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Speculative Fictions and Curricular Futures: 

Envisioning Rural Educational Utopia 

 
Rachael Bell 

Anglophone School District North, Canada 

Adrian M. Downey1 

Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada 

Alicia F. Noreiga,  

University of New Brunswick, Canada 

Courtney Pyrke  

University of New Brunswick, Canada 

 

Hope, futurity, and dreaming curriculum 
The precarity of the current socio-environmental moment cannot be exaggerated. Some have 

articulated this moment as uncertain (Bauman, 2007), others as turbid and troubling 

(Haraway, 2016), and others still as crisis (Kumar, 2013). Perhaps the most compelling 

articulation of our precarity, and indeed the impetus for the current discussion, is Roger Saul’s 

(2021) characterization of this educative moment as “the doorstep of dystopia.” Saul points to 

the Cape Town water crisis and other contemporary moments in which modern society’s 

infrastructure has failed to provide life’s basic necessities due to climate change. For Saul 

(2021), and many others, these moments are becoming increasingly common and inevitable—

as the global COVID-19 pandemic illustrates. Saul (2021) suggests these moments point 

toward a dystopic future marked by a collapse of the infrastructures of our post-industrial 

economy. Saul’s (2021) unique contribution is to raise the question of how we can ethically 

move forward as educators at the precipice of dystopia. He is particularly concerned with the 

duplicity of continuing to promote education as a means to a secure future and the related 

conventional economic imperatives of education (i.e., if you work hard, you can go to 

university and get a decent-paying job) given the increasing likelihood that these futures 

cannot be guaranteed and that these ubiquitous economic imperatives may prove false. 

Whether prophetic or fallacious, Saul’s (2021) vision inspires us to think about the 

future, particularly through the lens of curriculum. We see curriculum as the space in 

education where competing understandings of the past and present work toward a statement 

of what will be of worth in the future. This is evident through the fundamental question of 

curriculum theory, what knowledge is of most worth, and the myriad other forms that 

question may take: whose knowledge is of most worth (Apple, 1979), what stories are most 

worth telling (Donald & Ng-A-Fook, 2020), what is worthwhile (Schubert, 2010), and what 

knowledge is of most worth here (Chambers, 1999)? Curriculum is, thus, a futurity, or a way 

in which particular visions of the future become knowable and intervene upon the present 

(Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013). Here, we are interested in all these questions, 



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particularly as they help us dream something beyond the curriculum as currently manifested 

in our shared place. 

As alluded to above, curricular futurities are always contested and political in nature 

(see Wahlström, 2018). As Chambers (1999) suggested, they are also placed. In this paper, we 

are particularly interested in our local, shared place—the mostly-rural Canadian province of 

New Brunswick. Though New Brunswick is a small Canadian province, many of its 

characteristics resonate on a global level. 

New Brunswick’s geopolitical context is characterized by a shrinking and aging 

population (Jones, 2020). Indeed, New Brunswick is on the losing end of a population drain 

facilitated by the ongoing global process of urban migration (Holtman & Thériault, 2017). As 

a result, New Brunswick suffers from labour shortages in jobs of all skill levels. In 2019, New 

Brunswick assumed the title of Canada’s most impoverished province and would begin 

receiving the most funding per capita from the federal government’s equalization support 

program (Jones, 2019).  

Urban migration, and the centralizing force of neoliberal capitalism that underpins it, 

are global phenomena. A more distinct, but by no means unique, feature of New Brunswick’s 

socio-economic structure is the economic dominance of the Irving family. Irving family 

companies hold the majority of business in forestry, oil, gas, transportation, shipping, pulp, 

and paper production, and newspaper/media outlets in the province. The various companies 

privately owned by the family are estimated to be worth $10 billion (Moser, 2019). The Irving 

companies employ 1 in 12 people in New Brunswick (Livesey, 2016), but they have also been 

criticized for hiding wealth in Bermuda and avoiding taxes (Moser, 2019; Poitras, 2014). 

Regardless of one’s view on the Irving family, it is impossible to ignore the role they play in 

shaping New Brunswick's socio-economic and geopolitical context. 

New Brunswick is also the only officially bilingual province in Canada. New 

Brunswick enacted its first Official Languages Act in 1969, making both English and French 

the provinces two official languages. The Official Languages Act (2002) also recognizes the 

fundamental right for citizens of New Brunswick to receive services in the official language 

of their choice from the provincial government. As a result, New Brunswick has two public 

school districts: Anglophone School District and Francophone School District. 

For education, the net effect of these geopolitical and socioeconomic features is a 

curricular futurity marked by the presence of neoliberal economic imperatives, and, in 

particular, a curricular focus on entrepreneurship (e.g., Government of New Brunswick 

[GNB], 2016, 2019a; see also Benjamin, Crymble, & Haines, 2017; Sears, 2018). 

Neoliberalism can be described as the ideological project of removing societal safety nets in 

the economy to facilitate growth in the free market (Kumar, 2019). The entrepreneur is the 

ideal worker of the neoliberal economy, as the individual assumes the risk and reward of 

labour. The precarity of entrepreneurial employment has been noted by scholars in the 

province (Benjamin, Crymble, & Haines, 2017), but entrepreneurial education is still claimed 

by many as a solution to the unique challenges of a rural economy (e.g., Hadley, 2018).  

Though we feel it intimately in our local context, the prevalence of neoliberal 

ideological intrusion into curriculum is a global phenomenon—and it is not alone in its 

negative influence on education. Through a study of several national contexts including 

Brazil, South Africa, and India, curriculum theorist Ashwani Kumar (2019) identified three 

insidious influences of curriculum globally: the ideological, the neoliberal, and the (settler) 

colonial. Unsurprisingly, evidence of each of these influences can be found in most New 

Brunswick’s curriculum documents and more widely in the province’s school system. New 

Brunswick’s current curricular futurity, then, is in no way responsive to the precarity 

discussed by Saul (2021). Indeed, it seems that the neoliberal economic imperatives of New 



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Brunswick curriculum serve only as a reification of the industrial and post-industrial 

manifestations of schooling that have directly contributed to the precarity of the current socio-

environmental moment.  

