Young Children Volume 81 • No 2 Toward Intentional Teaching: The Need for Educator Agency | Did You Lose Your Teacher Voice?

Reclaiming Educator Agency, Voice, and Choice Through a Critical Lens

 By Brian L. Wright and Mona M. Abo-Zena

Two children color as their teacher looks on.

US schools and society are at a critical juncture, with pre-K–12 educators caught in “culture wars,” or political and ideological conflicts that shape how schools and educators approach teaching and learning (Proweller & Monkman 2024). These conflicts can manifest in various ways, including increasingly prescriptive approaches to curriculum; restrictive challenges to teaching about race, racism, and in/justice; limitations to the full inclusion of children with dis/abilities; as well as attempts to limit access to specific books and restrict social and emotional learning (NAEYC 2019; Hornbeck & Malin 2023; Proweller & Monkman 2024).

These restrictions limit teacher agency, which is the professional capacity of educators to make informed instructional decisions and act intentionally in response to the needs, identities, and experiences of the children, families, and communities they serve (Priestley et al. 2015; Imants & Van der Wal 2020; Cong-Lem 2021). In turn, children’s learning and development are negatively affected, given that prescriptive curriculum can limit differentiation and children’s engagement with learning processes (Au 2011; Bartell et al. 2019). Restricting teacher agency can diminish children’s joyful engagement, limit opportunities for identity affirmation, and reduce access to culturally responsive, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that support academic, social, and emotional growth (Ladson-Billings 2009; Gay 2010; NAEYC 2019).

Educators’ ability to intentionally plan, teach, and assess each and every child is critical for advancing developmentally appropriate practice (NAEYC 2019, 2020). In an era marked by increasing efforts to curtail teacher agency and silence dissenting voices, reaffirming the centrality of teacher agency remains essential to sustaining caring, equitable learning environments for all children (Wright 2022). A critical lens moves beyond implementation of “standardized” and “normed” educational practices and assumptions that curriculum is inherently “appropriate” or that evidence-based approaches are neutral. Instead, it prompts educators to examine how power, identity, and structural inequities shape classroom practices, policies, and children’s learning experiences, including whose knowledge and identities are centered and which experiences are presented as assets, problems, or left out altogether (Freire 1993; Ladson-Billings 2009). By applying a critical lens, educators gain the capacity to intentionally plan curriculum and instruction and deliver sophisticated, effective, equity-oriented practices for every learner (Love 2019; Schmidtke 2025).

We (the authors) are both early childhood educators, researchers, and advocates for equity, and we promote intentional teaching to preserve teacher voice and agency and to foster children’s learning, joyful engagement, and opportunities to express their identities, ideas, and emerging agency within caring classroom communities amid external, top-down decisions. In this article, we examine teacher agency through a critical lens (e.g., Freire 1993). We draw from the “What? So What? Now What?” protocol, adapted from critical nursing practice (Moon & Clouder 2005), to introduce key concepts and share real-life examples of the challenges to and supports for teacher agency. While we highlight implications for policymakers and administrators, our central aim is to equip teachers with practical insights and strategies to reclaim and sustain their professional agency in work with children of varied age groups across educational settings.

What Is Agency? Forms, Functions, and Tensions

Mr. Omar is a first-year, second-grade teacher who works in a public school that follows a prescribed English language arts curriculum. The curriculum includes pre-approved texts that avoid themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion. One morning, a child named Jon brings his grandfather’s yarmulke and prayer shawl to share during meeting time. Children ask questions about why people wear different kinds of hats and what they represent in their families and communities. Mr. Omar is excited to implement a unit called Who Belongs Here and decides to adapt it in response to the children’s questions.

Mr. Omar’s goals are to foster children’s literacy and language development through discussion, vocabulary building, and comprehension activities. He plans to present books that reflect his students’ racial and cultural identities, fostering conversations about kindness, belonging, and community. This aligns with social and emotional learning and social studies goals related to identity, community, and respectful relationships learning standards. He reviews the list of approved texts but does not find one that fits these goals. He decides to start a K-W-H-L chart to document students’ past experiences and current interests about this topic (what we know [K], what we want to know [W], how we can learn more [H], and what we have learned [L]). He begins with a joyous read aloud of Hats of Faith, by Medeia Cohan-Petrolino and illustrated by Sarah Walsh, and students eagerly plan to bring hats from their faith traditions to share the next day.

That afternoon, however, Ms. Spade, the lower school coordinator, reminds Mr. Omar that he must strictly follow the prescribed English language arts curriculum. The following morning, students rush in, hats in hand, only to find different books on the easel. The books come directly from the prescribed curriculum guide and require students to complete a scripted comprehension activity with predetermined questions and vocabulary exercises. Mr. Omar invites them to the carpet, but Arie quickly blurts out, “That’s not the book we were reading.” Disappointment fills the room as several children echo, “What happened, Mr. Omar?”

Mr. Omar faced a dilemma experienced by countless early childhood educators who are expected to follow rigid policies and implement one-size-fits-all instructional content without recognition of their professional expertise or capacity to authentically respond to children’s strengths and needs (Priestley et al. 2015; Imants & Van der Wal 2020). Often, these policies and procedures are positioned as equitable accountability while perpetuating inequities in access and opportunity (Gregory 2013). Indeed, Mr. Omar’s situation reflects what is often missing from the discourse and practice concerning what children need to thrive in schools and classrooms: The voices and agency of teachers.

Agency refers to an individual’s ability to take action to alter their situation toward an intended goal (Bandura 2001). In the context of education, agency refers to the capacity of both children and educators to act intentionally within learning environments. For children, agency involves making choices, expressing ideas, and engaging meaningfully in classroom life. Educator agency reflects teachers’ professional judgment to design curriculum and instruction that is culturally responsive to children’s cultural identities and experiences and that shapes equitable learning opportunities (Priestley et al. 2015; NAEYC 2020). Voice and agency for teachers does not mean teacher-centered monologue; rather, teachers act as co-constructors in conversation with children, families, and community to make decisions and act (Rinaldi 2022).

Importantly, any example of teacher agency reflects acting at different levels to navigate solutions and negotiate multiple perspectives within a dynamic context (Bartell et al. 2019). Drawing from broader scholarship on human agency, teachers may exercise agency through three forms—individual, proxy, and collective—within their sphere of practice (Bandura 2001; Hewson 2010).

Teacher Agency Through a Critical Lens

Each form of agency plays a valuable role in how educators can effect change in schools and classrooms (Priestley et al. 2015). Notably, the concept and practice of agency are not unfettered, or free from restraints or inhibitions. They require intentional preparation and critical reflection, including recognizing and addressing issues of equity and imbalanced power structures that shape teaching, learning, and decision-making practices in schools when educators apply a critical lens to their work (Freire 1993; Ladson-Billings 2009).

This may involve acts of subversion, which we refer to as the ability to strategically apply judgment, make informed decisions, and act within a given context, thereby providing equitable practices for all children (Givens 2021). At times, these acts have inequitably distributed risks and costs for educators who navigate restrictive policies and prescribed curricular expectations (Priestley et al. 2015). For example, Mr. Omar’s decision to introduce a lesson centered on belonging through culturally relevant texts reflected his professional judgment and commitment to equitable learning opportunities, even as institutional constraints ultimately required him to abandon that plan in favor of a scripted lesson drawn directly from the prescribed curriculum.

While teacher agency holds great promise for creating caring, equitable learning spaces, we also recognize that agency can be exercised in divergent ways. Some educators may choose to use their agency in ways that resist or even undermine equity-oriented goals and practices. Importantly, we do not advocate permitting uncritical practice under the guise of agency. Applying a critical lens must be intentionally developed in and with educators (Muller et al. 2022), such as through collaborative norms and equity-centered professional learning communities and supports to help ensure that agency is exercised in ways that affirm all children’s identities and communities. These collective processes fulfill several functions, including fostering intentional practices that enhance learning outcomes, mediating potential risks to children, and providing protection for educators who may also face vulnerabilities (Wenger 1998; Cochran-Smith & Lytle 2009).

