ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we seek to pull together the main insights we have gained through the exploration of how contemporary discourses of education, and in particular teaching and learning, have converged to promote amoral and apolitical “scientific” evidence-based epistemologies of the field to then offer an alternative approach which is characterized as democratic, scientific and authentic. We argue that the democratic character of such an alternative approach can be demonstrated by the equal opportunity and autonomy that all teachers have to be able to have a say in how their own professional identities are formed and enacted. Its scientific dimension is demonstrated by teachers’ initiative to actively experiment with experiences to pursue the potential educative value which they offer. Genuine science often challenges the status quo so we advance the case that authentic educators and teachers can similarly be recognized by their willingly dissenting and experimental dispositions. This requires that as educators, teachers embody an epistemology of education which is genuinely scientific and democratic.
