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,
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