Cultivating Teacher Agency from Within

The individual teacher’s self-efficacy and internal motivation are central to exercising agency. Given threats of attrition, teachers need to believe that their actions will lead to achieving their intended goals (Bartell et al. 2019). In the vignette above, Mr. Omar found himself at odds with accountability mechanisms when trying to implement equity-oriented practices. After receiving the feedback from his administrator, Ms. Spade, Mr. Omar decided to adjust the original lesson without the use of the unapproved book. Drawing on his professional judgment, he thought deeply about the core intention of the lesson he had planned—involve students in sharing similarities and differences—and he reviewed the information they shared in the K-W-H-L graphic organizer. He then reimagined and reconstructed the Who Belongs Here unit so that he could engage students in authentic learning experiences, even if he could not use the same anchor text.

Mr. Omar invites students to bring hats to the next morning meeting. During the gathering, they show and talk about a range of head coverings. Muhammad explains that his kufi is worn during prayer at the mosque, while Serenity describes the scarf her grandmother wears to church. As children listen, they begin asking questions about when and why people wear different hats, prompting a conversation about religious traditions, family, and identity.

Then, Mr. Omar encourages each child to create and share their own drawings. They have the opportunity to share their work in pairs or small groups and with the whole group. Each of them eagerly shares their items and stories, and their conversations extend well beyond the meeting. For example, Sophie explains that the people in their drawing are celebrating a family tradition connected to their culture, while Taahirah shares that their drawing shows the hat their uncle wears during an important holiday. As children listen to one another’s stories, they begin recognizing how different cultural identities and traditions are represented in their classroom community.

Because of his concern about Ms. Spade’s reaction, Mr. Omar had invited her to observe the lesson. She sees how the children’s engagement has evolved into an inquiry that fosters learning across the curriculum, including the targeted literacy and language goals of vocabulary, comprehension, and discussion. She also notes how Mr. Omar made use of multiple assessment modalities for children to show their knowledge and skills. After the lesson, Ms. Spade expresses that she found compelling evidence of authentic learning in Mr. Omar’s classroom, including her observation that the children were making connections between their drawings, their classmates’ stories, and the different cultural identities and traditions represented in the classroom.

Mr. Omar’s work illustrates how the application of proxy agency—the ability to act through or with others within restrictive systems—can support teachers in enacting curriculum in caring and equitable ways, even amid policy and curricular constraints.

Negotiating Teacher Agency Amid Structural Constraints

Unjust structures—and those who uphold them—can undermine teacher agency and limit the pursuit of equity-driven pedagogies, resulting in both intended and unintended consequences for student learning (Timberlake et al. 2017). Even when external policies narrow what they are “allowed” to do, teachers can still exercise professional judgment and agency by leveraging relationships, community knowledge, and children’s lived experiences as powerful curriculum resources (Priestley et al. 2015; Molla & Nolan 2020).

In this way, agency becomes both an individual and collective act—reaffirming educators as co-constructors of equitable, caring practices that honor the complexity of teaching and the humanity of all children. Mr. Omar’s example underscores that teacher agency does not disappear under restrictive mandates; it adapts through intentional teaching and critical reflection, such as when he reimagined the Who Belongs Here unit. He drew on children’s responses from the K-W-H-L chart and their drawings about cultural identities and traditions to sustain conversations about belonging, even without the anchor text he had originally planned to use.

So What? Why Agency Matters, and What Losing It Means

Rigid curricula, assessments, and policies that constrain teachers’ agency can limit the possibility of joyful, meaningful engagement and learning and produce what scholars term curricular and pedagogical violence (Johnson 2019; Wright 2021). One-size-fits-all educational practices reinforce dominant ideologies of racial capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, ableism, and gender normativity (Kundnani 2023). Prescriptive curricula enacted through top-down approaches silence teachers’ expertise and devalue their capacity to design learning that affirms children’s full humanity and fosters growth and learning for all children (Bartell et al. 2019). There are negative consequences for teachers, students and families, and broader communities, which are outlined next. Reclaiming teacher agency is thus both a form of resistance and a renewal, which are central to creating equitable, joyful communities of learners.

Ms. Kimmie proudly teaches kindergarten at the same urban neighborhood school she once attended as a child. Her early childhood teacher education coursework emphasized experiential learning and intentionally designed curricula, which is a marked contrast to her own childhood schooling experiences. Ms. Kimmie returned to her home community determined to provide students with learning opportunities comparable to those of their suburban peers.

