It was early in the pandemic when I first opened Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto, and I gasped at one of the chapter titles: “Classrooms of Death.” The prescient phrase burned in my mind during the urgent national pivot away from in-person teaching. And it remains a cautionary metaphor for what is at stake for our students and society. Amidst classrooms of death, Gannon calls for “schools for life,” borrowing a phrase from the 19th-century Danish philosopher N.F.S. Grundtvig (pp. 9–12). It is a call for us to critique and revitalize not only our teaching practices, but also the ideal of a liberal education.
The liberal education can be an essential lifeline in a wobbly, unequal world. Often referred to as “general education,” “liberal arts,” or “core curriculum,” these foundational programs provide most undergraduates with a grounding in the humanities, natural and social sciences, and fine arts. As people face unemployment, underemployment, the loss of a loved one, or daily despair, these are the moments when a liberal arts foundation can hold value and provide comfort. Lifelong learners have the ability to draw upon a broad base of knowledge to cope with personal uncertainty, navigate societal anomie, and become active in shifting power structures. Even as liberal education seeks to develop a range of skills, knowledge, and dispositions among students, however, such outcomes sometimes serve to drive students toward compliance. Gannon laments the practice of educating simply to fill jobs with skilled workers, touted by universities to fit neoliberal expectations. He reminds us of the value of questioning the purpose and the “why” of education and its benefits (pp. 16–17).
Radical Hope reimagines a higher education scaffolded with four “columns.” Education should be life-affirming; it should center students and their agency; it should develop praxis; and it should embrace inclusivity (pp. 23–26). This first column calls to mind the words of another historian, William Cronon, who wrote in 1998 that a liberal education should “nurture the growth of human talent in the service of human freedom.” The value of education lies foremost, Cronon and Gannon would agree, in establishing connection with others and acknowledging a shared common humanity. Such skills as listening, reading, writing, speaking, and problem-solving—and such virtues as tolerance, humility, and truth—enable the learner to pursue a fuller life and engage in their community.1
Beyond the focus on becoming life-affirming, Radical Hope centers student agency, which is another way to reinvigorate liberal-education programs and outcomes. Emphasizing how innovative teaching practices involving choice and collaboration can center students, Gannon states that “we have to be advocates for both students and learning” (p. 36). Greater teacher-student engagement and creating space for shared power between students and educators can improve students’ agency and self-efficacy. Active peer learning increases one’s ability to work and communicate effectively with others, while collaborative teacher-student relationships can improve critical thinking opportunities and student empowerment. Additional benefits to students linked to teaching practices cited by Gannon include improving habits of metacognition, motivation, posing questions, and engaging in reflection. These pedagogical practices will have a better chance at making learning transformational and lasting.
Centering students in their own learning requires teachers to develop their own praxis (i.e., practice plus theory). Gannon encourages educators to deeply consider “the sum total of decisions, both routine and exceptional, we make about the learning environments we create and with students with whom we share them” (p. 49). A focus on praxis in the classroom leads to the fulfillment of Paulo Freire’s concept of “critical consciousness”—fostering reflective students who can realize their capacity to transform unequal structures in a society.2 I would like to amplify Gannon’s advice to include learning outcomes that students will gain as a result of reimagined teaching practices on course syllabi. Gannon’s experience leading the teaching and learning center at his university is instructive, with practical suggestions at the end of each chapter for transformative teaching. In order to develop effective praxis, it’s important for teachers to have the opportunity to engage in workshops, reading groups, discussions, and speakers, and to engage in critical reflection toward teaching improvement.
Inclusion is another important pillar to support optimal learning in liberal education. Examples of possible reconceptualized student outcomes abound in Radical Hope, such as how inclusive curricula, readings, and spaces can foster students’ consideration of multiple perspectives, identities, and abilities. Inclusion at the institutional level is important for broadening the experiences and perspectives offered to students, and it is also necessary for improving the lives of teachers. As an increasing number of general education courses are taught by adjunct, contingent, and other non-tenured instructors, they are often left out of important conversations about how liberal education is envisioned and delivered on various campuses. Placing people in positions of precarity is not inclusive. Department chairs and administrators should make efforts to include the experience and perspectives of contingent faculty while providing pay equity, stability, and opportunities for professional development.
Engaging with Radical Hope has not only inspired me to reassess my own pedagogy but to commit to reinvigorating liberal education at my institution. It has helped deepen my dedication to enact more student-centered practices in general education-level courses. Over the past few years I have comfortably instituted these practices in my upper-level courses. I had however only halfway implemented them in my larger introductory courses, mostly due to convenience and to meet what I thought were students’ expectations. As chair of our faculty-led General Education committee I will reach out to those teaching general education courses, especially contingent and junior faculty at my school, and host a reading group on Radical Hope with a discussion on critical pedagogy for those teaching introductory courses.
The promise of a liberal education is that it can develop and engage an active mind able to better understand ourselves, society, history, and nature. Infused with Radical Hope’s critical pedagogy perspective, it has the potential to be an emancipatory lifeline, suitable to making sense of and engaging in the fight for racial justice, human rights, and climate change. A renewed liberal-education core will not only create lifelong learners but individuals capable of responding to inequality, with the goal of making society safe for the freedom and growth of all. The critique of higher education along with the transformative teaching practices outlined in Radical Hope can lead to life-affirming preparation for such an imagined world. We need this kind of radical hope more urgently than ever.
- William Cronon, “‘Only Connect…’: The Goals of a Liberal Education,” American Scholar 67 (Autumn 1998): 73–80.
- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (1970; reprint, New York: Continuum, 2000), esp. chap. 3.