It's aQuestion ofFaith: Discourses of Fundamentalism ... - JAC Online

Discoursesof Fundementalism 349
example,Kincheloearguesthat conservativeandcriticaleducatorscannot engagein
productive dialogueabout the politics of education becauseconservativesdo not
appreciatethe assumptionsupon whichcriticaleducatorsmaketheir arguments.He
saysthat conservativeeducators,
have trouble understanding that (our] reading and our thinking about reading (whether we are
reading and thinking about the traditional canon or about student and teacher lives) are
sociopolitical acts-our interpretations cannot be separated from where we are standing when
we read and think, in other words, our location in the web of reality. (53)
WhileKincheloeultimatelyaimsto hesensitiveto fundamentaliststudents,hisabove
comment succumbsto thesametype ofmisreadingthat Coxsuggestspreventsliberal
theologians from engagingwith conservativetheologians. In essence,Kincheloe
doesn't fullyappreciatethetheoreticalortheologicallevelupon whichdebatesabout
critical pedagogy might be productively engaged. Conservative educators (and
conservativestudentsaswell)dounderstandthatreadingandwritingaresociopolitical
acts. They know that interpretations cannot beseparatedfrom their webofreality.
Butbecausethey donotviewtheirwebsintermsofthesocialmatrixesthat Kincheloe
identifiesascentral,their interpretations areconsiderednaiveanduncritical.
Fundamentalist students recognize the sociopolitical nature of reading and
schoolcurriculum ingeneral;what they choosenot to recognizeisthe importance of
theorizing theseactsinterms ofsocialdifferencessuchasrace,class,gender,and so
on. Instead, they believethat their web of reality-one that theorizes in terms of
secular and religious-baseddifferences-is the most useful in understanding and
critiquing educational practices. In many ways, the responses of students with
fundamentalistbeliefsserveasamirror (albeitsomecriticaleducatorsmight suggest
adark one)that reflectsthe principlesofcriticalpedagogyfrom adifferentlocation.
Rereadingthe discoursesofcriticalpedagogythrough the mirror offundamentalist
discoursehelpsto point out uninterrogated assumptionsthat limit teachers'
understanding oftheir students' responses. For instance,Phyllis Mentzell Ryder
suggeststhat critical educators "need to offer students a persuasive method that
exposesthe differencesbetweenthe professed,dominant valuesandthe actualeffects
ofthoseideologies"(519).In describingtheviewofknowledgeunderpinning critical
pedagogy asinherently political, Ryder callsfor a developmental approach that
provides"spacesfor studentsto hold disparateideasuntil time andexperiencegive
them waysto reconceptualizethose ideas"(523).In asimilarvein,Patricia Bizzell
argues that one problem with critical pedagogy is that teachers rely upon
antifoundationalist notions ofauthority which posit no authority existingbeyond
one'shistoricalposition:"Weexerciseauthority overthem inaskingthem to giveup
these foundational beliefsbut we givethem nothing to put in the placeof these
foundationalbeliefsbecausewedenythevalidityofallauthority, including,presumably,
our own" (Bizzell670). Instead,Bizzellsuggests,teachersmust usetheir own
ability as rhetors to persuade students to construct a progressive authority that
constructsandvaluesknowledge: