Critical discussion of the social conditions that shape educational thinking and practice is now embedded in accredited Australian teacher education programmes. Beneath beliefs that critique of educational inequality is desirable, however, lie more problematic questions around critical pedagogies, ethics and power. Emotional investments can work to protect habituated ways of thinking, despite attempts to move students beyond their comfort zone. This strategic process can shift attitudes and promote intellectual and emotional growth, but can also produce defensive reactions. This article, a self-reflexive study in relation to an incident in a tertiary Education programme, examines how formal student feedback on content and pedagogy positions a teacher. The study also frames and reframes ways in which learner feedback to critical approaches might be read. Such exploration articulates particular tensions and challenges inherent in critical teacher education pedagogies. The argument also examines the potential of disruptive teaching approaches for recontextualising, and driving forward, both learner and teacher response.