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Engaging the Brat: Rethinking Classroom Management is a live, online, project-based seminar for educators working inside and outside of schools. Together, we will reconsider what classroom “management” has often taught us to value: compliance, quiet, speed, order, and self-discipline. In direct contrast, we will study and practice a teaching approach rooted in relationship, attention, listening, imagination, and the dignity of every learner.
Through close observation, audioethnographic practice, reflective writing, and collaborative inquiry, participants will examine how classrooms are shaped by space, sound, time, language, power, memory, and the assumptions adults may carry about young people. Rather than beginning with how to keep a classroom under control, this course asks different questions: What does a child need to be more fully seen? What conditions make social connection possible? What might teachers notice when they slow down before correction, discipline, or judgment?
The seminar title is grounded in Michael J. Carley’s essay “Engaging the Brat in Your Classroom . . . And the Power of Narrative,” along with readings and practices that help educators think more carefully about childhood, school memory, teacher authority, neurodivergence, and the stories adults tell about children. Participants will work with childhood photographs, school records, teacher comments, or related materials from their own lives in order to create a final project that revisits how children are described, judged, and remembered.
This seminar is for classroom teachers, teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, school counselors, instructional coaches, school leaders, youth workers, teaching artists, museum educators, after-school educators, community-based youth program staff, undergraduate and graduate licensure students, and adults interested in building more humane learning communities.
Participants may have the opportunity, by invitation and with permission, to have selected writing or final project excerpts considered for inclusion in the facilitator’s forthcoming book with Neurodiversity Press, Engaging the Brat.
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Facilitated by Lisa Arrastia, founding director of The Ed Factory.
Featuring talks with neurodiversity specialist and author of the personal essay inspiring the seminar, Michael J. Carley, and award-winning playwright Idris Goodwin, author of the YA book King of the Neuro Verse, one of the seminar’s required texts.
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Tuition does not include graduate-level extension credit through USD or any required books participants may need to purchase separately.
→ Discounted tuition: $295 through 12 September 2026.
→ Standard tuition: $395 beginning 13 September 2026.
→ Limited full and partial fellowships are available by application and awarded on a rolling basis while funds remain.
Additional reduced-rate access may be available when cost is a barrier. Please contact us to discuss options.
Tuition supports seminar instruction, course materials, guest honoraria when applicable, project guidance, and the sustained preparation required for close reading, reflective writing, and careful engagement with participants’ final projects.
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No prior experience with classroom teaching, audioethnography, narrative writing, or project-based learning is required, but an interest in facilitation, teaching, or learning environments is necessary.
Free Low-Tech Basics Tutorial on Tuesday, 22 September 2026
For those who want to become familiar with online learning and applications like Zoom, Google Drive, and Google apps. First, register for the seminar, then complete the Low-Tech Basics Tutorial registration form.
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This seminar is eligible for 1-3 GLEC for an additional fee of $79 per unit paid directly to the University of San Diego. Credits are applicable toward license renewal, professional development hours, salary advancement, and credentialing. Credit is optional and separate from seminar tuition. Participants are responsible for confirming credit acceptance with their employer or institution. Learn more.
The Ed Factory seminar payment and USD credit enrollment are two separate transactions.
Enroll in The Ed Factory seminar
Enroll with USD for academic credit
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“I learned that education is about relationships and treating the students as people, not as subjects.”
“I really learned that human-focused teaching and relationship building are a significant part of the job. I feel as though I both practiced and witnessed this firsthand in the course.”
—
Image: Michael John Carley, age 5. Used with permission from the author.
Engaging the Brat: Rethinking Classroom Management is a live, online, project-based seminar for educators working inside and outside of schools. Together, we will reconsider what classroom “management” has often taught us to value: compliance, quiet, speed, order, and self-discipline. In direct contrast, we will study and practice a teaching approach rooted in relationship, attention, listening, imagination, and the dignity of every learner.
Through close observation, audioethnographic practice, reflective writing, and collaborative inquiry, participants will examine how classrooms are shaped by space, sound, time, language, power, memory, and the assumptions adults may carry about young people. Rather than beginning with how to keep a classroom under control, this course asks different questions: What does a child need to be more fully seen? What conditions make social connection possible? What might teachers notice when they slow down before correction, discipline, or judgment?
The seminar title is grounded in Michael J. Carley’s essay “Engaging the Brat in Your Classroom . . . And the Power of Narrative,” along with readings and practices that help educators think more carefully about childhood, school memory, teacher authority, neurodivergence, and the stories adults tell about children. Participants will work with childhood photographs, school records, teacher comments, or related materials from their own lives in order to create a final project that revisits how children are described, judged, and remembered.
This seminar is for classroom teachers, teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, school counselors, instructional coaches, school leaders, youth workers, teaching artists, museum educators, after-school educators, community-based youth program staff, undergraduate and graduate licensure students, and adults interested in building more humane learning communities.
Participants may have the opportunity, by invitation and with permission, to have selected writing or final project excerpts considered for inclusion in the facilitator’s forthcoming book with Neurodiversity Press, Engaging the Brat.
—
Facilitated by Lisa Arrastia, founding director of The Ed Factory.
Featuring talks with neurodiversity specialist and author of the personal essay inspiring the seminar, Michael J. Carley, and award-winning playwright Idris Goodwin, author of the YA book King of the Neuro Verse, one of the seminar’s required texts.
—
Tuition does not include graduate-level extension credit through USD or any required books participants may need to purchase separately.
→ Discounted tuition: $295 through 12 September 2026.
→ Standard tuition: $395 beginning 13 September 2026.
→ Limited full and partial fellowships are available by application and awarded on a rolling basis while funds remain.
Additional reduced-rate access may be available when cost is a barrier. Please contact us to discuss options.
Tuition supports seminar instruction, course materials, guest honoraria when applicable, project guidance, and the sustained preparation required for close reading, reflective writing, and careful engagement with participants’ final projects.
—
No prior experience with classroom teaching, audioethnography, narrative writing, or project-based learning is required, but an interest in facilitation, teaching, or learning environments is necessary.
Free Low-Tech Basics Tutorial on Tuesday, 22 September 2026
For those who want to become familiar with online learning and applications like Zoom, Google Drive, and Google apps. First, register for the seminar, then complete the Low-Tech Basics Tutorial registration form.
—
This seminar is eligible for 1-3 GLEC for an additional fee of $79 per unit paid directly to the University of San Diego. Credits are applicable toward license renewal, professional development hours, salary advancement, and credentialing. Credit is optional and separate from seminar tuition. Participants are responsible for confirming credit acceptance with their employer or institution. Learn more.
The Ed Factory seminar payment and USD credit enrollment are two separate transactions.
Enroll in The Ed Factory seminar
Enroll with USD for academic credit
—
“I learned that education is about relationships and treating the students as people, not as subjects.”
“I really learned that human-focused teaching and relationship building are a significant part of the job. I feel as though I both practiced and witnessed this firsthand in the course.”
—
Image: Michael John Carley, age 5. Used with permission from the author.
