Pruyn, Marc & Huerta-Charles, Luis. (Eds.) (2005). Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. Reviewed by Sheila L. Macrine, St. Joseph's University

Pruyn, Marc & Huerta-Charles, Luis. (Eds.) (2005). Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers 264 pp. $29.95 (Paperback)   ISBN: 0-8204-6145-8 Reviewed by Sheila L. Macrine St. Joseph’s University March 9, 2005 In the recent book, Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent, Marc Pruyn and Luis Huerta-Charles, together with their contributors, have written a book that no contemporary theorist of education or critical theory can afford to ignore. The book chronicles the journey that these theorists have taken as they examine the evolutionary and revolutionary growth of scholar, pedagogue, political philosopher, and activist, Peter McLaren. Pruyn and Huerta-Charles have assembled essays from some of the most noted theorists and students of McLaren’s’ critical and revolutionary pedagogy. Importantly, they chart and discuss McLaren in terms of: 1) the arc of McLaren’s development as a radical intellectual who early-on embraced radical explanations of how and why our society operates in the ways that it does particularly in the contexts of schooling; 2) his development as an intellectual who has (along with other important scholars in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East) helped, during the last decade, to spearhead a fresh, re-invigorated and democratic examination of Marx; and 3) the implications of Marx ideas in education and beyond during these times of War, ever more brutal efforts at globalization and seemingly perpetual war, more brutal attacks on the working class and people of color by the transnationalist capitalist class and so-called humanitarian interventions to bring democracy to recalcitrant countries at the barrel of a gun. In this book, Pruyn and Huerta-Charles have attempted to elaborate the central theoretical ideas of Peter McLaren in light of theirs and the contributors own lived experiences and struggles as teachers, graduate students and professors of education. And as grass roots political/educational/cultural movements are experiencing renewed vigor (against war for example), and, occasionally, success (against high stakes standardized testing), the editors indicate that it is time to connect activisms to sound theoretical, historical, philosophical and material explanations and understandings of how and why things are unfolding the way they are; that is, we need to continue to create a living praxis, a unity of theory and action. The volume also seeks to highlight McLaren’s elaborations of the connections among education, political economy and oppression. This collection of twelve essays is aimed at sparking inquiry among educators and others interested in a review of the McLaren’s critical and radical scholarship and activism over the past twenty five years. No small task. The book is separated into four sections. Entitled, Introduction and Contexts, the first section comprised of a series forward by Shirley and Joe Kinchloe who and Joe Kincheloe who praise McLaren’s development of a transdisciplinary approach to critical pedagogy. This first section also includes the Preface and Introduction by Pruyn and Huerta--Charles. The second section is entitled, “The Arc and Impact of McLaren’s Work.” Section three reads, “McLaren across Contexts.” Finally, the fourth section deals with “McLaren the Marxist.” Introduction The preface begins with an account from Antonia Darder in which she describes McLaren’s work as radical discourse that considers the real world. Darder highlights the formidable writer’s prolific contributions to the field of critical educational theory. She writes that McLaren has struggled to bring to a generation of educators a Marxist critique of capitalism that reveals how capitalism has obstructed our vision and practice of democratic schooling in this country. Darderwrites that there is no question that this man of passion deserves this title “poet laureate of the educational Left”(xiv) for his “words that flame” given his highly imaginative use of language and the eloquence of his rhetorical style which she adds cannot be easily matched. Pruynand Huerta-Charles affectionately describe McLaren as a Che Guevara aficionado. His admiration for Che stems from Che writings and speeches and living revolutionary example of solidarity, internationalism, optimism, populism and activism and through his living radical praxis that advanced the socialist ideal of the “new person.” The Arc and Impact of McLaren’s Work In Part Two of this volume, “The Arc and Impact of McLaren’s Work,” the contributors have strived to illuminate the global, timeless themes of McLaren’s scholarship. For example, in chapter one, Roberto Bahruth reflects on and analyzes his own development as a scholar over the span of his career, now viewed in retrospect through a McLarian lens. In