Create New Education Futures
Create New Education Futures
John W. Moravec
Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures is a book for people who want to change the conditions of learning. Across twenty-five essays, John W. Moravec examines who holds power in education, which practices deserve to be challenged, and what it takes to build alternatives that learners and communities can shape.
The book develops the principles of Manifesto 25 through questions of learner agency, teacher autonomy, assessment, AI, equity, and democratic life. Five working notebooks connect those arguments to decisions in a classroom, school, university, or community. Readers can begin with the essay that addresses their own work, then use the notebooks to develop and test a proposal for change.
Published by Education Futures. 277 pages. Available in print and as a pay-what-you-want PDF.
Read the preface, “No hope without action.”
What makes a rebellion positive?
Education distributes power through decisions about whose knowledge counts, who may question authority, and who controls the terms of learning. Moravec argues that changing those decisions requires both resistance and construction. People who challenge a rule must account for what it protects, whom it harms, and what they propose to put in its place.
The essays examine that responsibility through the lives of learners and educators. Young people’s rights have consequences for who governs a school. Teacher autonomy depends on having room to exercise judgment. Assessment gains meaning when it recognizes what people can understand, create, and revise. AI raises questions about whose interests educational technologies serve and what their outputs can tell us about learning.
These questions lead beyond school into public truth, ecological responsibility, activism, and trust. The book’s plural futures recognizes that communities face different histories and choices. Its principles give readers grounds for making those choices and holding institutions accountable for them.
What you’ll find inside
- Twenty-five essays that develop each principle of Manifesto 25, connecting arguments about learning, freedom, and responsibility to educational practice.
- Five cahiers, working notebooks for recording grievances, examining fears and exclusions, and developing proposals. The final cahier asks readers to write a manifesto, revise it with others, and use it in a real decision.
- Two intermezzos with the experiences of young people and reflections from Manifesto 25 signatories on where the freedom to learn is defended or constrained.
The chapters support reading in any order. The closing essay, “Question everything,” turns the book’s scrutiny on its own arguments, inviting readers to challenge, revise, and extend them. Browse the full contents.
Read it on your own or work through it together
Educators and school leaders can use the book to examine the rules and measures that govern their work. Students and community groups can use it to develop proposals for decisions that affect them. Researchers and policymakers will find arguments about knowledge, institutional authority, and education’s public responsibilities.
A reading group can pair an essay with a cahier and bring a contested practice into discussion. An individual reader can begin with a question about assessment, technology, freedom, or trust. The book provides working space for connecting that question to a change worth pursuing.
About the author
John W. Moravec is an education futurist and founder of Education Futures. His work on invisible learning, knowmads, and education futures examines how people develop and use knowledge across institutions, networks, and communities. Build a Positive Rebellion brings that work into the politics and practice of education.
Get the book
Choose the print edition or set your price for the PDF edition.
| English edition | Details |
|---|---|
| Title | Build a Positive Rebellion: Create New Education Futures |
| Author | John W. Moravec |
| Publisher | Education Futures LLC, 2026 |
| Design | Martine Eyzenga |
| Length | 277 pages |
| ISBN | 979-8-9948831-0-5 |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike |
The license permits copying, translation, and adaptation with attribution under the same license, including use in classrooms, reading groups, and workshops.
The official book site provides the preface, contents, and companion materials. A Spanish edition is available.
