Facilitating CIE’s Journey up into the Educational Trenches: A Discussion Essay

The purpose of this essay is to evoke meaningful debate regarding the actual and desired impact of CIE on the lived cultures and daily challenges of teachers and their students, and whether academe has an obligation to ameliorate and transform these conditions. In doing so, the essay questions the true value of scholarship and its role in the attainment of effective and sustained educational transformation through greater access to quality education for all children worldwide. Reflecting on previous scholarship which considered the role of academic-practitioners and the need to create research that directly impacted the lives of teachers and students in the academic “trenches,” this essay asks academics to consider whether their scholarship contributes more to the improvement of their curricula vitae or to the improvement of lives in school. To this latter end, the essay provides suggestions for the development of more effective and impactful scholarship designed for the educational “trenches,” and concludes with reflections on the necessity for this work to reflect Freire’s challenge to ameliorate, emancipate, and empower the learner.