About Me
Hey - I’m Bradley. I was expelled from high school when I was 15 years and court-ordered to obtain my GED at 16. I’ve since been on a journey of learning about learning. When you lack a ‘formal’ education you must learn new ideas in new ways—and from and with new people. This has been both a challenge and a blessing in my life. This website is my attempt to make sense of my experiences and dialog with folks on their own learning journeys.
I’m currently at Northwestern University, pursuing a doctoral degree in learning sciences. My research interests – and frankly my existence – are grounded in liberatory educational experiences. That is, learning environments and moments that are interwoven with critical answers to critical questions of epistemology (whose knowledge matters?) and ontology (whose existence matters?). Much of my background is rooted in science, particularly organic chemistry, and I am curious about: what do we learn about science, why, when, where, and from whom and for whom?
We find ourselves in an era of accountability and standards, where school communities adhere to ’expert’ understandings of science—largely defined by those who work in academia (like myself). But what about all of the science and all of the scientists outside of the university? How do we recover and uplift those sites of science as pockets of scientific activity? How can we expand what we believe science is, how it is done, by whom, and for what purposes? What might this mean for our collective imagination in science education? These are a few questions that guide me.
Contact me at: bdavey@u.northwestern.edu