Systems, such as schooling, can be notoriously resistant to change. Yet, within the 

hegemonic spaces of curriculum and schooling, individuals have agency, and can—and often 

do—mobilize that agency toward change with varying degrees of success. We would not 

begin this article by over-generalizing the curricular and educational spaces in New 

Brunswick as irredeemably damned by the above named ideological, colonial, and neoliberal 

influences. Indeed, there are pockets of resistance everywhere, but in this province 

particularly within early childhood education and First Nations (Indigenous) education. Yet, 

we must remain realistic about “the trouble”, as feminist scholar Donna Haraway (2016) 

names the myriad forces that have led to the environmental collapse, economic precarity, and 

social inequality that mark the current post-industrial moment—and of which the current 

COVID-19 pandemic is clearly a part. Haraway asks us to stay with the trouble in order to 

foster a sense of response-ability, defined as “a praxis of care and response” (Haraway, 2012, 

p. 302). Response-ability, for us in this moment, is found in speculation and dreaming. We 

take inspiration here from Haraway herself, who draws on science fiction and speculative 

feminism in order to dream a future beyond the confines of what exists today through her 

“Camille stories” (Haraway, 2016)—a science fiction narrative where symbionts of human-

animal/human-insects hybrids physically represent the possibilities of becoming-with our 

more-than-human others. 

Speculation is often criticized in Western philosophy as a less than rigorous modality 

of thought (Fairfield, 2015), but many contemporary writers defend it as a part of theoretical 

creativity (Braidotti, 2019; Haraway, 2016). We view speculation as a form of envisioning or 

dreaming a future informed by particular understandings of the present. Our speculation and 

dreaming here responds to the ongoing conversation in curriculum studies around speculative 

fiction as a source of inspiration for theorizing. Historically, we think of Cynthia Chambers 

(1999) as a crucial voice in this conversation, drawing on Canadian literature to make a case 

for a uniquely Canadian curriculum theory—a call to which this article attempts to respond. 

More recently, we think of the Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of 

Curriculum Studies and their two recent issues engaging speculative fictions (e.g., 

Appelbaum, 2019; Weaver, 2020). 

We expect the current, ongoing relationship between speculative fiction and 

curriculum is due to their mutual emphasis on the future. Like curriculum, speculation is a 

futurity, but unlike curriculum, speculation is not necessarily invested in the infrastructure of 

post-industrial capitalism. Rather our speculation here—our envisioning, dreaming, or writing 

of speculative fiction (terminology we use interchangeably henceforth)—is meant to speak 

back to that infrastructure and move beyond it toward an articulation of our individual and 

collective educational utopia. 

We use utopia here as a direct response to Saul’s (2021) use of dystopia. Indeed, 

dystopia seems rather ubiquitous in the current Western social moment as evidenced by best-

selling books like The Marrow Thieves (Dimaline, 2017) and Margaret Atwood’s The 

Testaments, not to mention the endless train of films and TV shows that depict socio-

environmental collapse (e.g., Black Mirror; World War Z; The Walking Dead). Our emphasis 

on utopia is not meant as an escape from the cultural fixation with dystopia, nor as an 

enactment of the uncritical optimisism Saul (2021) condems within the school system, but 

rather as a search for possible responses to the actual through considerations of the 

impossible. Zygmunt Bauman (2007) reminds us that utopia, given Sir Thomas More’s initial 

treatment of the idea in the sixteenth century, is informed by “two greek words: eutopia, that 



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is ‘good place’, and outopia, which means ‘nowhere’ [emphasis original]” (p. 95). Utopia, 

then, is an impossibility—a nowhere (see also Zamalin, 2019). Education will always be 

flawed, complex, and messy by virtue of the inherent humanness of the endeavour. 

Nonetheless, Bauman suggests that for centuries after More’s introduction of utopia to the 

collective consciousness, many believed that “a society without utopia is not liveable, and 

consequently a life without utopia is not worth living” (Bauman, 2007, p. 96). Despite the 

unlikeliness of complete educational revolution, we maintain the value of envisioning spaces 

beyond the current state of affairs in education as a counter-cultural act of theorizing. 

Educational utopia may not be possible, but that does not mean dreaming it is not productive. 

We see our speculative educational utopia—our dreaming of an education and a curriculum 

beyond the post-industrial capitalism, neoliberalism, heteropatriarchy and sexism, settler 

colonialism, racism, and ableism of the current education system—as a form of response-

ability and maintaining hope. 

We are not alone in New Brunswick in seeking hope through speculation about the 

future. Beginning in May of 2019, NB Media Coop—a small, volunteer-run, news outlet 

aiming to cover local stories not covered by the government-run CBC or the other local news 

outlets, which are monopolized by Irving-owned companies (Livesey, 2016; Poitras, 2014)—

began publishing a series of letters from the future of New Brunswick.2 These letters dealt 

with climate change, universal basic income, and gender equality from the perspective of 

fictitious authors from an imagined future. In this way, we see our current project of 

envisioning a curricular future as speaking both within a global conversation around 

speculative fiction/futures/feminisms (i.e., SF; see Haraway, 2016) in curriculum theory, but 

also in a local conversation around the future of our shared place. At both levels, we look to 

the future with hope. 

Many write of hope, but, to us, none speak so loudly against the gloom of dystopia and 

the effect of hopelessness as Paulo Freire. Freire (2002) characterized hopelessness as a loss 

of agency and showcased that disadvantaged groups who believe their destinies are inevitable 

can lack the willpower to alter their world’s trajectory. They accept their world’s path as fixed 

and remain in a state of self-inflicted dormancy. Their inaction further exacerbates challenges, 

as they make little or no effort to change their world but stand by awaiting the inevitable. 

Indeed, the authors collectively note an exhaustion with nanoracism (Mbembe, 2019), 

microaggressions, as well as larger systemic manifestations of oppression. Yet, we maintain 

our hope because hope is a mechanism by which transformation can occur. Freire (2002) 

viewed hope as the driving force that motivates marginalized and disadvantaged groups to 

take proactive stances in shaping their destinies—thus our communal presumption that 

envisioning a brighter future through hope stimulates action towards making dreams realities. 

Through our utopic visions, we keep our own hope alive and mobilize it in the direction of 

our dreams. 

This paper unfolded over the course of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. We each 

began by separately responding to the prompts: “described your educational dreamworld” and 

“tell the story of your educational utopia”. After the initial writing, we gathered in person and 

digitally to discuss the themes and resonances from the writing. In March 2020, just before 

the pandemic hit New Brunswick, we presented some of our discussions at a local 

environmental education conference, where we received valuable feedback. Throughout the 

remainder of the year, we discussed, wrote, and re-wrote our visions and the surrounding 

paper. The result has been a rich, dynamic, and complicated conversation about the future of 

curriculum, both locally and globally.  

Having outlined our justification for this paper, the process of writing it, as well as our 

theoretical dispositions, sensitivities, and concerns, we now share a collectively-authored 



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speculative fiction that represents some of the themes, tensions, resolutions, and complexities 

of a dreamed educational utopia. In what follows, we each share an individual speculation on 

the future of education in New Brunswick bound together within a single narrative. After 

sharing our narrative, we offer a discussion based on those themes that have resonated most 

with us. We conclude this paper by returning to the notion of dreaming and calling for a 

collective revisioning of our global and local education systems. Before asking you for your 

dreams, however, we first offer our own.  

