Trained to Resist: Teachers Learning Lucha in Oaxaca, Mexico

Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews with 17 teacher educators and normal school students in Oaxaca, Mexico, this article examines a particular teaching formation rooted in the concept of lucha, revolutionary struggle. Participants described how, during their four years at a normal school, they learn, rehearse, and internalize a historical set of revolutionary scripts and strategies, as part of a political role they will perform as teachers. The post-1968 generation of teachers in this study recalled learning to fight in the 1970s and 80s, in an era of great opposition to the Mexican government and national union, while the younger generation described learning how to advocate for themselves so that they can create change in their communities. The study demonstrates how teacher training can explicitly cultivate new teachers’ capacities to operate as political actors, in opposition to standardized and apolitical professional models.