Humanizing students as a micro-resistance practice in australian alternative education settings

This chapter examines two Australian alternative education programs. Participants describe their experiences in mainstream schools as demoralized and devaluing. In contrast, in the alternative education settings, these same students spoke of feeling valued and treated as human. In this chapter, we argue that alternative educators employ humanizing practices as acts of micro-resistance against this dominant neoliberal discourse. Acts of micro-resistance are composed of everyday activities that weaken and destabilize dominant discourses. In our cases, alternative educators committed commonplace daily acts of educational dignity that communicated to the students that they were seen, heard, and valued. By identifying such humanizing practices within the alternative education setting, lessons are articulated for educators in the mainstream who also seek to resist the current culture of microaggressions.