 

Rosie’s day: A narrative speculation 
It was Rosie’s sixth birthday, and she was very excited because today she would begin 

her education. She had already learned many things from her parents and her family. She 

could read books, write stories, and run fast and free. But today was different. Today she 

would begin her “formal” education. 

Rosie knew that many children her age attended places called schools. Rosie, 

however, had chosen something different. Rosie had heard stories of school systems of long 

ago, where everyone was made to attend schools—where strict practices, learning methods, 

and expected outcomes were handed down from district offices and students were expected to 

follow homogenous activities and evaluations regardless of their differences. She was happy 

that she was given the choice to decide the mode of formal education she wanted to pursue. 

Rosie knew she could change her mind at any time, and whether learning in a building or by 

interacting within her community, she understood that her learning would be equally valued 

and acknowledged. 

<<<>>>  

Rosie began her day with a hearty breakfast. During the meal, she asked her mother, 

Annette, to tell her about education. Although they had had many conversations on this topic, 

Annette obliged. 

“Well Rosie, today your formal education begins!” She started, eyes lighting up as she 

spoke. “Today, I will take you down to meet the community Elders, and they will tell you a 

long story about this land and the people who were here before us.” 

“Who are the Elders?” asked Rosie between bites of oatmeal. 

“They are people who have lived here for a long, long time, and who have been trusted 

with the responsibility of making sure you know the story of this land,” replied her mother. 

“Is the story scary?” asked Rosie. 

Annette thought for a second before responding, “some parts of it. But you’re big now 

and being big means we have to think about scary things.” Seeing that Rosie was uneasy she 

added, “trust the Elders, Rosie. They will never tell you anything you can’t handle.” 

This seemed to appease Rosie, and she finished her meal without comment. As they 

were getting ready to leave, Rosie asked her mother, “What about tomorrow and the next 

day? What will we do then?” 

Annette smiled, “what would you like to do, Rosie?” 

Rosie thought for a minute, “I think let’s worry about tomorrow tomorrow.” 

Annette nodded her assent, and they began their journey out the door. 

<<<>>>  

After hearing the story of the Land, which took several hours, Annette noticed Rosie 

was restless, and after telling her what she saw, she asked Rosie what she might like to do 

next. Rosie responded that she might like to go for a walk. 

Annette said that sounded nice, and they walked around town, eventually arriving at 

the library. At the library, Rosie asked the librarian, Idris, to help her find a few books. Idris 



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asked what Rosie might be interested in. Still thinking deeply about schooling, and what her 

education might look like, Rosie suggested they find stories about different sorts of schools. 

Idris helped Rosie find a few books on schools. One was particularly interesting as it 

contained an excerpt from a student’s journal. Rosie and Idris read the book out loud together. 

<<<>>>  

The year is 2020, and Scout has been given the opportunity to enroll in a new high 

school education system. This high school education system is being trialed in New Brunswick 

for the next four years, allowing any local high school student to attend. Scout attended a 

traditional high school in grade 9 and then made the switch to the new high school for grade 

10. Below, Scout shares their experience in their new school. 

There are a lot of differences between the old school system and my new school. 

Firstly, the school system incorporates inter/multi-disciplinary teaching and learning. I like 

this because it supports students who struggle in certain subject areas. For me, this means that 

I can learn my weak subjects, such as Math and Science, through my strong subjects, such as 

the Arts and Humanities. This way of learning has made me more engaged in the learning 

process. I used to hate going to math and science class, but now I enjoy it because it is tied to 

subjects that I am good at. Whenever I struggle in subjects, I feel less anxious because I know 

I can use the time during my stronger subjects to reinforce the concepts. I am currently taking 

an Art-Science class, which allows me to receive a credit for both subjects while learning 

them simultaneously. I am also enrolled in a Music class that incorporates Math into our 

learning. Likewise, this allows me to receive credit for both subjects. There are many other 

students in my classes who also benefit from this learning style and are all excited about and 

interested in pursuing a future in the Arts and Humanities. 

I am enrolled in a self-paced learning program. The self-paced learning option allows 

me to control the amount of time I spend towards specific classes. Each class has 20 units, 

and we are given two units at a time. Once we hand in our two units, we are given the next 

two units. Lessons by teachers and the community are conducted weekly and recorded so 

students can watch them again if they forgot or missed something. I like this way of learning, 

as I can get through my Art-Science courses in 10 weeks but can spend 30 weeks focusing on 

Music-Math. Homework is dependent on how much I want to work on my units at home. If I 

want to finish a course before the end of the term, I can spend more time at home working on 

my units. Every other week, we have a flex day, which is a day where we do not have any 

classes. We are still required to go to school on flex days and work on whatever we want 

during that time. I spend this time working in our school library, where I can spend the entire 

day researching and writing my history essays. 

Our courses are all community-infused, where teachers are responsible for their 

classrooms, and the community is encouraged to contribute and collaborate. In my music-

math course, we have had units led by our community Newcomers Society, an Indigenous 

Elder, and some people from the Chinese Heritage Society. We are also expected to spend 

one day a week out in our community, volunteering and learning from different groups of 

people. This past week, my friends and I went to the community garden to learn about 

growing food and sustainable living. This encouraged us to think of a plan to bring 

community gardens to our school. Each grade could have its own community garden, and we 

could grow enough food to help provide more food for students and other community 

programs, such as our homeless shelters. As well, we’re going to plan a clothing swap at our 

high school for any staff or student to participate in. Each person can bring an item of clothing 

to donate, but it is not required. 

At my new school, there is less focus on gender. All of our sports teams and extra-

curricular activities are gender-neutral, and the school only has single person washrooms. We 



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also have robust health lessons, where we learn about gender, gender identity, gender 

expression, sexuality, and sexual health. We participate in lessons twice a month where health 

professionals from our community teach us about these concepts. Last week, a group of 

medical students came to our school and taught us about consent. Next month, the 

LGBTQIA2 Community Group will be coming to the school to teach us about sexually 

transmitted diseases. 

The halls of my school have been designed to allow the students and community to 

contribute to the physical image of their school. Some students have chosen to contribute 

culturally significant items and artwork, which we incorporate into our social studies and 

history classes. In these classes, we learn about the “secret” history of Canada. We’ve learned 

about topics such as the 200 years of slavery in Canada, the forced labour of interned 

Ukrainian-Canadians in building Banff, and residential schools. It has been eye-opening to me 

to have learned about this dark part of Canada’s past, but I know that it is important to 

acknowledge and recognize these events in order for Canada to embrace truth and 

reconciliation.  

