Exploring the Experiences of Teacher Insiders Within the Grow Your Own Teacher Movement

• In Event: Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Insider/Inside the Teacher: Multiple Perspectives on Teacher Identity

Abstract

This study seeks to understand how teacher candidates who have been the recipients of an unjust
and inequitable society and school system come to understand their own experiences in a way
that holds those experiences as honorable while leading them to see ways to change that system
as teachers and community members. The eleven year (2000 – 2011) grow-your-own program was based on a partnership between an urban public school district and its neighboring
northeastern university designed to recruit prospective teachers and return them as well-trained and effective educators. Through off-site interviews with 3 full-time teachers, one student teacher, and a permanent substitute, the story of what these change agents mean to their city and schools unfold.

Author

• Djanna A. Hill, William Paterson University