A Teacher’s Guide to Instructional Resistance: Overcoming Curricular Challenges to Do What’s Best for Your Students

Standardized curricula and rigid approaches to teaching don’t engage students and don’t allow teachers to bring their true expertise to the classroom. But there is another path. Learn how to engage in instructional resistance to bring joy, purposefulness, and rigor back into your classrooms.

Paul S. Sutton is an Associate Professor of Education and the Director of the First Year Experience Program at Pacific Lutheran University. Before transitioning into his current role, he spent 8 years as a public high school English teacher, worked as an adjunct instructor at several community colleges in the greater Puget Sound region, and worked as a teacher in a language school in Istanbul, Turkey. He is passionate about issues of equity and racial equity in education. In his personal and profession life, he participates in various projects and initiatives to make schools and classrooms more affirming spaces of belonging for students, families, and communities who identify as members of groups of people who have and continue to be marginalized by the school system.