Deep Engagement: Imagining and Enacting Possible Selves and Possible Worlds for Global Change

Abstract

In this article we discuss the transformative power of relationship-building as a means of transcending old versions of self and classroom practice within an ongoing professional development and Participatory Action Research project between teachers from Belize and the United States. The project is a testimony to the power of collective strength and vulnerability, shared successes, and setbacks, to build an increasingly committed, knowledgeable, and united teaching coalition. This work has also shaped the worlds we imagine for our students in an increasingly complex, globalized, connected, transcultural world. relevant to readers who are creating professional development of teachers, with teachers,we want to argue across cultural lines of difference. We argue here that the process of deep engagement, and true relationship building, is a central engine for transcending identities, classroom practices, and most significantly, for our ability to imagine new and meaningful social solidarity. That all these changes happen through participant‘s willingness to become vulnerable to each other has important implications for conducting professional development in developing nations and across multiple lines of difference.