor a process of transcendence, of being more. The banking model, therefore, also denies the possibility for scientists who teach to be more fully human, rather than “things” possessed by capitalist logics (Freire, 1970).

False Generosity as Apolitical Scientific Saviorism

In the case of science, false generosity can occur when, for example, we as science (or engineering) educators consider and promote only the value of technoscientific innovation but not how systemic oppression is constituted through innovation as part of larger socioscientific and sociopolitical entanglements (Gunckel & Tolbert, 2018). As an example, we turn to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a resolution to the climate crisis. The transport sector generates approximately 23% of these gasses, which is why “green mobility” strategies such as replacing fossil fuels used by cars is one of the more common solutions proposed to greenhouse gas reduction (Jerez et al., 2021). However, this effort has simultaneously led to the exploitative extraction of lithium in the lithium triangle in South America. In South America, lithium is found in brines (i.e., underneath salt flats) contained in the salars, which are fragile ecosystems with high biodiversity and species endemism. In the case of Chile, particularly the Atacama desert, to obtain lithium, it is necessary to evaporate the water from the brines—in one of the driest deserts in the world. This process is not free of harm for local human and non-human communities and often results in overexploiting hydro-social territories (Gutiérrez et al., 2022; Jerez et al., 2021). Meanwhile, leftist governments organizing for state versus corporate control over lithium resources, and Indigenous activists organizing against lithium extraction in Latin America, are being framed as obstacles to carbon emissions reduction (Dube, 2022; see also Carrara & Chakraborty, 2023, this volume), while the super wealthy fly around in private jets (Milman, 2022). This is a clear case of eco-imperialism. We certainly depend on minerals and materials that are obtained from nature and need to be finding other sources of energy (and other ways to live). But at what costs and to whom? We ask, how much do we engage with these nuances and issues of climate justice and climate imperialism in science education? Whose “green” environment counts? In the Anthropocene, science and politics cannot be disentangled.

(Theorizing) True Generosities for Science Education

True generosity is about destabilizing and reimagining systems—not maintaining the status quo. Freire wrote that “True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity” (1970, p. 45) through the denunciation of oppressive conditions and proclamation of new liberatory ones. Drawing from the Freirean constructs of political clarity, autonomía, and solidarity, we propose a model for true generosity in science education. Differentiating between false and true generosity requires thoughtful reflection, particularly within a field that has for so long positioned itself as apolitical. We feel that a model for true generosity, therefore, must start with political clarity—what are we doing and who for, moving into a reclamation of our autonomía—the power to (re)define ourselves and our praxis, and, related to this, building solidarities across difference, in the name of justice.

Political Clarity

“Instead of reproducing the dominant ideology, an educator can denounce it, taking a risk of course” (Freire, in Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 118). Practicing true generosity requires what Freire referred to as political clarity. That is, “the educator must know in favor of whom and in favor of what he or she wants. That means to know against whom and against what we are working as educators” (Freire, in Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 100). Part of the challenge is that the field of science education has long established disciplinary boundaries in terms of what is or is not part of our charge as science educators, in ways that position politics or sociopolitical contexts as outside of our purview. However, while of course a science educator (a biology teacher, for example) must teach biology, Freire explained that it would be impossible to study “the phenomenon of life without discussing exploitation, domination, freedom, democracy, and so on” (p. 104). He further elaborated that

I cannot put history and social conditions in parentheses and then teach biology exclusively. My question is how to make clear to the students that there is no such a thing named biology in itself. If the teacher of biology does that and the teacher of physics does that and so on, then the students end up by gaining the critical understanding that biology and all the disciplines are not isolated from social life. This is my demand. These two risks exist. The risk of putting in parenthesis the content and to emphasize exclusively the political problem and the risk of putting in parenthesis the political dimension of the content and to just teach the content. For me both attitudes are wrong. (Freire, in Horton & Freire, 1990, pp. 108–109)

