ABSTRACT
The author's journey toward critical pedagogy, as with many other teachers, is steeped in his personal narrative. Our world is awash with disturbing injustices: extreme poverty, exploitation of women, children, and workers, unprecedented environmental calamities which include climate change, food shortages, dwindling water resources, and the daily extinction of species. Given such dire circumstance, our citizens require nothing less than a pedagogy that examines these injustices within the local community and links them to larger issues across the globe. The author began to recognize that the framework for social justice envisioned by critical pedagogues failed to address environmental justice. Without this dimension, critical pedagogy failed to recognize the interconnectedness of environmental factors with corresponding social and political factors. The author began to read and explore theories and practices that might link his students to the issues found in our rural environment and develop their skills to critique and resist these injustices.