so doing, he is able to elaborate and critique Peter’s contributions. In the following chapter, Alípio Casali and Ana Maria Araújo Freire poignantly assess McLaren’s impact on the educational left—and progressive movements more generally—from their unique positionality not just as Brazilians but as central players within the Latin American criticalist movement, and paisanas and familiares of Paulo Freire himself. And Zeus Leonardo’s chapter clearly and carefully takes us through the slow, steady and considered development of Peter’s co-construction of the field of critical—and now “revolutionary”—pedagogy itself, as well as his development as a critical/revolutionary pedagogue. McLarenacross Contexts In Part Three, “McLaren Across Contexts,” the contributors both evaluate the impact of McLaren’s theorizing in different situated realities and for different groups of people, and critique the impact of his work across these different realities and ways of knowing and making sense of our worlds. Alicia de Alba and Marcela González Arenas situate and analyze McLaren’s work in the Mexican and Latin American contexts, pointing out his strengths, weaknesses and paradoxes. Pepi Leistyna writes about his own radical professional development that is informed by McLaren’s notion of revolutionary multiculturalism. Leistyna utilizes McLaren’s notions of “critical multiculturalism” to understand a school district attempting to create and implement a program of “multicultural professional development.” Leistyna writes that some will ask what do critical and historical materialist approaches have to offer educators who work in teacher education. Leistyna offers this quote from McLaren who writes, “… in the face of the global restructuring of accumulation and the trans-nationalization of factions of the economic elite, and in the midst of the current entrenchment of the culture/ideology of consumerism and individualism, the ideas and example of Che Guevara (and Paulo Freire) can play a signal role in helping educators transform schools into sites for social justice and revolutionary socialist praxis, particularly those educators who work in teacher education institutions." (p. 18) McLaren argues that critical pedagogy and multicultural education "no longer serve as an adequate social or pedagogical platform from which to mount a vigorous challenge to the current social division of labor and its effects on the socially reproductive functions of schooling in late capitalist society" (p. 96). Such critical approaches to public education, he insists, have lost their focus on anti-imperialist struggle that is at the heart of Che and Paulo's work. As McLaren declares, The pedagogy of Che Guevara (and Paulo Freire) is a pedagogy of hope and struggle, and until its revolutionary ethos is felt in the classrooms of schools and universities throughout the globe, the promise of emancipation for future generations remains bleak. (p. 118) In her chapter, Marcia Moraes attempts to differentiate McLaren by way of elaborations of critical pedagogy in two different contexts: rural areas within the state of Rio de Janeiro (where she works with K–12 teachers), and in the city of Rio de Janeiro where she teaches master’s students. McLaren the Marxist In this fourth and final section, the authors bring us back to present day McLaren who maintains a strong Marxist critique of our current global, economic state and situation, as well as our potential for the future. In the hopeful, “The ‘Inevitability of Globalized Capital’ versus the ‘Ordeal of the Undecidable,’” Michael Cole employs a Marxist critique and an analysis of the contributions of McLaren’s call to question the viability and survivability of global capitalism in the long term. In “The Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy of Peter McLaren,” Ramin Farahmandpur thoroughly, and not un-critically, looks back at the educational left over the last 25 years, noting and criticizing how this intellectual community has largely—and, he argues, detrimentally—abandoned Marxism in favor of assorted “posts-” and “neos-.” As part of this discussion, he situates and analyzes the work of McLaren as a central player in this community. In his chapter entitled, “Critical Education for Economic and Social Justice: A Marxist Analysis and Manifesto,” Dave Hill calls for nothing less than the title of his chapter/manifesto implies: a reinvention and reinvigoration of critical pedagogy through Marxian analyses and action. He argues that the current work of McLaren is central in the rearticulation of critical pedagogy as an instrument in the class struggle. In “Karl Marx, Radical Education and Peter McLaren: Implications for the Social Studies,” Curry Malott concludes the volume by guiding us through his conception of a re-created and radicalized social studies education as driven by a firm return to Marxist analyses, politics and praxis as informed by progressive social studies