ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how peace and social justice educators can renew their attention to emotion in their pedagogy in ways that can animate learning and change. Participant educators often discussed how they work to sustain a “learning edge” with their students—what educator Ramiro names “creative discomfort”. Educators reflected that they often raise the unstated discomfort of students to the surface by responding to body signs including coughing, the shuffling of chairs, or the rolling of eyes. Educators highlighted how asking students to consider social structures often requires destabilizing students who have adapted to a status quo that “feels right” because it is comfortable, familiar. A strategic attention to the pace of learning; and a caution against using the stories of those aligned with marginalized subjectivities as content for other students’ learning. Critical dialogue to analyze the concrete lives of students is a centerpiece to critical pedagogy. Yet participants note that unreflexively relying on the stories of students raises pedagogical concerns.
