Chapter 3: Those Who Dare, Teach: Living a Pedagogy for Social Justice

In this chapter, a metacognitive narration of the cultural work of the author and a description of his pedagogy is provided informed by a vigilance of his own habituated participation in domestification and patriarchy. At the same time, discussion includes how pedagogical spaces and activities are structured to provide students with a pedagogy for social justice. Roberto Bahruth begins with the foundations of why, as a privileged white male, he would dare do this at all. After all, it would be easier to float the river of hegemony and to reap the rewards of conformity. Living through the 1960’s as a working class youth and remembering his roots, rather than living in denial, help to explain the depth of his convictions. Personal explorations into literacy and re-reading his past—how people of color around him were treated, how masculinity and femininity were defined through received culture, how his classmates were tracked according to the occupations of their parents, reflections on his own dichotomous existence as a monolingual who transcended into bilingualism—have all helped him to make new meanings of his schooling from a more critical perspective. Ills critique of teacher education programs that domesticate and then dismiss the students as conforming rather than reforming education should challenge responsible professors to respond to changes necessary at the University level.