There are two final aspects of my school that I am enjoying: our mentorship program 

and outdoor learning opportunities. My school has a mentorship program, where we are 

matched with a student from each grade to create a group of four students. The four of us 

check-in with each other throughout the year and act as an extra support system for one 

another. It helps to get advice from the upper-year students who have already taken the 

courses that I am currently taking. I also like working with the grade 9 students, as I can offer 

them advice or guidance on their courses. Lastly, we get to spend a lot more time learning 

from nature compared to my old school. Different community groups come to the school to 

lead outdoor sessions, where we can learn a variety of subjects. My favourite subject to 

participate in outdoors is gym/physical activity.  

I can see myself feeling fulfilled and happy at my school for the next three years. 

While I know that there are some flaws in the new education system, I believe that this is a 

positive step in the right direction for the future of education in New Brunswick. My 

classmates are more supportive of one another, more engaged with the topics in classes, and 

my teachers seemed less stressed out than before. My grades have been higher than average, 

which I believe is because I can spend more time on assignments or courses that I am not as 

good at. I also can tell that I am building many positive relationships with my community.  

Sincerely, 

Scout 

<<<>>> 

At Lunchtime, Rosie was so busy reading with Idris that she didn’t notice when her 

Grandpa came in and Annette left for work. When she finally lifted her head out of her books, 

her Grandpa had a snack ready for her. As she ate, Grandpa asked Rosie many things about 

what she had read, and Rosie told Grandpa all about Scout. 

“Can we read another one?” Rosie asked her Grandfather. 

“Sure,” he replied. “I have a favorite I think you’ll enjoy.” 

Rosie’s grandpa pulled an old book out of his bag and began to read as Rosie ate. 

<<<>>>  

As I walked alongside my niece, I could sense her enthusiasm and pride. I could not 

say no to the pleading voice that woke me from the bed earlier this morning. “Aunty, can you 

please, please, please, take me to school today?” It is not often that relatives from abroad can 

visit her family in New Brunswick. She just could not wait to show me the school that has 

dominated most of our telephone conversations. Admittedly, I too was happy to spend every 

moment in her company as this was the first time in two years that we were together. She 



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firmly clutched her handmade model ecosystem. Her creative work formed part of her class 

project to raise awareness of the importance of New Brunswick’s natural resources’ 

sustainability. I was not alarmed that her school facilitated such activities. I recalled perusing 

a brochure on the airplane that highlighted New Brunswick’s ability to maintain near-pristine 

environmental conditions accredited to their efficient education system. 

Upon seeing her classmates, a huge smile came across her face. She tugged me along 

as she hurried to introduce me to her peers who wore congruent grins. I was pleasantly 

surprised to observe the bond they shared regardless of her noticeable differences. The group 

hurried inside as it was nearing the start of class. As if startled back to reality, Kyra left her 

friends to give her father and me huge hugs before dashing into her classroom, excited for the 

day ahead. My brother, Rekayi, and I slowly followed. 

Upon entering the building, the first thing that caught my eye was the sign that 

displayed the school’s vision. Rekayi explained that the vision was not composed behind 

closed doors among school staff members, nor was it handed down from the district’s office. 

Instead, this vision was created via purposeful and meaningful discussions among educators, 

administrators, community members, students, and other stakeholders. The vision reflected 

the hopes and aspirations of both school and its community. Rekayi went on to explain that 

the students were all cognizant of the vision and its significance. The vision was instilled in 

the schools’ culture, practices, and pedagogies as educators, students, and parents alike took 

equal ownership and responsibility in ensuring school practices are akin to their vision. 

We entered the doorway that Kyra had disappeared into not too long before. The class 

teacher immediately walked towards us. Rekayi introduced me as his sister and Kyra’s aunt. 

Krya was already engrossed at one of seven activity tables spread throughout the room. The 

teacher explained that activities, instructions, and evaluations were flexible and tailored to 

capitalize on each student’s diverse strengths while providing remediation for weaknesses. 

Like all other students, Kyra received instructions based on her distinct pace and needs. The 

class teacher and two teaching assistants diligently helped students explore their full potential 

by exposing them to various activities from diverse subject areas. The absence of high-stakes 

exams and constant summative assessments permitted teachers to help students reach self-

realization—the full and free actualization and externalization of the individual’s powers and 

abilities—rather than preparing them to be successful in examinations. 

At the school, students were not listeners but co-investigators. The roles of teachers 

and students were often reversed as they relied on each other for knowledge. The class teacher 

expressed that he was always willing to learn about his students’ experiences and opinions to 

facilitate their learning. Students were encouraged to become creative and critical thinkers as 

they take proactive roles in guiding their knowledge. They were encouraged to critically 

consider each piece of information and reflect on the ways their knowledge impacts their 

lives. Students were urged to partake in critical discussions about sensitive topics such as 

social justice, inclusion, marginalization, and privilege. During these discussions, students 

were encouraged to explore their position and roles in this continually evolving world. 

As Rekayi and I left the classroom and walked further along the corridor, I could not 

resist peeping into a nearby classroom. A teacher’s voice caught my attention. She was 

inviting a student to take his place at the front of the class. I was astounded to hear the teacher 

call the student by name—a name that was difficult to pronounce by the average Canadian as 

it had its origin in another country and language. I was certain it would have taken much 

determination for the teacher to learn the correct pronunciation. Rekayi confirmed my 

suspicion that all staff members and students ensured that the student’s name was pronounced 

accurately to illustrate respect for his individuality. The student stood in front of the class and 

with pride and presented a poster that contained information and pictures of his home country 



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and customs. At the end of his presentation, he was asked to display his poster on the 

classroom wall among other posters depicting various information from varying countries. 

These posters were all made by students who, on previous occasions, shared with the class 

their unique contribution to their diverse classroom. Each country represented the homeland 

of the class's student composition. I could sense the pride students possessed as their 

classroom mirrored ethnic, racial, social, physical, and academic diversity and inclusivity. 

The multicultural composition of the class, and by extension the province, is recognized and 

celebrated. Students learn the histories and customs of all people who have contributed to the 

province’s ethos. All ethnic groups were endorsed as equal contributors to the development of 

the province. Through various school projects and activities, students were educated on all 

groups that have impacted New Brunswick’s rich cultural history. Through these activities, 

students gained a sense of civic identity and stimulated patriotism that fostered effective 

citizenship. 

