Striking the Match: A (Non-)Materialist Rhetoric of the 2012 Chicago Teachers Strik

For nine days in September of 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) went on strike in wake of stymied contract negotiations, rallying around the cry, "Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions!" The echoes of segregation and institutional racism are inextricable from the language and purpose of the Chicago Teachers Strike. From the historical forces shaping current socioeconomic discord, to the demands made by the CTU for the future of public education, mapping the conditions for the teachers' strike demonstrates the role a rhetoric of protest can play in political conflicts.;This work incorporates and builds upon various threads of materialism through the exploration of social movement formation in the context of Chicago labor politics and education policy. Corporate and elite interests have traditionally determined the direction of Illinois policy; the labor politics of the Chicago Teachers Union brings together philosophical and epistemological questions over the ontology of public education.;I define (Non-)materialist rhetoric as a study of rhetorical conflicts which are profoundly based in material dispute, but irresolvable through exclusively material solutions.;A "sea of red" protestors brought the city of Chicago to its knees, even if only temporarily. Forms of embodied rhetoric such as this particular strike should be fore fronted in order to reveal how we got to this woeful state of public education, and how to take back the classroom as a dwelling place for pedagogical development.