Initially, Ms. Kimmie’s colleagues are skeptical of her approaches, which include hands-on explorations, self-directed and guided play, and ample opportunities to collaborate with peers to help children progress toward learning goals. However, their attitudes begin to shift when they notice the heightened engagement and enthusiasm of Ms. Kimmie’s students during her carefully planned learning experiences.

During snack time, children talk about toast and wonder why some types of bread (pan, naan, pita) do not have crusts. Ms. Kimmie actively observes the conversation. In response, she plans a “bread and breakfast” inquiry. Children bring recipes and photographs from home and, together with their families, plan a classroom breads and toppings buffet.

While children discuss how to include breads sprinkled with sesame seeds given Joan’s allergy, the school principal, Mr. Kraft, expresses concern about the noise level in Ms. Kimmie’s classroom. He suggests that students might be better prepared for upcoming standardized tests if they spent more time practicing and working quietly. Ms. Kimmie explains how she intentionally aligns hands-on activities with core learning objectives, which are measured by standardized tests. Attempting to sound supportive, Mr. Kraft says he is confident she can “get the students back on track.”

Despite her effectiveness and commitment to “paying it forward,” Ms. Kimmie is now considering leaving her position.

Teacher agency enables educators to intentionally set meaningful goals, identify strategies to achieve them, and link their decisions to student learning outcomes (Cong-Lem 2021). As illustrated in the vignette, Ms. Kimmie is knowledgeable and skilled in early learning but teaches in a school with a leader who does not understand the importance of active, hands-on learning with young children. She is not alone in feeling stripped of her agency; others have reported similar situations (Molla & Nolan 2020). This is a consequence of limitations to teacher agency—feeling deflated and uncertain about how to motivate her students, having lost much of the motivation that once fueled her teaching.

When teachers’ agency is restricted, so too is their ability to honor the cultural wealth of children and families. Prioritizing standardized assessments over community-based knowledge creates epistemic injustice that devalues diverse ways of knowing (Moll et al. 1992). For example, pandemic “learning loss” discourses focused narrowly on academic skills, ignoring the learning children experienced at home through caregiving, cooking, and nature exploration (Chen & Krieger 2023). Such narratives conceal the deep-rooted and more significant “loss”—the failure to utilize families’ funds of knowledge that existed before the pandemic and remain an untapped resource in schools today (Moll et al. 1992; Yosso 2005; Paris 2012; Wright 2022; Robbins & Cipollone 2023).

For example, the “bread and breakfast” inquiry prompted Ms. Kimmie to more systematically ask students and families about their own baking practices. Children were eager to add items like semolina to their grocery list and explain that almond flour is safe for classmates with gluten sensitivities. Ms. Kimmie invited family and community members to act as “celebrity chefs” and host bake-offs. Children interviewed them about the differences between yeast and quick breads using baking powder or soda and historic, cultural, religious, and individual reasons for food preferences and restrictions.

Restrictive curricula, assessments, and policies impose psychological costs not only for educators but also children (Au 2011; NAEYC 2022). Even equity-minded teachers encounter ethical dilemmas when they are compelled to administer tests, implement activities and materials, or carry out discipline policies that contradict their knowledge and judgments about developmentally appropriate, equitable practice. For example, Ms. Kimmie watched silently while administering a standardized mathematics assessment that required children to complete decontextualized computations. Some students struggled to solve the problems, even though earlier in the week those same children had accurately and successfully doubled recipes and subtracted serving amounts when classmates were absent.

In particular, teachers of minoritized backgrounds, often motivated to support children from marginalized communities, face unique tensions in this regard, including fear of professional repercussions if they do not comply with unjust, inequitable policies or practices (McKinney de Royston et. al. 2021). They must choose between maintaining authentic relationships with students and risking professional discipline. For example, discipline policies often police the behaviors of Black, Indigenous, and other children of color (Iruka et al. 2020) and prohibit cultural expressions—such as beads or cowrie shells in hairstyles—that further marginalize the identities of Black children (Sturdivant 2023) and perpetuate patterns of trauma and intergenerational harm (Alvarez & Farinde-Wu 2022).