As we ventured to the back of the building, Rekayi was elated to show off his 

contribution to the school. He had been a proud farmer back in our homeland. In New 

Brunswick, he could now use his skills and experience to assist the students with agricultural 

projects. He confessed that his active contribution to the school stimulated his sense of 

ownership as he felt obligated to work toward the school’s development. He explained that 

this situation was not unique to him as the school always encouraged strong school-

community ties and has successfully capitalized on the strengths of parents and community 

stakeholders. By so doing, the school has become the cornerstone of which both the school 

and community can work to achieve environmental goals. 

******* 

As I sat on the airplane watching the beautiful natural ecosystem that I was leaving 

behind, I could not help but reminisce on a school that reflected an embodiment of cultural 

and civic identity. In the 22nd century, education still demonstrates the province’s true 

forefathers’ ideologies—the Indigenous people who valued the natural resources that 

sustained their lives. While the world grapples with the inevitable influences of globalism, 

neoliberalism, and capitalism, New Brunswick’s education system has successfully 

maintained the Indigenous environmental ideologies in a modernized world. 

<<<>>>  

After he was done reading, Rosie told her Grandpa there were some things she didn’t 

understand about the story and asked a few questions. Rosie wanted to know why the author 

said that Kyra was noticeably different from her friends. Grandpa answered with a smile, 

explaining that Kyra was Black. He went on to describe a previous time when New 

Brunswick’s education curriculum excluded Black Histories and recognition of the numerous 

contributions Black people provided to the province’s development resulting in students, like 

Kyra, feeling alienated, lonely, and marginalized. Rosie was relieved to learn that today, 

Black histories, cultures, and contemporary contributions formed a major part of the 

curriculum, and racism—though never completely gone—was always diligently, vigorously, 

and relentlessly taken up by teachers when presented itself in schools.  

After they finished talking, Rosie asked grandpa if they could go see Mia, Lila, and 

Cyrus—three of Rosie’s closest friends who lived nearby. Grandpa agreed, and together they 

sent messages to Mia, Lila, and Cyrus’s respective guardians. Eventually, through their 

guardians, the friends agreed to meet outside at the park near their house. Rosie’s Grandpa 

volunteered to play with all four children, so that the other guardians could do other things.  

At the park, the four friends played in the trees near the playground. They found all 

kinds of interesting plants, animals, and insects that Grandpa helped them identify. As they 

started to get excited, they started speaking loudly, but Grandpa reminded them that the forest 



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isn’t their home and they are guests, and that their loud voices might disturb some of the other 

residents. From then on, they spoke in whispers until they got back to the playground. There, 

they started a game of tag and ran and played until they got tired and asked grandpa to go 

home. 

After saying goodbye to her friends and seeing them all home, Rosie and Grandpa 

went back to Rosie’s house where Rosie’s entire family was back from work. Annette, 

Rosie’s biological mother greeted Rosie and asked her what she and Grandpa did with their 

afternoon. Rosie talked about the books she read, the time she spent with her friends in the 

forest, and the game of tag they played. While she spoke, Rosie’s other parent, Jane, listened 

attentively while her Uncle Ellis and older brother Bernie listened with one ear while making 

dinner. The next day was Jane’s day to spend with Rosie, so they asked Rosie what she would 

like to do. Rosie wasn’t sure yet. 

Finally, they all sat down to eat together. Rosie was exhausted and very much willing 

to sit back as the adults did the talking. That night she fell asleep in her chair at the dinner 

table, and Jane lifted her into her bed. 

Just as Jane was about to leave, Rosie called out asking for a bedtime story about 

schools. Jane was happy to oblige and began reading a story written by a teacher.  

<<<>>>  

“Does everyone have everything they need?” I called out to the group of young people 

spread out around me. I could see that Bo was still sorting through the contents of their 

backpack, which included snacks we had spent the previous two days planning, shopping for, 

and preparing together, water, sunscreen, bug spray, a sketchbook and pencils, a change of 

clothes, and a swimsuit, just in case. You never regret packing a swimsuit. Uzo was bent 

down tying Ari’s shoe, while the rest of the group stood chatting and chorused “Yes” to my 

question. As Ari and Uzo straightened up, I looked at the assorted young people standing in 

front of me.  

Three or four times a year, I offer a two-week session focused on living responsibly in 

our communities. Youth of all ages can sign up as part of their education program. This group 

features folks from the ages of 5 through 23, although I have had younger and older 

participants as well. These kinds of programs are offered by community members all year 

round, on an endless variety of topics tied to the interests and passions of those community 

members. I am always amazed by the array of offerings—from sports and recreation, to 

environmental conservation, to art history, to knitting, to social activism, to traditional 

humanities or STEM topics—that our young people can engage with, providing an incredible 

swath of experiences. The programs are subsidized by the government to give folks like me 

time off from their day jobs and to provide financial support for some of the group’s 

activities.  

My program is very open concept, but many are more structured. I like to bring 

together a group of folks who share a common interest in being responsible citizens. We start 

our two weeks by getting to know one another and finding out how we might need to support 

each other to spend the next two weeks together. For example, some of the older participants 

fell easily into care-taker roles for the 5-year-old participant, allowing their parent to leave 

after a few hours the first morning of our session, and as we moved into the planning stages of 

our conversation, we all spent some extra time thinking about spaces that would be accessible 

for the group member who uses a wheelchair. In those early conversations, we came to a 

consensus that one way we wanted to become more responsible citizens was by learning 

about the local river ecosystem and how different parts of the community are involved in 

caring for it. We spent a couple of days researching who those stakeholders were, arranging 

outings to visit them, and to see the river.  



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During those planning days, we also shared reflections on our relationship to the river, 

and ideas and opinions we had heard voiced in our community. We were heading out today to 

spend our time with the local Salmon Association’s executive director and would be taking a 

bus upriver tomorrow to visit with some university students who are bringing a two-eyed 

seeing (etuaptmumk) approach to caring for the river. We would end our three days of outings 

with a Mi’kmaq Elder, who would share stories of the river and an overview of their current 

outlook on the way the river is being used and treated. The final days of our session would be 

spent reflecting together on the experiences we had shared and helping each participant 

develop a plan of action that they would undertake once the session ended. In the past, I have 

had participants decide to continue their relationship beyond the time I was able to facilitate, 

working together on large-scale community projects. Others carried their time with me 

forward on their own, either taking up a public or private action. 

Young people sign up for programs like these as part of their compulsory education. In 

New Brunswick, education becomes available to all at the age of two, although many families 

can provide education in their own ways until the age of five, when compulsory education 

begins. At that time, students may be enrolled in education centres, which have a very low 

ratio of students to teachers, and which follow a child-led curriculum. Many of these 

education centres exist in outdoor spaces, with access to the indoors for bad weather and 

bathroom breaks. Parents may also take advantage of programs like mine for their children. 

