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preface Against Canonphobia. Curriculum as Political William M. Reynolds What’s going on in education around the world is part of what I oftentimes called a recovery movement. A recovery of dominant power; whether it be colonial power with new forms of colonialism; whether it be gendered power with new forms of patriarchy; racial power with new forms of the recovery of white suprem- acy; whether it be class power with new forms of class elitism and of global Empire that exist and unfortunately no matter where I go now, Education plays the role of helping to support that empirical behemoth. —Kincheloe, 2007 Instead, we are told—not surprisingly by the knowledge fund reformers and bil- lionaire gurus – that schooling is about the production of trained workers; memori- zation is more important than critical thinking; standardized testing is better than teaching students to be self-reflective; and learning how to read texts critically is not as important as memorizing discrete bodies of allegedly factual knowledge. —Giroux, 2012 We are living in dark times for education/schooling and the world. Democracy (United States’ style) is spread around the world at the point of a gun or from the ever-present targeted space of drones. Take our democracy or else. Fear dominates the landscape. Populations are willing to trade their freedom(s) for a false sense of security. Drones, security cameras, iPhone tracking, and advance imaging technology at airports all promise us security as our every x william m. reynolds move is monitored. Educational institutions are...