![]() ![]() The lack of structured dance notation systems represents an obstacle for current embodiment of ancient dance styles and techniques, but sketches by Jean Aumer (1774-1833), Carlo Blasis (1795-1878), and André Jean-Jacques Deshayes (1777-1846) enable us to depict some specific choreographic processes of the time. In early 19th century ballet, drawing seems to be a relevant skill for a successful European ballet master. I am also indebted to anonymous reviewers and editor Tom Pearson for helping me to bring more order and clarity to these reflections. ![]() I explore in this essay how I reoriented my world religions course to provide opportunities for greater personal engagement by students, encouraging their 1 I thank the members of the College Theology Society (CTS) for the informal feedback many provided on my preliminary work with this material at the 2013 CTS Annual Conference. The transformation I went through helped me see the value of my work with these students in a different way. I am thankful to the hundreds of students who, simply by being themselves and enrolling in classes I was fortunate to teach, were catalysts for my pedagogical and theological self-examination and growth. Wrestling with this shame became a transformative process for me which, eventually, empowered me to affirm the worth of my work by researching a sample course and writing this essay. 1 The " Show and Tell " aspect of the essay follows the personal narrative because my pedagogical reflection arose out of and is inseparable from an intense struggle of many years with adjunct shame. This essay embeds elements of the " Show and Tell " genre regarding a particular world religions survey course within the larger framework of a personal narrative which sketches my adjunct identity and the challenge of teaching large lecture classes of at-risk students enrolled in a state university. – Parker Palmer In their typology of the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion, Killen and Gallagher (2013) identify six genres, two of which are the " Personal/ Confessional/Vocational, " which proceeds from the assumption that " insight comes from reflection on the experience and person of the teacher " (116) and the " Show and Tell, " which " attempts to identify precisely why a particular teaching strategy did or did not work as anticipated " (115). I argue that despite many contextual limitations, the movement toward deepening self-awareness and increasing openness to religious diversity seen in student writing demonstrates that transformative learning began in this course, and that is valuable for students' lives whether or not they are academically successful. Insights from my feminist theological training helped me to affirm the importance of encouraging transformative learning in teaching the academically marginalized and prompted my analysis of student writing in an introductory World Religions course, in order to determine whether or not the course was a site of transformative learning. This essay describes a transformation in my experience as an adjunct teaching underprepared students from one of shame toward a desire to assert the value of this work. We close with recommendations to increase our collective capacity as social justice teacher educators, placing a central emphasis on the need for community, critical professional development, and hope. In so doing, we offer tools for critical professional development that articulate, deconstruct, and reimagine social justice–oriented teacher education and activism in this changing landscape. We then invite readers to examine each case through multiple lenses, as they grapple with the complexities of a visionary path forward. To do so, we first present a series of autoethnographic critical case studies that highlight dilemmas of practice. In this article we draw upon traditions of critical race theory, counterstorying, and critical hope to examine the complex realities of contemporary teacher education and envision an alternate reality in which our profession develops and thrives. As social justice–oriented teachers and teacher educators, it can seem as if we are fighting a losing battle against neoliberal education policies designed to disrupt and dismantle our field. ![]()
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