ERIC Number: EJ834307
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Feb
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-2004
EISSN: N/A
Radical Hope and Teaching: Learning Political Agency from the Politically Disenfranchised
Edgoose, Julian
Educational Theory, v59 n1 p105-121 Feb 2009
If teaching is a political act, how can teachers hope to make a difference through their work? In this review essay, Julian Edgoose explores this question of hope in relation to three recent books: David Halpin's "Hope and Education," Jonathan Kozol's "Letters to a Young Teacher," and Jonathan Lear's "Radical Hope." Halpin describes how hope comes from our targeted efforts to connect our critical analysis of the present to a better, yet realistic, idea of the future. In contrast, Kozol (echoing Cornel West's "tragicomic hope") describes a hopefulness that sustains him despite and alongside his critical view of schools. Edgoose asks a further question: can one reasonably remain hopeful in the absence of that critical stance--in the absence of a sense that one can understand the situation one faces enough to know a way out? To Lear, this would be a case of "radical hope," and Edgoose offers a second reading of Kozol through the lenses of Emmanuel Levinas and Hannah Arendt to show what such radical hope might look like for teachers.
Descriptors: Teacher Role, Educational Philosophy, Educational Theories, Politics of Education, Critical Theory, Teacher Motivation, Book Reviews, Disadvantaged
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A