As learners grow older, they begin to participate in more and more programs per year rather 

than attend their education centre. Because the community is so invested in the education of 

our young people, there is a lot of support for learners to follow through with projects 

conceived in the program, and learners can pursue those projects to completion before 

embarking on the next one. Some learners will continue to spend time at their education 

centre for the entirety of their compulsory education, accessing support and structure that 

helps them learn best, while many learners find their passions in projects in the community 

and often begin to spend more time with particular organizations or mentors to begin 

specializing their knowledge and their interests. This means that by the time students finish 

their education, they have engaged with members of their community from all walks of life, 

have learned from and with other learners of diverse ages and experiences, and have a well-

rounded view of the community, its needs, and the ways the community can continue to serve 

them. 

For now, I turn back to my group so that we can make our way out into the 

community. The next few days will hold lots of learning for the young folks in my group and 

me. I wonder how my experience over the next few days will shape the next program that I 

offer and my relationship with my community.  

<<<>>>  

Twelve years passed, and Rosie’s 18th birthday arrived. Having spent the last 12 years 

learning at her own pace, based on her own interests, and in community with those around 

her, she decided to continue her education in a more formal capacity at a university nearby. 

Around 15, Rosie became interested in French literature and the post-1968 French philosophy 

movement. Since then, she had read works by Kristeva, Foucault, and Deleuze. Having 

become a passionate intellectual, Rosie had even started writing for her local newspaper and 

published several opinion pieces in academic journals. All of her supporters agreed that the 

university was the best fit for Rosie. 

Rosie’s friends, Mia, Lila, and Cyrus had all had similar epiphanies during their 

teenage years. Ever the animal lover, Mia had become extremely interested in veterinary 

medicine, and had spent the last two years interning at a local vet’s office. Shortly after her 

18th birthday, a few months later than Rosie’s, Mia joined Rosie in the nearby town where 



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Rosie’s university was located. Lila, who was the most physical of the bunch, had taken to 

organizing local sporting events for and with her younger peers, and although she had not yet 

decided on a career path, she was content with her current role in the community—as was the 

community. When Cyrus was 12, he had broken his leg while playing soccer with his friends 

(to this day, he jokingly claims that Lila pushed him, which she categorically denies). During 

the summer while his leg was healing, he spent a huge amount of time with his computer, and 

although his guardians were worried at first, it quickly became apparent that he had an 

aptitude for programming. For the past year, Cyrus had been supplying his services as a 

freelance coder to the government and was happy that he would be able to stay where he was 

for the foreseeable future. 

Although the friends were splitting up, they made promises to see each other often and 

to stay in touch. Rosie’s initial transition into university life was difficult as she had never 

before been expected to maintain a schedule, but she quickly learned the skill; and when Mia 

joined her two months later, Rosie felt comfortable with her new life. 

Without Rosie and Mia around, Lila and Cyrus became more invested in each other 

and each other’s worlds. Lila learned to code from Cyrus, and Lila helped Cyrus stay active. 

Together, the two eventually used money earned from coding to invest in youth sports 

infrastructure in their community—a new basketball court, gym equipment, and an outdoor 

pool were all eventually added because of Lila and Cyrus’s commitment to youth athletics.  

 

Discussion: Making sense of rural utopia  
While each author initially wrote their own vision of the future, toward a narrative 

cohesion, we eventually brought them together in a single story with distinct parts. As such, 

some elements of the narrative above are in tension with others. We think these tensions are 

illustrative and productive. We are different people with different perspectives (one 

Indigenous and three non-Indigenous; one Black and three White; one male, two female, and 

one nonbinary; one teacher and three academics), and our experiences of schooling and 

curriculum elicit different responses. Some of the narrative’s tension will be left to linger 

unresolved, and we will not comment on every nuance of our dream(s). There are, however, a 

few themes emergent from our writing and subsequent discussions that we consider worth 

highlighting. 

Schooling is, unfortunately, never just about schooling. The school’s diverse 

responsibilities go beyond instruction. This is especially true in rural areas, such as New 

Brunswick, where schools are a cornerstone of community development. Rural education 

scholars, such as Schafft (2016) and Schollie et al. (2017), highlight schools’ roles in 

sustaining livelihoods, fostering social interactions, and serving as one of the major 

institutions that assist communities in addressing their social challenges. One way of 

contextualizing this is through the social determinants of health (SDH) framework (Raphael, 

Bryant, Mikkonen, & Raphael, 2020). SDH are conditions in which people grow, live, work, 

and age that directly affect their health. While education is its own social determinant, for 

students currently in the public-school system, school also offers a space in which to address 

other health inequities students experience. For some, schools are a source of food stability in 

breakfast and lunch programs. For others, they are places of social inclusion and security. 

Indeed, the modern school system does much more than educate.  

Each of our visions in some way addresses SDH, and the collective effect is toward a 

shared desire for those determinants to be met before entering into the idea of institutionalized 

learning. Without those basic needs being met, learning cannot happen—and if it is the 

responsibility of the school to provide beyond learning, policy, funding, and teacher 

workloads ought to reflect that.  



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As suggested in Rosie’s overarching narrative, work is something of a problem within 

the current model of education in that schools are designed to mirror the industrial structure of 

adult work. Despite the movement toward more flexible forms of capitalism in the pre-

pandemic era, the school remained rigid, and the resilience of that school structure, even 

during the pandemic, is often explicitly linked the smooth function of the adult world (e.g., D. 

Cardy in GNB, 2021, 19:32). This problem of work is a persistent issue for Utopia. Nalo 

Hopkinson (2012), a Jamaican-born Canadian science fiction writer, has said that the problem 

that must be solved in utopia is precisely that of work—who will take on the menial, less-

than-desirable tasks required to make a society function? Some writers solve the problem 

through technology or magic—an imagining of something beyond what exists that resolves 

the need for menial tasks (e.g., robots or enchanted helpers). Others ‘solve’ the problem 

through firm social hierarchies or through slavery (e.g., George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire 

and Ice series). These latter forms do not solve the problem as much as hide it among the 

lower classes, and in that these imaginings are perhaps less utopic than realistic. 

Rosie’s story engages the problem of work by restructuring the divisions of labour and 

the nuclear family unit. Similar to and inspired by Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of 

Time, Rosie’s family comprises four adults and an older brother, and each takes on a unique 

responsibility in Rosie’s care and education. In addition, community members, such as the 

Elders and Idris, the librarian, play a role in educating Rosie. While in the current narrative 

we have kept the team dynamic to the familial unit, Piercy’s image of a futuristic society 

showcases teams of unrelated community members taking turns “mothering” children. 

