This book describes one individual's reinvention as an educator, from a liberal humanist to an advocate of critical pedogogy. It examines relationships between schooling, the wider social relations that inform it, and historically constructed needs and competencies that students bring to schools, focusing on the social conditions of disaffected students living in public housing units under oppressive circumstances and addressing the needs of inner-city teachers. It uses the concepts of critical pedagogy to analyze the failure of inner-city schools and suggest a vision for changing schooling. The story begins with the publication of a journal documenting the individual's teaching experiences at an inner-city elementary school. Part 1, "Broken Dreams, False Promises, and the Decline of Public Schooling," documents the nature of crises in schooling and society. Part 2, "Cries from the Corridor: Teaching in the Suburban Ghetto," presents teachers' and students' daily struggles in an inner-city school. Part 3, "Critical Pedagogy: An Overview," examines the tradition of critical pedagogy and introduces general terms associated with the critical educational tradition. Part 4, "Analysis," presents additional categories and theoretical perspectives from the critical tradition, concluding with an essay on the role of teachers as social agents. Part 5, "Looking Backward, Looking Forward," provides context for furthering the analysis of critical pedagogy with respect to more recent analyses of schooling and social and political struggles, emphasizing critical multiculturalism and the politics of resistance and liberation. Its central thesis deals with the abolition of "whiteness." (Some sections contain references.) (SM)