In the broad field of applied linguistics, researchers and educators have strived to examine how everyday practices, interactions, and texts help (re)produce or problematize structural inequalities (see Pennycook, 2001). Often referred to as critical pedagogy, this philosophy of education, however, has been criticized for its assumed universality (Ellsworth, 1989; Lather, 1998); further, there has been disappointment by many of those who attempt to bring it into practice (e.g., Allen, 2011; Shin & Rubio, in press). To respond to the fundamental conundrum facing applied linguists and teachers, the current paper sheds new light on the identity construction of teachers by drawing into Foucault's theory of "the care of the self" (1988). This attempt to re-frame critical pedagogies from an ethical perspective necessitates researchers and language educators to consider the question of "what, given the contemporary order of being, can I be?" (Butler, 2004, p. 58). Extracting illustrations from my longitudinal ethnographic research on a veteran ESL teacher's use of historical fiction in a public high school in California, this paper shows how this "transformative intellectual" (Giroux, 1988) grapples with his own complicity with different hegemonic discourses and addresses various types of injustices through class discussion. In the process of demonstrating the tight link between the focal teacher's pedagogical decisions (e.g., what to teach, how to teach) and the ethical nurturing of the self, I aim to stimulate dialogue about our own struggles to become ethical subjects, the role of intersubjectivity, and pedagogical practices that can foster ethical subjectivities and lead to large structural changes. Finally, this paper also explores some of the challenges as well as layers of complexity involved in adopting the theory of ethics in implementing a critically oriented curriculum and understanding teachers' identities.
Allen, H. W. (2011). Embracing literacy-based teaching: A longitudinal study of the conceptual development of novice foreign language teachers. In K. E. Johnson & P. R. Golombek (Eds.), Sociocultural research on second language teacher education: Exploring the complexities of professional development (pp. 86-101). New York, NY: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. London: Routledge.
Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 297-323.
Foucault, M. (1988). The care of the self. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey.
Lather, P. (1998). Critical pedagogy and its complicities: a praxis of stuck places. Educational Theory, 48(4), 511-519.
Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. London: Routledge.
Shin, J., & Rubio, J. W. (in press). Becoming a critical ESL teacher: The intersection of historicity, identity, and pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly.
