On the “Flip” Side: A Teacher Educator of Color Unveiling the Dangerous Minds of Teaching White Teacher Candidates

• In Event: Preachin’ to the Unconverted: Building Community Between Critical Teacher Educators of Color and Their Predominately White Preservice Candidates

Abstract

Growing in need is the demand for teacher education program incorporating socially just, culturally responsive programs that specifically address the educational needs of impoverished Black and Brown, academic language learning students (Gay, 2000, McLaren, 2003, Nieto, 2006, Villegas, 2010). One response to such programmatic change is to increase diversity in teacher education by attracting teacher educators of color (TECs) such as Ernest Morrell, Tyrone Howard, Adrienne Dixson, Garret Duncan, who bring to the program (1) expertise in critical examinations of race and (2) experience in teaching in impoverished Black and Brown communities. However, despite familiarity with teaching Black and Brown students, teaching White teacher candidates is a different terrain. Further, although there have been popular depictions of the horrific, yet rewarding experiences White teachers face in teaching impoverish Black and Brown students (Dangerous Mind, Freedom Writers, The Ron Clark Story, Blackboard Jungle) there is little documentation of the horrific, yet rewarding experiences TECs face when implementing new strategies to WTCs. Additionally, there are few theoretical explications beyond Derrick Bell’s (1980) interest convergence and diversity of what TECs bring to revitalize the true meaning of socially just, culturally responsive teacher education programs.

Therefore, this paper employs critical race theory’s counterstorytelling (Delgado-Bernal, 2002, Gilborn, 2010, Solórzano& Yosso, 2002), to illuminate these experiences in response to newly implemented pedagogical strategies. Additionally, I apply Tara Yosso’s and David Garcia’s (2007) concept of cultural capital, and how that applies to the wealth of knowledge TECs bring to truly make teacher education program socially just and genuinely culturally responsive. In fact, this paper is written entirely in a critical metacognitive, self-reflexive counterstory that draws from my diaries of being a Filipina-American TEC and teaching WTCs with new pedagogical strategies that differ from my White colleagues. Yet, despite methodologically using my entries in a qualitative manner to document my pedagogical strategies and experiences in teaching them, this paper also proposes the essentiality for more presence of TECs in teacher education in order to move toward a true socially just, culturally responsive teacher education program that meets the need of our Black and Brown community.

Author

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of Colorado - Denver