Purpose: The purpose of the project was to intervene in a deficit reading of communities. This article engages public pedagogy in a way that suggests a new approach to the field. To this end, both the terms public and pedagogy are interrogated. Design/methodology/approach: The approach in this paper is an analysis of a qualitative research project: the knowledge project and pop-up school. The theoretical framework used to undertake the analysis of this project is Hannah Arendt's conceptualisation of the public realm and Michele Foucault's use of parrhesia (the truth teller), alongside Foucault's work on power. Findings: This article offers a whole new subject position that of the educative agent. Further, this article suggests that the educative agent takes a carriage of knowledge and therefore enacts authority. Originality/value: This article is an original theoretical engagement with knowledge, authority and power.