Political clarity requires an understanding of the fact that education is always a political act. Science education is also inherently imbued with politics—and ethics—even (especially) when the ethico-political dimensions of science and education are not made explicit to students. On a basic level, even very young students can engage in problem-posing pedagogies, such as why do we only study science once a week (or less)? Or why does this citizen science investigation require that we kill the insects we are studying?Footnote 5 Or, perhaps for older students, why don’t our state standards for science education address climate change? Or what is it about the political history of our community that led to the soil or water becoming contaminated in the first place (Morales-Doyle et al., 2019; Tolbert et al., 2016)? Or, as we referenced earlier, in the case of engineering education, how can we advance technologies that are not exploitative of nature (Sanchez, 2023)? On this point, Myles Horton also responded that

There’s no science that can’t be used for good or for evil. … If you make people knowledgeable about the science and don’t point out this fact, then you’re saying, I withdraw from the battle, from the discussion of the ethics involved. I just stick to the facts. And that of course means that you’ve surrendered to the strongest forces. You say you’re neutral in what you do, you aren’t concerned with it. … It’s unavoidable that you have some responsibility … regardless of what you teach or what your subject is or what your skill is. Whatever you have to contribute has a social dimension. (Horton, in Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 105)

Often liberal-progressive positionings, or scientific notions of neutrality and objectivity, lead educators to feel that they can’t share personal viewpoints with students. But, since education is always political, educators, including science teachers and science education researchers, have a responsibility to share their ideas—and wonderings—about justice and to create pedagogical conditions and learning environments in which justice-oriented teaching and learning can happen. As Camille Rullán has argued, it is necessary for the public to understand

the ways in which capital and power influence and distort the production, use, as well as the nature of science and, more critically, of re-imagining the ways we practice science. There is no hero that can give us this. The only way forward is through collective action, for scientists to put their skills at the service of the people and against the oppressors, through a science for (and by, and of) the people. (Rullán, 2021, n.p.)

Freire points out that political clarity, however, is not the same as an authoritarian teacher imposing their ideas on students. Developing and practicing political clarity does not mean we will always have clarity about what is Right or what is Wrong, but rather that we make (our own and others’) political wonderings and ethical complexities of “doing science” explicit to students, while we engage them in their own wonderings and ethical dilemmas (e.g., Krishnamoorthy & Tolbert, 2022; Moura, 2021). In other words, we can’t shy away from political engagement in science classrooms, because politics always already are part of doing—and teaching and learning—science.

Autonomía

True generosity also entails reclaiming autonomy. We believe, as Freire states, that autonomía (autonomy), not individual freedom, should be the goal and condition of liberatory education. We cannot be free while others are not; therefore, we cannot be truly free in a neoliberal capitalist society in which “liberty” is understood as individual “freedom”—and the focus is often on individual choice over collective wellbeing. However, it is necessary to define and contrast what we mean by freedom (autonomía) and “freedom” in this context. The often-cited example contrasts neoliberal conceptions of freedom as the “freedom to,” that is, the simple removal of legal impediments to a course of action. This contrasts with a more liberatory conception of “freedom from,” that is, freedom from restrictions to the actor’s own autonomy, which is often heavily restricted by market-based directives imposed from above with little to no democratic input, despite neoliberal lip service to the idea. In neoliberal policy contexts, the term autonomy has been co-opted, to frame what people can or cannot do, linked to the idea of individual freedom to and choice (Torres-Olave & Dillon, 2022). This version of “freedom” positions people as having individual responsibility for their own future and wellbeing. We hear more and more about the concept of “individual rights” or “individual freedom,” for example, in response to the COVID-19 mandates. In a similar line, the growing cost of postsecondary education, the treatment of students as consumers of knowledge, and increasing academic precarity in the university system are largely a result of marketization (i.e., privatization of formerly public resources), cloaked in a discourse of individual autonomy, such as “equity and access” and “freedom to choose.” Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2019) has written that, in this sense, individualistic autonomy is a cruel slogan.