theorists and the current Marxian work of Peter McLaren. Conclusions In this book, Pruyn and Huerta-Charles and their contributors have elaborated the central theoretical ideas of Peter McLaren as filtered through their own lived experiences and struggles as teachers, graduate students and professors of education. Today, as grass roots political/educational/cultural movements are experiencing renewed vigor (in their anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-globalization efforts), and, occasionally, some hard-fought victories (against high stakes standardized testing), it appears time to connect activisms to sound theoretical, historical, philosophical and material explanations and understandings of how and why things are unfolding the way they are; that is, we need to continue to create a living praxis, a unity of theory and action. Peter McLaren message is that we need to teach dangerously and live with optimism. He urges us to advocate for a revitalized critique of global capitalism and to struggle in the streets against the ongoing militarization of social life and endless wars of imperialism. In doing so, McLaren’s urges us to consider Marx's prophetic warning against the depredations of capitalism in light of the work that we do in schools of education, where the logic of privatization abounds and where postmodernism has paralyzed the left, turning away educators from considering socialist alternatives to capitalism.. Reading Peter McLaren deftly captures McLaren’s central message that educators need to renew their commitment to the oppressed-not in historical-teleological terms, but in ethico-political terms that can create the conditions for socialist dreams to take root and liberatory praxis to be carried forward by undaunted faith in the oppressed. This text is highly recommended for theorist, faculty, and students who are concerned with educating for social justice. While it clearly is a book that leaves the reader with more questions and problems than answers, it never the less touches our own perplexities. Rightly so, and yet, it will also dare us to imagine that the revolutionary praxis of our time can be fashioned, here and now, in the depths of the alienated world. Note McLaren, P. Revolutionary Pedagogy Professor McLaren is the inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award presented by Chapman University, California, April 2002. He also received the Amigo Honorifica de la Comunidad Universitaria de esta Institucion by La Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Unidad 141, Guadalajara, México. He was a recipient of a "Lilly Scholarship" at Miami University of Ohio. Professor McLaren taught a course at the University of British Columbia, Canada, as a "Noted Scholar", and taught a course as Visiting Distinguished Professor at Brock University. He presented the Eminent Scholar Lecture at The Ohio State University, the Read Distinguished Lecture at Kent State, Ohio, the Freeman Butts Lecture for the American Education Studies Association, and delivered the Claude A. Eggerston Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society. Two of his books were winners of the American Education Studies Association Critics Choice Awards for outstanding books in education. Reference Luis Huerta-Charles & Marc Pruyn (2004).Marx, education and possible revolutionary futures: The theories and pedagogy of Peter McLaren. The Rouge Forum. Summer 2004, Issue #12. http://www.rougeforum.org/ About the Editors Marc Pruyn Email: profefronterizo@yahoo.com. Marc earned his PhD in curriculum at UCLA and works at New México State University as an associate professor of social studies education and as the Director of Elementary Education. His research interests include exploring the connections between education for social justice, multiculturalism, critical pedagogy and theory, and the social studies in the Chihuahuan Borderlands and beyond. Luis Huerta-Charles Email: lhuertac@nmsu.edu. Luis Huerta-Charles is an Assistant Professor from Mexico, who teaches Early Childhood/Bilingual Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at New Mexico State University. His experience as a bilingual learner has been invaluable to him in exploring issues of early childhood education, teacher education, and bilingual education related to socially just practices in the Borderlands. About the Reviewer Sheila Macrine, PhD, Email: smacrine@sju.edu, is a professor of teacher education. She is both a school psychologist and a reading specialist. Her research focuses on connecting the cultural, political, institutional and feminist contexts of institutional and personal contexts of pedagogy and learning theory, particularly as they relate the social imagination and progressive democratic education. She is currently studying political and cultural forces at work in national education policy and is also studying beliefs systems among early childhood and elementary teachers.