This interview with Joe was conducted for the 150th Anniversary of the Faculty of Education at McGill University.

I first met Joe in 2005 while I was Canada Research Chair in democratic learning at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He had recently accepted a Canada Research Chair in critical studies at McGill University. At the time, I was organizing a regular colloquium series in the department of education at Concordia and invited Joe to come speak about his work to faculty and students with the expectation he would decline my offer due to the extraordinary demands on his own time. Of course I was wrong. Not only did he accept my invitation to speak but took the necessary time to answer all questions about his work from those who joined us on that particularly frosty winter afternoon.

Joe L. Kincheloe, a prolific scholar, tireless teacher and mentor, irrepressible musician, and leading figure in the critical pedagogy movement, died on December 19, 2008, after suffering a heart attack while on vacation in Jamaica.

Joe, as he preferred to be addressed, was the Canada Research Chair in Critical Pedagogy in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. During his time at McGill, he and Shirley Steinberg founded the Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy (http://freire.mcgill.ca/), which has established itself as a leading archival and coordinating centre for a global research initiative that works with teachers and students to improve the contribution that education makes to social justice and the democratic quality of people’s lives.

I will always have Joe in everything I do. Without his guidance, I would not have opportunities to speak as in this Op-Ed running today in my city paper: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090103/OPINION/901030317/1008

Continuing to grow the critical space—paul thomas