ABSTRACT
This chapter describes various ways in which the practice of teachers has been criticised by theorists and educators. It is concerned with open up the space in which the despair of the teacher is recognised, returned to, and not overcome. Theorists have attacked the identity of the teacher, but such an identity also returns in the person of the critic. Theorists often criticise the abstract knowledge of the teacher, but such abstractions return in their knowledge of those abstractions. A. S. Neill’s critique of the teacher is that intervention is domination. If the teacher disciplines a child then this prevents self-regulation. The positing of ‘real’ freedom is itself only a reflection of the enlightenment of the teacher regarding what ‘real’ freedom is, as opposed, for example, to its merely illusory appearances in other forms of education. For the coherence of radical pedagogy, it is important that Henry Giroux be able to distinguish between different types of teacher authority.
