Transcript Reframing Teacher Education for Diversity

Social Justice in Education:
Preparing Teachers for Diversity
Sonia Nieto
National-Louis University
Chicago, IL
September 1, 2009
Why does preparing teachers for diversity
matter?
• a civic responsibility
• a moral responsibility
• the future of public
education is at stake
• the sociopolitical
context demands it
”Large numbers of new teachers
describe themselves as distinctly
underprepared for the challenges of
dealing with the ethnic and racial
diversity that they find in the classroom
at a time when many schools have
increasingly varied populations.”
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, and Public Agenda, 2008
Questions to Consider
• Why does preparing teachers for diversity matter?
• What is social justice in education?
• What can schools of education and higher education do
to create a new vision for teacher education?
• What kinds of dispositions and abilities do teachers need
to teach in today’s public schools, particularly in urban
schools which are largely Hispanic and African American,
and how can schools and colleges of education help
them develop these dispositions?
• What can we do to change current practices in our
teacher education programs to reflect the ideals of
diversity and social justice?
It matters because, in spite of it all,
good teaching can help…
“what teachers know
and do is one of the
most important
influences on what
students learn”
(National Commission on Teaching and
America’s Future, 1996)
CHANGING SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF
EDUCATION
 Mission statement
 Goals and objectives
 Programs
 Curriculum
 Pedagogy
 Prepracticum and practicum placements
 Other experiences
 Recruitment
 of students
 of faculty
What is the role of
higher education?
• Promoting teaching as a career within the academy
• Providing more enriching course work, both in the arts and
sciences and in education
• Creating rigorous criteria for entering the profession - but not
just GPAs or passing scores on certification tests
• Vigorously recruiting underrepresented populations, both faculty
and students
 Partnering with community colleges
 Partnering with urban schools
 To recruit students
 For professional development
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF TEACHER
EDUCATION?
• To help prospective teachers learn more about the students they teach
and the contexts in which they live
• To create a climate in which prospective teachers become critical
thinkers
• To help them understand that teaching is more than a job but different
from missionary work
• To help them question and confront their assumptions and biases
• To help them learn to negotiate differences
• To provide experiences so they learn to speak other languages and
learn about cultures other than their own
• To reject simplistic solutions to complex problems
• To question “best practices”
• To teach them to be curious, active, humble, and courageous
• To prepare them to be social activists in education
Everybody’s
for it…
But what is social justice in education?
And do your programs deliver?
Social justice in education
 Providing all students with the resources necessary to
learn to their full potential
 Material resources: books, curriculum, financial support, and
so on;
 Emotional resources: a belief in their ability and worth; care;
high expectations and rigorous demands; the necessary social
and cultural capital to negotiate the world;
 Drawing on the resources, talents, and strengths that
students bring to their education
 Creating a learning environment that promotes critical
thinking and agency for social change
Beginning the conversation among
faculty and students
 Creating a “safe” but not “comfortable”
space
 Engaging in “dangerous discourse”
 Sharing experiences through
collaborative readings, research,
program planning
• Social justice as advocacy
• Social justice as sociocultural mediation
• Social justice as solidarity
Social Justice as Advocacy
Ambrizeth lima
I teach because I believe that
young people have rights,
including the right to their
identities and their languages…
This has meant that I’ve had to
engage in many struggles to
retain bilingual education {a
right that was eradicated in
2002 when the voters of
Massachusetts supported the
elimination of bilingual
education through a ballot
initiative)…
Teaching is about
power. That is why it
must also be about
social justice.
Social justice as
Sociocultural mediation
I'm a White, middle-class woman who
grew up in a White, middle-class
neighborhood and went to a White
middle-class college. I know if I was
really going to teach today’s kids, I had
a lot to learn…
Mary Ginley
Our responsibility is to meet them
where they are and take them
someplace else, and have them
carry who they are along with them.
Social justice as solidarity
•
•
•
•
Solidarity as high expectations
Solidarity as trust
Solidarity as humility
Solidarity as a deep connection with students’
identities
Solidarity as high expectations
“I know it’s easy to
sit back and listen to
the gossip in
schools. ‘These kids
can’t learn,’ is what
you hear. The truth
is they can and do.
We have to see and
believe.”
Sandra Jenoure
Solidarity as trust
“I begin to see returns
on my trust when a
student marked absent
appears in the doorway
at 10:23 with a
sheepish grin. In her
hand, she carries a
note from the hospital
where she spent the
night…”
Seth Peterson
solidarity as humility
At my undergraduate college, I
was in the majority. That was
mostly who was in the program:
White women who were native
speakers of English. But in the
BEM Summer Program, out of
30 students, there were a
handful of native English
speakers…
Mary Cowhey
Solidarity as a deep connection with
students’ identities
Coming out of the closet as a
Spanish speaker: Bill Dunn
In my work, I often act as a bridge
between different cultures. Part of
my evolution as a teacher has been
in self defense: I have learned to
make my life easier by making life
easier for my students; but another,
greater part of my experience has
been a deep curiosity and yearning to understand the
lives of my students. In my struggle to understand, I
have learned not only a great deal about my students,
but also about myself…
Learning from teachers with a social
justice orientation
• It takes more than current reforms that emphasize
test scores and bureaucratic “fixes”
• Go beyond templates, rubrics, and prepackaged
curricula
• Question “best practices” and “one-size-fits-all”
solutions
• Understand that teaching is above all about
relationships
“It is impossible to talk of
respect for students, for the
dignity that is in the process of
coming to be, for the identities
that are in the process of
construction, without taking into
consideration the conditions in
which they are living and the
importance of the knowledge
derived from life experience,
which they bring with them to
school. I can in no way
underestimate such knowledge.
Or what is worse, ridicule it.”
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom, 1998