The concept of autonomy needs to be reclaimed as a collective autonomy. As Freire states, being autonomous is fundamentally about our nature as interdependent beings, in communion with others: It “is the authority of the not me, or you, which makes me assume the radicality of myself” (Freire, 1998, p. 46). Such radicality, Freire argues, is put into practice when we embrace an ontology of relationships and differences that transcends the alienating character of individual freedom. Autonomy, in Freirean terms, is to embrace that we live in a plural world, with different dreams, but shared struggles. Ana Cecilia Dinerstein (2016) states that autonomy is a “doing,” and she calls this practice the art of organizing hope, which entails working against individualism while imagining and practicing alternative horizons. As educators and researchers, we need to be, and encourage our students to be, autonomous and critical, but without losing sight of the other. Dinerstein argues that autonomy needs “cracks” which create opportunities for transcending self, for dialogue with others’ dreams, in pursuit of other alternatives. That is what Freire refers to when he says, “not me or you,” which can be linked back to his notions of unfinishedness and our ontological vocation to be more fully human. It is in that constant search that we may become aware of our limits, of what we can and cannot achieve in our individuality. It is in that search that we encounter a new radical possibility, of recognizing the “self” as interdependent. It is in that moment we recognize others (beyond our own familial sense of interconnectedness). Our existence is inextricably linked to others and, therefore, any type of “individual empowerment” at the expense of another goes against our “ontological vocation to be more fully human.” A Freirean ontological perspective is one in which becoming fully human requires not only a freedom from one’s own suffering but also a freedom from suffering for all of humanity (e.g., Chen, 2016). That is, real autonomy operates in the service of social responsibility. It moves away from vertical dependence and false generosity, toward horizontal relations in solidarity—that support autonomous collective flourishing over an individualistic “independent life.”

Solidarity

As Antonia Darder has written, “Paulo Freire believed till his death that ‘to change what we presently are, it is necessary to change the structures of power radically’” (Freire, 1997, cited in Darder, 2011, p. 155). Freire recognized that radical change in the structures of power required solidarity, preceded by a “conversion to the people,” that is, “a spiritual transformation that brings one into identification, solidarity and common struggle with those that are oppressed” (Boyd, 2012, p. 772)—or in Freire’s words, “communion with the people” (Freire, 1970, p. 61). Part of any critical education, in the critical pedagogical tradition, is coming to see oneself as part of a larger community and to understand the immense power of the collective. Freire (1970) wrote that

Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture. … [T]rue solidarity with the oppressed means fighting at their side to transform the objective reality which has made them these “beings for another.” The oppressor is solidary with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor—when he stops making pious, sentimental and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. … To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce. (pp. 49–50)

Freire believed that forging alliances across differences was integral to the work of the critical educator. While solidarity does not require an abandonment of group-specific goals and struggles, it means finding common ground across groups through movement-building, through what we previously mentioned as the cracks of autonomy. Solidarity is about risk; solidarity is an act of love and hope:

The “different” who accept unity cannot forgo unity in their fight; they must have objectives beyond those specific ones of each group. There has to be a greater dream, a utopia the different aspire to and for which they are able to make concessions. Unity within diversity is possible, for example, between anti racist groups to overcome the limits of their core racial group and fight for the radical transformation of the socioeconomic system that intensifies racism. (Freire, 1997, p. 85)

Other critical educators have also underscored the importance of solidarities that bring together marginalized communities in formation toward a broader sociopolitical movement. Sandy Grande (2018) has asked, for example, “What kinds of solidarities can be developed among marginalized groups with a shared commitment to working beyond the imperatives of capital and the settler state?” (p. 48). Angela Davis (2016) reminds us that finding connections between movements strengthens their collective power and impact. Insisting on the intersectionality of movements, she wrote, “Initially intersectionality was about bodies and experiences. But now, how do we talk about bringing various social justice struggles together, across national borders?” (p. 19).

Antonia Darder (2011) emphasized that teachers can play a key role in movement-building. She highlighted how a “unifying, albeit heterogeneous and multifaceted, anticapitalistFootnote 6” movement can be built by teachers, in partnership with other organizations, and sustained through critical education. Both Freire and Darder have pointed out that alliances must be formed across class (including across class positions), race, gender, and other social categories, to “rescue the concept of power from its diffused and immeasurable position” (“of being everywhere and nowhere”) (Naiman, cited in Darder, 2011, pp. 155–156) back to the immense power of collective action:

History has repeatedly shown that significant institutional change can truly take place only as a result of collective work within social-movement organizations. True, legal and policy strategies have had some impact, but ultimately the collective pressure of the masses has had the greatest impact in quickly mobilizing these forces. (Darder, 2011, p. 156)

