Transformative Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning toward Moral Agency in the Face of the Seemingly Insurmountable

This paper addresses a central pedagogical conundrum confronting theological educators who seek to bring the various subdisciplines in practical theology (and in related fields of theology and religious studies) to bear on the seemingly insurmountable moral and material challenges of climate change linked with predatory capitalism and white supremacy. The pedagogical conundrum stems from a paradox. 

One the one hand, humans cannot address the reality of climate injustice and its roots in white supremacy and economic exploitation without seeing “what is going on” – that is, without recognizing  the magnitude of the climate disaster;  the dynamics of race, class, gender, and Global North privilege determining who will suffer and die due to it; the complexity of power structures aligned to maintain our trajectory of climate injustice; and the constellation of worldviews that undergird these power arrangements causing climate injustice.  Yet, on the other hand, the more one sees, the more powerless one may feel. A foreboding sense of doom or disabling rage, or a “too lateness” may set in, threatening to overpower our moral power to make a difference.  The knowledge necessary for effective moral-spiritual agency may also strangle that very agency. This conundrum haunts the urgent quest for moral-spiritual power in the face of the intersectional and global challenges presented by the crises of climate change and climate injustice. The pedagogical challenge, then, is to teach climate justice/climate injustice in ways that instill moral agency. 

What pedagogies will generate the moral agency for a dramatic and rapid reversal, a turn to ways of ways of living that Earth can sustain and that breed economic, racial, and environmental equity?  What and how do we and our students need to learn? This paper poses that constellation of questions, suggests overarching guidelines for responding to them, and then presents a series of pedagogical experiments aimed at invoking moral agency.

This paper explicitly advocates teaching climate justice, not only climate change, for a reason. Teaching only about climate change can ignore the related social injustice that the world’s climate privileged people – disproportionately descendants of Europe – will find it more possible to survive while vast numbers of Black and Brown people, other people of color, and Indigenous people will be displaced or die. Measures to address climate change without addressing the disparity and inequality that positions people differently, will perpetuate climate privilege and exacerbate inequity grounded in race, class, and gender. Thus, climate change could become the most widespread manifestation of white privilege yet known to humankind.

The paper is written collaboratively by three of seven authors working collectively on a series of highly accessible books addressing the nexus of economic injustice, racial injustice, and climate change. The team of three is intentionally constructed to cross boundaries of academy-popular education,  race, discipline, and generation. They are located variously in the academy, the faith-based activist community, and a hybrid of both.  And they draw collectively on decades of experience in both global and local contexts. In this paper, this three-person author team draws upon the books in the series (ranging from already published to forthcoming) to suggest innovative, experimental, experiential, collaborative pedagogies, presented through case studies. While it may seem risky to welcome a collaboratively written paper, that risk, in this case, is mitigated by the fact that these authors have worked together closely over time, and have a track-record of fruitful collaboration.

The authors will engage audience participation and discussion of case studies that embody the solidarity and hope of communities embracing their moral-spiritual agency in collaborative work for transformative change. The case studies, while grounded in theory, are oriented to involve the session’s “audience” (to the extent possible in an AAR session) in the innovative teaching and learning process, thus highlighting the theme of the session itself. The paper ends by suggesting lines for critique of and improvement on these pedagogical experiments, and inviting the “audience” of this AAR session to offer constructive critique and suggestions for pedagogical improvement. 

The teaching challenge is to unmask the systemic and historical roots and consequences of climate change as an issue of white supremacy and economic imperialism,  but to do so in ways that evoke agency for addressing those root causes and consequences. Teaching must enable seeing  reality for what it is, and despite that, instilling hope and moral agency. Holding fierce incisive honesty together with hope and agency is crucial because the former (seeing climate injustice clearly) is a fast and sure way to disable the latter (hope and moral agency). This is a charge to educators in the subdisciplines of theology and religion studies, be they situated in the academy, in ecclesial bodies, or in the broader society. 

This paper’s authors understand teaching and learning to be most effective when participatory and collaborative. We offer both a framework and a series of examples when we argue that pedagogy focused on empowering moral agency around climate, economic, and racial injustice ought to be accompanied by efforts to: build a trusting and trustworthy learning community, acknowledge the sacred in the learning process, and link learning to learners’ lives and contexts while exposing learners to realities and communities beyond their sphere of experience or existing knowledge.