ABSTRACT
The universal law of educational energy, especially when expressed as life-worlds pedagogy, meets victory conditions for teachers in The Battle at the Ampersand. Teachers ply the science of educational energy to create positive aesthetic experiences for themselves and for their students. As experimental scientists of educational energy, teachers require a certain sort of academic freedom. Teachers adapt curriculum to optimize its use in context, relative to recommendations derived from the universal law of educational energy. With a unique body of professional know-how to put in play at their discretion, teachers may be said to be decision makers rather than order-takers, professionals rather than workers or employees as they go about their business. The overarching orientation of teaching is scientific, as John Dewey's law explains; but individual teachers must bring to bear upon their specific contexts of instruction illuminative insights garnered from the universal law of educational energy.