Haraway (2016) has made calls for a similar restructuring of the family, shifting not only 

traditional gender roles but also the boundaries between species.  

Time has passed in the writing of our visions, and none of us can deny the way the 

COVID-19 pandemic has shifted, tested, and reformed our think-dreaming about education. 

In his statement dated April 2, 2020, New Brunswick’s Minister of Education, Dominic 

Cardy, said “No one’s ever tried to run a modern education system without schools” (D. 

Cardy as cited in Poitras, 2020). We were struck by the statement, as our visions all tried to 

reimagine or decenter schools from the idea of educational utopia. In these visions, however, 

we also counted on the community to create new learning opportunities for students. In the 

current global pandemic, families have had to retreat from community, and our communities 

have had to reconnect in new ways—through renewed service to vulnerable populations and 

digital means. In April, many education professionals hoped to see families take a renewed 

role in their young learners’ education by including children in family decision-making, 

household work, and other activities in daily family life. We wondered if the time spent at 

home would renew families’ value of learning and teaching together, but we also wondered, 

“How will communities step up to provide educational opportunities for learners?” As 

teachers continue to put lessons online and to support families in learning from home, how 

will the wider community fit into this vision? These questions still linger.  

Entangled with this idea of community involvement in education is the notion of time. 

The pandemic has brought to the fore how the idea of work shapes time. The 40-hour 

workweek is an obvious example—one which has remained in place despite generations of 

technological advancements that were expected to make work less demanding and give us 

more free time (Snyder, 2016; Weeks, 2011). Another example is what some are calling 

capitalist accelerationism—the relentless quickening of capitalist economic structures 

(Braidotti, 2019). Before the pandemic, our experiences in education echoed this phenomenon 

through what some feminist curriculum scholars have named “the curriculum of busy” 

(Kurki, Herriot, & French-Smith, 2018), where the busier one is, the more successful one 

seems. Despite counter-cultural movements toward “slowness” (Honoré, 2009), there remains 



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an obsession with business in Western society, and particularly in education (Kumar & 

Downey, 2018).  

In the era of the pandemic, we see the liquidity of post-industrial capitalism and the 

flexibility demanded of its workers (Bauman, 2007; Sennett, 1998) more acutely manifest in 

education. The rigid structures of the industrial model of schooling have given way to the 

“flexibility” of online learning. Learning has become more accessible, but it has also become 

more precarious, unstable, and unpredictable—not to mention often mediated by machines 

and networks to which access is systematically inequitable, particularly in rural settings. 

Moreover, the responsibility for this neoliberal vision of learning has shifted from a collective 

system to individual teachers and individual students, forcing both to continually make the 

exhausting choice to engage (Braidotti, 2019). Pandemic-time is always in flux. There are no 

bells, no lines, no recesses and lunch breaks. For teachers, the temporal barriers between work 

and rest have become blurred—a phenomenon that has been present in higher education for 

almost a generation. There is a stillness to lockdown that education ignores. Rather than 

forced downtime in the face of first, second, and third waves of COVID-19, we continue with 

online learning—something that, for many of us, demands more time and different sorts of 

expertise than we have traditionally been asked for. 

Our visions seek slowness and gentleness with our bodily rhythms. There is a 

generosity in repetition (Prendergast, 2019), and we see the idea of a self-paced curriculum 

likewise as generous. In some ways, the slowness, gentleness, and generosity of self-pacing 

subvert the temporal expectations of education—the tyranny of clock-time (Rose & Whitty, 

2010). Yet, in the current era, we must be cautious. Flexible capitalism is notoriously 

adaptive, consumptive, and appropriative toward ideas and actions originally intended to be 

subversive (Liboiron, 2019). In education, the self-pacing of curriculum speaks back to the 

well-worn critique that the pre-pandemic system was (and is) something of an assembly line 

that assumed normativity and conformability on the student’s part. A self-paced curriculum 

breaks apart the assembly line and, in an ideal world, restores the status of the skilled teacher 

as a central linchpin of the educational economy. Self-pacing, however, does hold the 

potential to be gobbled up by neoliberal capitalism as a practice suited to the interests of a 

“streamlined” education by putting too much emphasis on the individual student’s 

responsibility for education without maintaining proper support structures (i.e., skilled 

teachers). This is another reason we opened this discussion section by highlighting the 

significance of social structures outside the school, and another reason our visions took those 

social structures as a given—certainly a utopic idea.  

This dystopic Randian model of education, where content is created by private 

industry (commissioned or permitted by the state) and each individual is responsible for their 

own engagement with that content without any kind of safety net or support, seems 

increasingly real. A utopic curriculum is marked by freedom, but freedom supported by the 

state. The self-pacing of curriculum, then, should not be read as a vision of everyone for 

themselves, but rather a vision of everyone at their own pace, in their own way, with a spirit 

of genersoity, and in community with others. 

Being in community with others, for us, extends beyond the human. It takes a 

profoundly interconnected network of agentive actors—human, more-than-human, and non-

human inclusively—to help children learn their multiple embedded and embodied 

subjectivities, and the capacity to read their own interconnectedness. We are informed in this 

thinking by those who write in posthuman literacies and early childhood education, who find 

ways of working-with(in), while speaking back to, the status quo of neoliberal schooling 

(Davies, 2014; Kuby, Spector, & Thiel, 2019). Here we think of Rosie’s time in the forest 

with her friends, first observing and engaging, then being reminded that they are a guest in the 



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forest, and not to disturb their co-present others/neighbours. We can imagine that on another 

day in the forest, she and her friends may have found an animal’s corpse and been introduced 

to the myriad ways that life continues after death (Harwood et al., 2018) and that “death is a 

necessary partner in life” (Rose, 2012, p. 127). We imagine that this time in the forest is 

replete with moments of interconnect and mutuality—of being affected and affecting (Davies, 

2014). Within those time-spaces, we also envision learning the traditional names of those 

more-than-human neighbours and the teachings embedded within the Indigenous languages of 

that place (Armstrong, 1998; Styres, 2019). Within our vision, the muchness of the world 

displaces the restrictive infrastructure of the school. 

The hierarchies constructed between human beings and the natural world, and the 

separation of those two always-entangled entities, are mirrored in human social relationships. 

Achilles Mbembe (2019) has written about the way that communities thrive when there is an 

‘other’ to which they can react. Indeed, Mbembe (2019) traces a history of Western 

democracy’s violent “making other” of racialized peoples. We can see traces of this making 

other within our shared place. We also see traces of Mbembe’s idea of the necropolitical—

that biopower is not indifferent to race, but an active participant in the destruction of 

racialized bodies. Where biopower “lets die” those precariously positioned within society, 

racialized bodies are acted on with necropower—the power to “make die”.  