For instance, the prescribed textbook in Ms. Kimmie’s setting included a word problem that mentioned cornbread. While she appreciated the attempt at a cultural reference, she was disappointed about the single and stereotypical association between Black children and cornbread, which overlooked the wide variety of breads across Black cultures, such as injera, roti, and various types of pan, pain, and sweet breads. In complying, teachers sustain the very systems they seek to change—evidence that restoring agency is not a matter of will alone but one requiring transformation at multiple levels.

Now What? Actions We Can Take to Restore Agency

What can teachers like Ms. Kimmie do to leverage concepts of individual, proxy, and collective agency to challenge the pervasive and damaging practices and policies that restrict teacher agency and devalue children’s assets? Ms. Kimmie’s experience, much like Mr. Omar’s, highlights the complex realities teachers face. Yet it also reiterates that agency is not an individual endeavor alone. When teachers engage in collective and proxy forms of agency—acting in solidarity with colleagues, families, and communities—they create conditions that sustain both their professional integrity and their students’ engagement (Wenger 1998; Priestley et al. 2015). Such relational forms of agency affirm that teaching is not merely about compliance but about cultivating shared responsibility for equitable learning (Cochran-Smith & Lytle 2009; Priestley et al. 2015). As educators navigate policies and practices that may silence or limit their voices, these collective spaces become essential sites of restoration, resistance, and renewal.

Exercising Individual Agency

Teachers frequently exercise individual agency through their daily decisions and interactions with students, particularly by responding to children’s interests and identities. For example, Mr. Omar was inspired to create the lesson on hats of faith when one student, Jon, brought his grandfather’s yarmulke and prayer shawl to share. Mr. Omar subsequently extended the moment by reading Hats of Faith, connecting literature to lived experiences. He responded to children’s interests and the group’s discussion, and he adapted the lesson to honor children’s cultural identities.

Teachers can also reclaim agency within mandated curricula by incorporating culturally responsive discussions, examples, and children’s stories alongside required texts. Mr. Omar demonstrated this approach when he revised the Who Belongs Here lesson after being directed to follow the prescribed curriculum. For example, while following pacing guides, educators might invite children to connect assigned readings to their family traditions or community practices. These intentional decisions help prevent the erasure of children’s identities (Ladson-Billings 2009; Gay 2010). Importantly, integrating culturally relevant content should align with state academic standards. Such alignment strengthens teachers’ rationale for instructional choices and can help protect them from administrative pushback against equity-oriented practices (NAEYC 2020).

Other experiences spark transformative learning, which depends on critical self-reflection as educators—and, in developmentally appropriate ways, children—reconsider assumptions about identity, belonging, and cultural traditions within their learning communities (Freire 1993; Mezirow 2000). This occurred when Mr. Omar reflected on what children were sharing about themselves and how that did and did not connect with the set curriculum. With a critical lens and agency, he helped children learn from discussion, drawings, and storytelling, and his adaptations supported their literacy and language growth and transformed their understandings of others’ interests and cultures in their classroom community.

Exercising Proxy Agency

Through proxy agency, teachers strategically leverage the influence, knowledge, and resources of others—such as administrators, families, or community organizations—to promote teacher agency and equitable outcomes for children (Bandura 2001; Hewson 2010). In Mr. Omar’s case, he exercised proxy agency by inviting Ms. Spade to observe the revised lesson. As she watched children share drawings and discuss the cultural identities and traditions represented in their families, she recognized how the inquiry supported meaningful learning across content areas. By making children’s engagement visible, Mr. Omar demonstrated that culturally responsive instruction could support authentic learning even within a prescribed curriculum.

Exercising Collective Agency

Building on Ms. Kimmie’s experience, collective agency emerges when educators unite around shared values, pooling their knowledge, skills, and resources to sustain authentic learning (Wenger 1998; Bandura 2001). As the bread and breakfast inquiry expanded, colleagues and families became increasingly involved in the learning process. Children collaborated with family members to share recipes, stories, and cultural traditions connected to different types of bread. Teachers and families worked together to extend the inquiry through classroom activities and community participation. Ms. Kimmie observed that, unlike during periods dominated by test preparation, behavioral issues were minimal and motivation soared—children eagerly requested additional time to refine their work.

