Abstract
Just as Paulo Freire (1968/1990) informs us in Pedagogy of the Oppressed that “only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking” (pp. 63-64), faculty development garners its meaning only in tandem with the engagement of teachers it serves. CTLs aim, then, to pulse through their institutions, to operate in a dynamic rather than, as Freire would warn “in ivory tower isolation,” emerging only to impose their thoughts (or someone else’s thoughts) on teachers (p. 64). Any CTL worker who has stared at the empty chairs facing a guest speaker or who has had to extend due dates for teaching awards in response to a dearth of applicants has wondered how their CTL might integrate more with the life’s blood of its school. At the same time, CTL workers must wonder always what faculty will find most relevant to their work and how a CTL might not only inform but also be informed by this sense of relevance. Faculty developers discern that relevance in communication with teachers, in a dialogue that is, above all, concerned with their reality and not what a CTL might predetermine to be their reality.
