A Return to Relationship

The goal of this project is to reinvigorate criticalpedagogy with hope and human agency by emphasizingFreirian ideas and examining them through the lens ofthe Old Testament prophet. Since Paulo Freire'sPedagogy of the Oppressed was translated into Englishin 1970, critical pedagogy has become influential incomposition circles. What has resulted in recentdecades are scores of programs and models that havebeen labeled as "critical pedagogy" and yet departfrom the central themes of Freire's originary work.The Hebrew prophetic model reinvests Freire's workwith its spiritual center and returns compositionpedagogy to a hopeful praxis. Four components of theprophetic model resonate with Freirian ideals: asincere grief over past injustice, a promising futurewhere change is possible, a focus on student writingthat invites perspectives challenging the status quo, and human agency for both teachers and studentsmotivated by love. This model rescues criticalpedagogy from dehumanizing fragmentation. Thecomposition classroom can be a place of hope, ifcritical pedagogy returns to its Freirian roots. TheHebrew prophet provides the features critical to thisengagement.