Keeping a ‘vigilant critique’: unpacking critical praxis as teacher educators

Abstract

The practice of a critical pedagogy was the impetus for our involvement in an urban in‐district master’s program with a mission that included developing a ‘critical praxis’ for all participants. Early on we were challenged to rethink our stance as ‘critical educators’ when teachers resisted what we intended to be ‘empowering’ course practices, assigning readings written by teacher researchers. This resistance required us to question whether our pedagogy was honoring their experiences as well as inviting the collaborative generation of knowledge that we professed to encourage. Drawing our methodology from Freire’s notion of ‘generative words’ and Bakhtin’s notion of ‘writing the self into the text’, we analyzed artifacts collected from our teaching over several cycles using critical discourse analysis. Our analysis reminds us to remain ‘vigilant’. That is, not to ignore difference but to look carefully for often hidden opportunities offered for deeper learning when multiple perspectives come into contact.

Keywords:

• critical praxis
• teacher education
• urban teaching

Notes

1. All teachers we worked with signed Human Subjects permission through the Federal Title VII Career Ladder Grant and a Title III ‘No Child Left Behind’ Grant that funded our work.

2. Appropriated from course reading of Chapter 2 in Hubbard and Power (1999).

3. We acknowledge the work of Dr Andres Ramirez who collaborated in, developed, and co‐taught the two courses in the second sequence.