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Dr. Anthony Clarke
Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies
University of British Columbia
Teacher Red
The importance of Seeing Red for teacher education is that it challenges teachers to think differently about their interactions with the world. Teachers' interactions are represented and mediated by the pedagogical stances they adopt. Such stances are ever-present and constantly changing, sometimes imperceptibly and at other times dramatically. Seeing Red takes the reader beyond boundaries typically acknowledged within education. It invites one to think differently, more expansively, about how one is complicit in the world of teaching and learning. As such, the story is deliberately provocative. Seeing Red causes a quick intake of breath akin to plunging into the cold waters of an ocean on a hot summer's day. The undercurrents of the story swirl about and buffet the reader as the story unfolds. Julia's letters summon participation. Her perspectives have the potential to inform, alter, and change one's view of teaching and learning and the pedagogical stance that one adopts in educational contexts. Seeing Red defines a new way of thinking about scholarship. It presents “the possibilities and potential of artful research” (p. 283). It is, simply, a/r/tographic in every sense of the word: artist, researcher, and teacher.
Scholarly projects like Seeing Red require courage, stamina, and imagination. As such, Seeing Red is exemplary and groundbreaking. The rigor with which Seeing Red was formulated, undertaken, and presented is not readily obvious when first read. However, the attention to detail, the judicious choices made, and the strong