Facilitated by Lisa Arrastia, founding director of The Ed Factory.

. . . .

Public Inquiry as Liberatory Education: An Institute in Curriculum & Program Design for Teachers & Youth Workers is a live, online institute for educators working inside and outside of schools. Together, we will study public inquiry as a liberatory education practice: a way of positioning young people to investigate the social, economic, political, cultural, and local conditions shaping their lives, and to design creative work that recognizes, records, and makes public what others have not yet seen, heard, or understood.

Participants will begin by developing their own public inquiry into a place they know: a childhood community, current neighborhood, school, workplace, or another place that has shaped their life. They will identify a question, study the conditions around it, listen to people connected to that place, and consider what creative public form could carry the inquiry beyond the institute.

From there, participants will design a public inquiry project for young people—one that begins with a strong guiding question, moves through investigation, listening, local research, skill-building, creative production, and revision, and culminates in public work young people can make and share.

The institute draws on liberatory curriculum and program design, critical cultural pedagogy, audioethnographic practice, descriptive review, oral history, writing, discussion, and creative production. Together, we will examine how young people are shaped by schools, neighborhoods, public policy, labor, housing, policing, language, family life, media, and local histories. We will also study how educators come to understand young people, authority, freedom, care, responsibility, conflict, and learning, and how those inherited understandings shape the curriculum and programs we build.

By the final session, each participant will have a teachable public inquiry project with a guiding question, core materials, listening or oral history practice, scaffolded experiences, formative assessment, and a public-facing form. The work may take shape as a photo-text essay, audio piece, exhibit, archive, community walk, publication, performance, installation, conversation, or another form suited to the question, the young people, and the setting.

Public Inquiry as Liberatory Education is for educators working inside and outside of schools who want to design meaningful public inquiry projects with young people.

The institute is open to K–12 teachers, progressive education teachers, new teachers, teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, school counselors, instructional coaches, school leaders, youth workers, teaching artists, museum educators, after-school educators, summer program staff, community-based youth program staff, undergraduate and graduate licensure students, and others designing learning with young people.

No prior experience with public inquiry, liberatory education, audioethnography, curriculum design, project-based learning, or youth program design is required.

Required text: William Ayers, About Becoming a Teacher (NY: Teachers College Press, 2019).

All text formats are permitted when books are assigned, including eBook, paperback, hardcopy, or audiobook. Additional texts required will be provided.

Participants will also need:

• A quiet place to join the institute on Zoom

• A smartphone with basic voice and video recording capability

• Access to Google Drive

• A laptop or desktop computer

Tuesday, 22 September, 6-7 pm ET
Live, online via Zoom

Tuition: $0

For those who want to become more comfortable with basic tech, or who are new to Zoom, Google Drive, or working online, a live, online tutorial will be offered before the institute begins. The session will cover the basics needed to participate comfortably, including joining Zoom, sharing your screen, accessing shared files, and other simple tools used in the institute.

No prior technical experience is required.

You must first register for the institute, then complete the Low-Tech Basics Tutorial registration form.

Low-Tech Basics Tutorial registration ends on 1 September at 11:59 pm EASTERN.

Public Inquiry as Liberatory Education may be eligible for graduate-level extension credit for an additional fee paid directly to the partner university. The Ed Factory institute payment and graduate-credit enrollment are two separate transactions.

Participants seeking graduate-level extension credit, professional licensure documentation, salary advancement, PDPs, CTLE hours, or other professional learning credit should check with their school, district, institution, union, or state licensing body before registering.

Contact us about this option.

→ Discounted tuition: $395 through Monday, 31 August 2026. Use code FALLINSTITUTE26 at checkout.

→ Standard tuition: $495 beginning Tuesday, 1 September 2026.

PAYMENT PLAN

Payment plans are available through Tuesday, 1 September 2026. Participants may pay 50% at checkout, with the remaining 50% automatically charged one month later. After 1 September, tuition is due in full at registration.

Registration is not complete until payment or a deposit is received.

FELLOWSHIPS

→ Fellowship access: Partial and full fellowships will be offered by application. Full fellowships cover The Ed Factory tuition. Partial fellowship tuition is $225 total.

Fellowship applications are due Friday, 28 August 2026, by 11:59 p.m. EASTERN. Decisions will be emailed by Tuesday, 8 September 2026. Scholarship recipients must accept their award by Friday, 11 September 2026, and complete registration by Friday, 18 September 2026, to hold their place.

REDUCED-RATE ACCESS

Additional reduced-rate access may be available when cost is a barrier. Please contact us to discuss options.

—

Tuition supports institute instruction, course materials, project guidance, feedback, and the sustained preparation required for close reading, inquiry design, listening practice, curriculum and program development, and careful engagement with participants’ final public inquiry projects.

—

The Ed Factory tuition does not include graduate-level extension credit or any required books participants may need to purchase separately.