These experiences illustrate how collective agency can cultivate intrinsic engagement and community-centered learning that extend beyond the narrow measures of standardized testing and one-size-fits-all curriculum and instruction. Together, these examples show how collective agency expands the possibilities for equitable teaching and learning when educators work in partnership with colleagues, families, and communities.

Responding to Sociopolitical Restrictions

In increasingly restrictive policy climates, educators may rely on proxy and collective forms of agency to preserve equity-oriented practice. Partnering with administrators, professional associations (e.g., NAEYC, National Black Child Development Institute), and families enables educators to sustain multicultural and anti-bias teaching even when explicit discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion are discouraged. By embedding inclusive examples, promoting inquiry, and building professional solidarity, educators continue advancing justice-oriented teaching within and beyond policy constraints.

For example, Ms. Kimmie navigated similar tensions as she sought ways to maintain developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive instruction despite increasing pressure to prioritize test preparation. When she recognized that children who were proficient with mathematical computation during the bread and breakfast inquiry struggled to transfer those skills to a standardized assessment, she introduced scaffolded learning experiences and retaught key concepts using recipes as culturally meaningful instructional contexts. Ms. Kimmie documented children’s growth in mathematical operations and reasoning using different assessment types across contexts that feature math.

The Ethical Imperative: To Do No Harm

Together, these examples underscore that reclaiming agency is not solely about resisting mandates. Viewed through a critical lens, reclaiming agency is about reclaiming the moral and relational core of intentional teaching—creating spaces where diverse children and families are seen, valued, and empowered (Freire 1993; NAEYC 2020). When teachers are able to respond to children’s interests and backgrounds and design learning experiences that foster joyful and active engagement, children experience stronger language development, increased participation, and deeper connections to their learning (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2020; NAEYC 2020).

Recent scholarship also reinforces this urgency related to teacher agency. Park and Paulick (2024) frame home visits as a form of culturally sustaining pedagogy, emphasizing that teacher agency must be structurally supported to resist deficit narratives as teachers interact with and learn from children and families. Similarly, Paulick and colleagues (2024) highlight how building rapport with children and families requires teachers to navigate and reassert agency amid restrictive conditions. These findings affirm our call to restore agency as a cornerstone of equity-centered practice—both within classrooms and across educational systems.

Shallow critiques of teacher agency often accompany prescriptive curricular demands that aim to make delivering instruction to a “generic” child “teacher-proof” (Eisner 1985; Priestley et al. 2015). The examples we provide, including the specific cases of Mr. Omar and Ms. Kimmie, highlight the complexities of agency in relation to the identity and practice of teachers with students within particular learning and ecological contexts. Cultivating teacher agency through a critical lens intentionally resists prescriptive approaches to teaching and learning that offer quick fixes or one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, teacher agency is recognized as complex yet supported through manageable and systemic approaches that guide praxis, such as the “What?, So What?, What Now?” protocol and layered levels of agency.

We support the development of teacher agency as a tool for co-constructing learning experiences and meaning with children, acknowledging its gravity, complexity, and opportunities for children, adults, and systems. This depends on developing and supporting teacher agency through a critical lens—encouraging educators to reflect on how power, identity, and inequities shape teaching and learning—and acting on those insights, such as in the following ways:

Children will benefit significantly when teachers like Mr. Omar and Ms. Kimmie use their professional authority and agency to influence schools and classrooms, promoting authentic learning and development. Rather than undermining teacher agency through restrictive curricula and policies that govern teachers’ pace and the form of instruction, teachers and those who prepare and support them should promote opportunities to develop individual, proxy, and collective agency. Intentionally training and developing their voices and choices will contribute to teachers’ capacity to plan curriculum and instruction and work collaboratively to deliver sophisticated, effective, equitable practices.

About the Authors

Brian L. Wright, PhD, is an associate professor and coordinator of Integrated Early Childhood/Early Childhood Education at the University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee. He is the author of The Brilliance of Black Boys. blwrght1@memphis.edu

Mona M. Abo-Zena, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. On individual, social, and structural levels, her asset-based applied scholarship supports developing diverse (i.e., all) children, families, and communities while acknowledging contextual challenges and resources. mona.abozena@umb.edu

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