In this editorial article, we draw on our experiences to create an opening for critical reflection in honor of Paulo Freire's centenary. We start by addressing the need to overcome the productivity logic of the Academy and instead prioritize thinking and being in communion with others. We orient toward Freirean critical hope as an impetus to move beyond the limits of commodified time and engage in the process of collective becoming. We share our struggles and tensions through stories of Freirean becomings, reflecting on those "limited situations" in which our critical hope acted as catalysts for us to embrace our unfinishedness. We draw from our collective experiences and becomings to think more deeply about “the heart” of science education. We believe a heart-centered science education is one that forges solidarity with human and more-than-human others, and exploits pockets of resistance in the name of more socially and ecologically just present futures.

In this introductory manuscript, we present our vision for this special issue as a space for cultivating collective becomings in/with love, critical hope, and solidarity. We also contemplate our intentions and goals for putting together a special issue such as this one. We then take a position as insider–outsiders of science education, moved by values such as attention, humility, and risk, and vulnerability, and to learn and be taught by others. After developing those ideas, we draw from the critical imaginations of authors in this special issue to reflect on what a praxis of radical love looks like as/for science and education. Finally, we present the four themes that form this special issue: Science curriculum for conscientização: counter-narratives from the field; transgressing and building solidarities across borders in science education; grassroots and collective becomings; dialogues with Freire; and intersections of critical pedagogy with other critical philosophical approaches.

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This chapter captures a panel discussion from the 2019 conference of Science Educators for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice (SEEDS, http://seedsweb.org) in Norfolk, Virginia. The panel included two high school students, three high school chemistry teachers, a community organizer, an administrator for a large urban school district, and a university-based science educator. These panelists, the authors of this chapter, had been collaborating on an initiative to support youth participatory science (YPS) projects in high school chemistry classes. We share this lightly edited transcript of our conversation as a way to communicate perspectives about the opportunities and challenges of YPS from viewpoints across these constituency groups. Our conversation is organized around three questions for reflection: (1) What are some of the challenges and possibilities when it comes to engaging with YPS in science classes? (2) How has engaging in YPS exposed both insights and oversights of scientific ways of knowing? (3) In YPS, what are the relationships between learning science and engaging in political and community issues?