Teacher as Stranger: Unfinished Pathways with Critical Pedagogy

Abstract

In 2010, Accardi, Drabinski, and Kumbier published the edited collection Critical Library Instruction: Theories and Methods, which marked a turn to more broadly integrate critical theory into the practice and literature of librarianship. This article looks back ten years to trace how critical pedagogy continues to provoke librarians' reflective measurement of the coherence between theory and practice, whether in the classroom or in advocacy for open education. With Paulo Freire’s notion of unfinishedness and Maxine Greene’s metaphor of ’teacher as stranger,' the article explores the nature of teaching as a continuously reflective and creative act.