It is through the power of the collective that we can achieve environmental justice, living wages, fully funded schools, and healthcare, etc.—and build an alternative vision of/for science education and schooling (Darder, 2011). We (Sara, Alejandra, and Betzabé) have witnessed the power of teachers coming together to “channel the fears, guilt, rage, and despair into productive action” (Darder, 2011, p. 156) such as a science teacher collective in which curricular and pedagogical tools are the participatory design work of teachers, community organizers, scientists, researchers, and youth (Morales-Doyle & Frausto, 2021). We have witnessed how science teachers with whom we have worked moved from frustration and dismay about the low status of their professions, and the political constraints they faced as educators, to collective empowerment, for example, becoming part of recent “glocal” teacher movements (i.e., #REDforED) and multi-day strikes, demanding and securing better working conditions for teachers and support staff, and better learning conditions for students, (e.g., Torres-Olave et al., 2019; Williams & Tolbert, 2018, 2021). We, like Freire, Darder, Horton, and other critical pedagogues, believe that

[t]hrough the building of ethical communities for struggle and change, we can develop the critical strength, reflective ability, political knowledge, social commitment, personal maturity, and solidarity across our differences necessary to reinvent our world. (Darder, 2011, p. 156)

We see powerful examples of ethical communities such as those Darder describes in the recent global student #SchoolStrike4Climate movements, scientists protesting against cuts to public funding for scientific research (as well as the elimination of some forms of funding such as climate change research under the Trump administration in the U.S.A.), the #NoDAPL movement (Dakota Access Pipeline protests), Black Lives Matter, youth-led Free Palestine movements,Footnote 7 scientists fighting and taking positions of power for the right for water in Chile (e.g., MODATIMAFootnote 8), and countless others.

But How Do We Build Pluralistic Solidary Communities for Liberatory Science Education?

As we move, not only our gaze, our words, but also our worlds toward imaginaries that mobilize our pockets of resistance as transnational solidarities, we must recognize that will alone is not enough to move from a neoliberal and individualistic to a just and liberatory science education. Scholars like Arturo Escobar have given us powerful language with which to (re)imagine a science education whose corazón (heart) thrives for our whole Earth system. It will take practice and humility to build pluralistic solidarity communities that honor “a multiplicity of worlds and peoples coexisting … always flowing, constantly changing owing to interdependence of all aspects of living systems” (Escobar, 2018). There will be things and ideas we must leave or change and things we must practice and build as we consider moving from false toward true generosity. Of those things, two that have been weighing on us the most lately have been courage and imagination and the role these play in both our collective and individual praxis. In our work toward justicia y libertad, we can at times become lovers of problems (Ginwright, 2021) that cloud and limit our critical imaginations. False generosity is good at further convincing us of those limits, that we cannot imagine worlds that live outside of the systems that oppress us. We have struggled and learned to hold on, maybe even survive. Will we talk honestly and undeviatingly about what should exist? Our courage will inevitably be tested as we move forward into new realms and modes of being, inspired by our collective imaginations—but will we really let go? Will we decide to be truly generous? Will we be willing to make the sacrifices needed? Will we maintain our hope?

Reimaging the Heart of Science Education: A Collective of Critical Imaginaries

Hope is an indispensable seasoning in our human, historical experience. Without it, instead of history we would have pure determinism. History exists only where time is problematized and not simply a given. (Freire, 1998, p. 69)

Hope is a collective project enacted through communities, through praxis of the people, fomenting pockets of resistance, with the political clarity to witness and name past-present history and acting to (re)imagine and change present-futures. For Freire, hope is a verb, esperanzar, and tener esperanza. To have hope is a practice. It implies action, such as (re)claiming spaces for solidarity building and dialogue that nurture our hope and autonomía, together as (science) educators. In order to counter a “well-meaning” yet dismissive false generosity, we will need to be humble enough to slow down and listen, with an open mind and heart. True generosity will require us to have the courage to be uncomfortable, collaborative, and honest, asking and listening to what we need from each other. We will have to catch ourselves, pull our peers aside, or listen with humility as we are pulled aside, because we will not always get it right. In fact, we acknowledge the sheer impossibility of always getting it right. Yet, a commitment to true generosity is lifelong, walking (and making) the roads with others, sometimes stepping up and sometimes stepping back, because of our love, solidarity, and responsibility to our collective liberation.