Within the rural context of New Brunswick, necropower is particularly evident 

through the erasure of racialized voices in curriculum and beyond. Canadian rural education 

scholars Michael Corbett (2016) and Cooke and Petersen (2019) have critiqued policymakers' 

simplistic views of rural communities as homogenous, close-knit, and lacking diversity. Their 

sentiments are echoed by the numerous minority groups that co-exist within New Brunswick 

(Yamoah, 2020). New Brunswick is far from homogenous. In addition to the Wabanaki 

nations indigenous to this territory, like other Atlantic provinces, New Brunswick has recently 

experienced a steady increase in international and visible ethnically diverse populations. This 

is mainly attributed to the various immigration initiatives aimed at attracting foreign workers 

to the province to stabilize its aforementioned depleting population (GNB, 2019b). While 

these economic incentives potentially offer better living standards to provincial newcomers, 

the scope of these programs is often limited to economic development, rather than including a 

consideration of new residents' holistic well-being, particularly in the face of daily systemic 

racism.  

Despite the growing need for education and community practices to adapt to the 

evolving population composition, there is still hesitance to acknowledge and address 

shortcomings that covertly and overtly discriminate. In June 2020, New Brunswick's 

government turned down a call by Indigenous leaders for an Indigenous-led inquiry into 

systematic racism within the province (O’Donnell, 2020). Indigenous leaders' plight is echoed 

in calls by the province's Black advocacy groups to address systemic racism and the erasure 

of Black histories and influences from the school curriculum. As in many North American 

schools, inclusion seems to be New Brunswick’s preferred framework for engaging with 

issues of diversity—despite the limited scope that framework offers. AuCoin, Porter, and 

Baker-Korotkov (2020) highlighted notable advancements made by the province in its 

commitment to provide equitable and meaningful education to all residents via inclusion. 

However, the authors also found that the notion of inclusive education present in New 

Brunswick’s schools lacked reference to visible differences (e.g., skin colour). As Fortunato, 

Gigliotti, and Ruben (2018) asserted, inclusive education must include an inclusive racial 

environment.  

Racial incidents, or nanoracism (Mbembe, 2019), continue to be phenomena for 

minority groups in New Brunswick, and these incidents are prevalent in schools. Baker, 



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Varma, and Tanaka (2001; see also Varma-Joshi, Baker, & Tanaka, 2004) and Massfeller and 

Hamm (2019) conducted research decades apart that recognized similar racist instances in the 

province's schools. These researchers identified that racist incidents directed toward minority 

students were and are often ignored or dismissed as harmless by school administrators, 

normalizing racist practices. As Baker et al. (2001) emphasized, these seemingly mundane 

occurrences can have long-term adverse effects on victims who do not perceive their 

degradation as harmless (see also Varma-Joshi, Baker, & Tanaka, 2004). Massfeller and 

Hamm (2019) described the province’s migrant students’ feelings of alienation, loneliness, 

and marginalization as they grappled with their schools' dominant culture. Despite office 

acknowledgment of the various shortcomings in the province’s curriculum (Yamoah, 2020), 

true inclusivity is still fictitious—indeed, seemingly utopic. As Freire (2002) emphasized, 

dominant groups' admission of wrongdoings is meaningless without action toward 

transforming practices that disadvantage some groups while favoring others. The province has 

yet to witness significant implementations towards dismantling systems—including 

education—embedded in racial hierarchies that prejudice some groups over others. Hamm 

(2019) and Sears’ (2017) findings that students of the province's Anglophone schools 

demonstrate a limited understanding of ethnic diversity cannot be disregarded. Educators 

within these systemically racist spaces must be willing to continually reflect on and adapt 

their curriculum and pedagogies to fit all students' needs, adopt culturally relevant practices 

that reflect the institution's diversity, provide learning activities that foster knowledge of 

difference, create an environment of respect for cultural differences, and challenge actions 

that gloss over racial discrimination. Crucially, teachers also need the time and space to be 

able to do this within a system that actively works toward their disempowerment and 

alienation from the macro processes of education (Giroux, 2002; see also Rogers, 2018). Only 

then can our vision of a radically inclusive education system be realized. 

 

Dreaming: A conclusion 
As four educators and researchers actively engaged in antiracist and social justice 

advocacy and pedagogy within New Brunswick, we cannot help but name and lament those 

political forces that actively work against our visions. Yet, there is hope in our dreaming. We 

began the process of writing this article in January of 2020 and submitted the first draft for 

publication a little more than a year later. In the time between, we saw our personal worlds 

and the wider world change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At times it felt as though 

the dreams we wrote were no longer as relevant as we had originally intended. In other 

moments, it felt like they were needed now more than ever. 

In a long overdue meeting just before putting the finishing touches on the paper, we 

reflected collectively on the work, and we were each struck by how far we still have to come 

to realize these visions. COVID-19 seemed, at times, like an opportunity for sweeping 

societal and educational change. Yet, here and now, we see the same rigidity and movement 

toward neoliberal economic imperatives that have historically marked public education since 

the 1970s (Kumar, 2019). Thus, after envisioning our utopia, a question haunts: How might 

our engagement need to change to facilitate a utopic educational experience? 

We have ideas. We have thoughts. We have dreams. But ultimately, the question 

lingers as do the structures and links between education and the economy—especially here in 

the rural province of New Brunswick. Yet, we continue to engage—continue to try to make 

changes in our spaces. Most significantly, we continue to dream. We have shared our dreams 

with you, dear reader. Now it is your turn. Speak your educational utopia into being, leave it 

to linger in silence or demand it provoke cacophony, but do share it because “only the archaic 



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definition of the word ‘dreaming’ will save us: to envision, a series of images of unusual 

vividness, clarity, order, and significance” (Morrison, 2019, p. 69). 

 

Notes  
 

 
1 Authorship is alphabetical. All correspondence should be directed to Adrian M. Downey at 
Adrian.Downey@msvu.ca  

 
2 See the following for more details: https://nbmediacoop.org/category/letters-from-new-brunswicks-future/ 

 
References 

 
Appelbaum, P. (2019). Speculative fiction, curriculum studies, and crisis. Journal of the 

American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (JAAACS), 13(2), 1-

6. https://doi.org/10.14288/jaaacs.v13i2.192252  

Apple, M. (1979). Ideology and curriculum. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 

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Submitted: March, 10th. 

 

Approved: August, 5th. 

 

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