Reading as an Act of Resistance

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Image: Screenshot of my latest post on Bluesky (link here)

After last week’s election, I’ve heard colleagues express worry about what is to come. For example, the incoming administration would like to dissolve the Department of Education. I share some of their worries, considering my position as a systems coach is funded primarily by federal dollars.

I believe fear and uncertainty is part of the plan. The incoming administration is trying to create a sense of chaos. Constantly thinking about what negative things may happen makes it more difficult to focus. Instead of being present, our minds are creating a story about the future that we cannot know or control.

What to do? I’ve applied a few strategies so far:

• Spending less time on Twitter; Musk’s algorithm is posting content in my feed that questions the integrity of the election, as well as promoting pro-Trump content.

• Trying out a new social media, Bluesky, as a Twitter alternative. (You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/readbyexample.bsky.social.)

• Limiting cable news and all the emotionally charged “breaking” reports that keep people glued to the television for hours.

While these actions have been helpful, they haven’t necessarily added anything to my life.

In its place: more reading.

This is not just escapism, although that is a perfectly valid reason to read.

Reading can be an act of resistance.

In education, resistance is sometimes seen in a negative light. A teacher might resist a new literacy curriculum program because it doesn’t align with their current beliefs and values.

However, this resistance may be justified, for example if the new resource is not culturally relevant.

Resistance, when based on sound principles, becomes a tool for agency and freedom.

Next are three key features of reading that can support and empower people during difficult times.

Reading builds your capacity to pay attention to one thing.

Jenny Odell, in her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, discovered through personal experience how difficult it can be to focus within an age of distraction. She became more intentional in what she chose to attend to in her life.

“A real withdrawal of attention happens first and foremost in the mind. What is needed, then, is not a ‘once-and-for-all’ type of quitting but ongoing training: the ability not just to withdraw attention, but to invest it somewhere else, to enlarge and proliferate it, to improve its acuity.”

Reading is a powerful way to build one’s capacity to pay attention to one thing. It’s not just choosing to read; it is also saying no to all the other connections available to us.

Reading is an example of what Odell refers to as “resistance-in-place” – not visibly refusing any one thing yet choosing to not engage in external demands for our attention.

“To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system. To do this means refusing the frame of reference: in this case, a frame of reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of one's career, and individual entrepreneurship. It means embracing and trying to inhabit somewhat fuzzier or blobbier ideas: of maintenance as productivity, of the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal.”

People generally don’t read primarily to exercise their minds. But knowing that our capacity to pay attention improves through reading is an important benefit.

Reading improves your knowledge, language, and perspective.

In his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder points to classic dystopian novels to predict what might happen when a majority of people do not regularly engage in sustained reading.

“More than half a century ago, the classic novels of totalitarianism warned of the domination of screens, the suppression of books, the narrowing of vocabularies, and the associated difficulties of thought. In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, firemen find and burn books while most citizens watch interactive television. In George Orwell's 1984, published in 1949, books are banned and television is two-way, allowing government to observe citizens at all times.”

Snyder notes that oppressive regimes ban books and flood digital media channels because they know language has power. Words hold meaning. The more we know, the more we can call upon to question the tactics and resist the actions that individuals in power might use in abuse of their positions.

Not all screens are bad. But when they monopolize our attention, our information diet is deficient. Our minds become malnourished.

“Staring at screens is perhaps unavoidable, but the two-dimensional world makes little sense unless we can draw upon a mental armory that we have developed somewhere else. When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books.”

 A few books Snyder recommends reading to learn more about tyranny and resistance (and I have read as well) include The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling.

Reading brings people together around a common cause.

Both Odell and Snyder view reading as a starting point toward a shared understanding with others.

Odell notes that this shared understanding is a prerequisite for resistance through collective action.

“It requires alignment for a ‘movement’ to move… a mutual agreement among individuals who pay intense attention to the same things and to each other.”

Snyder concurs, noting that “it is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society.”

Reading fosters this collective understanding and a shared focus for taking action.

We can cultivate civil discourse in our classrooms through student-led conversations supported by clear protocols and relevant texts. In our lives outside of school, we can participate in book clubs, or even start one if we cannot locate a group. For all its problems, the Internet can be a positive space to gather and interact around important books.

By choosing to read, we push back against forces that seek to fragment our minds and limit our agency. We remind ourselves of our own power: to think critically, to connect meaningfully, and to imagine better futures.

Related Reading

• I read and recommend Jenny Odell’s follow up her previously listed book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. She critiques the mindset that time is money while offering steps toward a present life.

• Related, I have not read Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom, a companion to On Tyranny, but it looks excellent and essential. (Note: All book links go to my Bookshop affiliate page.)

• In the Educational Leadership article “Coaching for Equity Demands Deeper Dialogue”, Candice Bocala and RoLesia R. Holman explore the concept of resistance in professional learning. They recommend leaders ‘know when (and how) to utilize both technical fixes and adaptive solutions,” such as “asking hard questions about why they (their clients) are taking certain actions.”

Premium Resource

What if resistance is viewed neither as bad or good, but as an entry point for growth and change?

Next week, I’ll be sharing a coaching resource, “Facilitating Adaptive Change”, to support this mindset. It can help you better meet the needs of clients/teachers by meeting them where they are at.

Full subscribers will be able to download this resource and add it to their coaching toolbox.