Praise

“I have been waiting for a book like Roles of Resistance for a long time, and I will be using it—in both classrooms and organizing spaces—for even longer. John-Henry Harter and Mark Leier have given teachers and organizers a true gift with these practical activities that empower learners to draw on their own experiences in order to actively analyze fundamental questions of power, possibility, and struggle.”

– Jeremy Milloy, associate professor, Department of History, Wayne State University

“Roles of Resistance is an essential tool for anyone interested in teaching and learning about capitalism, inequality, and social change. Drawing on the knowledge gained from their many years of teaching, Harter and Leier provide concrete strategies to engage a variety of learners, encourage them to think critically about the world, and show them how and why we must organize collectively to improve it.”

– Julia Smith, assistant professor, Labour Studies Program, University of Manitoba

“Harter’s and Leier’s Roles of Resistance provides thirteen excellent role-playing exercises, games, and simulations to foster thinking in the classroom about how class and class conflict shape everyday life. Historically informed and theoretically engaged, the game plans are easy to follow and fun, encouraging students to be active participants in learning rather than passive recipients of educational discipline in capitalist society.”

– Sean Cadigan, professor, Department of History, Memorial University

“Harter and Leier draw on years of experience in the classroom and on the front line to provide creative lesson plans for educators who want to teach students that collective action can create equitable alternatives to capitalism. Using examples from Canadian labour history, students will learn how solidarity has fostered coalitions between labour and community to fight back.”

– Nancy Janovicek, Treaty 7, Department of History, University of Calgary

“For those already attuned to issues of race and gender, this book gives powerful tools for creativity. It’s a great companion to Jane Slaughter’s A Troublemaker’s Handbook for teachers at all levels of schooling. Roles of Resistance is a strong pitch for play in learning.”

– D’Arcy Martin, co-author of Educating for a Change

“As Harter and Leier write, ‘we have to think a different future is possible, that capitalism is not the inevitable end point.’ This important and timely book offers playful and creative role-plays, games, and simulations to facilitate deeply political thinking about labour, class, exploitation, and organizing. Useful and inspiring in all kinds of contexts, the authors show how radical pedagogy and learning are also fun.”

– Kendra Strauss, professor, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Simon Fraser University