What we are proposing in this chapter are ways to advance toward a critical imaginary of/for science education. An imaginary “encode[s] not only visions of what is attainable through science and technology but also of how life ought, or ought not, to be lived; in this respect, they express a society’s shared understandings of good and evil” (Jasanoff, 2015, p. 6). For us, such a critical imaginary for science education (and beyond) is rooted in the three principles we have outlined: political clarity, autonomía, and solidarity. Our task now is to reflect upon our own practices and contemplate how we can enact such principles in our research, as/for a reimagination of our future selves, future scientists, future science teachers, and future engineers.

Just as a seed will not sprout without water and light, what is seeded together among us as science educators will not germinate without its own form of water and light. What practices will support us to reach and stretch in pluralistic ways that are emergent, responsive, and relevant? We have called attention to the importance of para qué, para quién, con quién enseñamos (for what, for whom, and with whom we teach). While advancing this critical imaginary, we must have the courage to name and reject false nourishments, like representation alone, that without power, only serve to manipulate and contain possibilities and imaginations. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Freire explains this myth as

the model of itself which the bourgeoisie present to the people as the possibility for their own ascent. In order for these myths to function, however, the people must accept the word of the bourgeoisie. … Through manipulation, the dominant elites can lead the people into an unauthentic type of “organization”, and can thus avoid the threatening alternative: the true organization of the emerged and emerging people. The latter has two possibilities as they enter the historical process: either they must organize authentically for their liberation, or they will be manipulated by the elites. (pp. 147–148)

Freire’s words should give us pause and much to think about. The myth of “the model of itself” for ascension is part of the playbook of the oppressor. The myth limits our imagination and in doing so keeps us oppressed. Then there is the why: “avoiding the threatening alternative” of liberation. By holding onto the myth, we are blind to the possibilities of freedom, but if we just let go, if we decide that we cannot be a copy and instead take our place as “emerged and emerging people,” we will articulate and dream worlds toward different ends. Thus, organizing so that we prioritize “for what, for and with whom” we dream our worlds will be vital to our nourishment. Reimagining the heart of science education is a collective project, sustained by and grounded in community and place, inclusive of all beings in those places, and their relationships and perspectives. As we look forward when we walk together, we must also look to our sides, at who is walking with us, as well as what we are walking by and on. Science education must be dynamic enough to emerge in and with the world, for the world, because of the world.

Toward the Ethical and Just Worlds We Deserve

Honoring and practicing our commitments will require that we take an honest look at what we bring with us to our work. How can anchoring ethics with courage and imagination help us guard against apolitical scientific saviorism that does not serve the collective? As Freire reminds us in Pedagogy of Freedom (or rather, Pedagogy of Autonomía), because we are not predetermined, we must read and write the ethical and just worlds we all deserve.

If I am a pure product of genetic, cultural, or class determination, I have no responsibility for my action in the world and, therefore, it is not possible for me to speak of ethics. Of course, this assumption of responsibility does not mean that we are not conditioned genetically, culturally, and socially. It means that we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined. (1998, p. 26)

As we practice true generosity and build solidarities toward a liberatory science education, we will need to consider our contribution and responsibilities to others. Reflection and dialogue will be important in helping us recognize what we carry and need from each other. We will need to name and hold not just the beautiful things that bring us joy and hope but also the limiting and problematic things that perpetuate injustice and oppression. We will need courage to have uncomfortable conversations about difference, our human centricity, and universalizing tendencies, and we will have to carry the tensions as we move toward beautiful elsewheres. We will appropriate science as a tool for social justice, yet we will also humbly acknowledge that dominant forms of science are ways, of many ways, to understand or describe our world(s). It will take courage to confront, renounce, and transform systems of oppression that erase differences and perpetuate exclusion, hate, imperialism, dehumanization, and environmental devastation—a courage that cannot be manifested alone, but one that grows from and is sustained by the power of our collective radical imaginaries.