Engaged Pedagogy, Enraged Pedagogy

Abstract

Agents in history, we are temporally and socially situated. We occupy, maintain, and sustain certain positions whether we are cognizant of these or not. We also influence and change our circumstances as they work on and are expressed by and through us. Human beings are not mere reflections of our conditions and locations; we are also sustainers and destroyers of these spaces and places. We are capable of action and reflection upon that action; we make choices and respond to the consequences of these choices. We are with the world and in the world. We actively choose sides or accept the status quo by shrugging off the responsibility to choose. My own positioning and subjectivity lead me to a commitment fueled, in part, by anger and outrage. My commitment is to my students and public education, to my union and organized labor, to my family and my own humanization. My anger stems from the assault on public education and labor through which I am living.