Believing that transformation is possible and that it must come from within, Doyle illustrates the vital connection between drama and critical pedagogy. Presuming that a practice informed by the theory of critical pedagogy is essential to achieve an emancipatory education, he shows how well drama and aesthetic education can encourage a pedagogy that is critical. When not robbed of creativity through the reproductive policies of the dominant cultural agencies, the reality of each individual informs the way in which art and drama are experienced and thereby encourages social change.

The work in this text represents an effort to put my own teaching, directing, and reflection into some form. It is always a challenge to see how our own practice stands the test of even our own articulation. Part of this exercise has to do with the "teacher question" of why I do a given thing in my teaching and the companion question of what value that thing has. We all have different answers for such questions. Then again, part of the struggle has to do with refining the questions.

While I was working on chapter five of this text I was offered a dramatic and powerful image by my daughters. The previous day one of their friends died as the result of a gunshot wound. That night hundreds of school friends and some teachers had gathered on a beach near his home and lit a massive bonfire. The bonfire was their tribute to him. It was their way of saying he was present. It was their ritual. In many ways that ritual put the work of this text into focus for me.

We all struggle to make meaning for ourselves. For sixteen years I worked with high school students, and for as many years I tried to make meaning out of what I did. I always knew there had to be more to education than telling the students what I had learned in school. I also realized that the most successful students were the . . .