A Unique Model for Promoting Equity in Education Focused on Teacher Preparation for Urban Settings

• In Event: 75.047 - Culturally Responsive Approaches to Preparing Early Childhood Teachers for Inclusive Classrooms

Abstract

The national spotlight focuses squarely on improving results for young children with a wide range of abilities and from culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse backgrounds. Our teacher preparation program is based on the assumption that preparing teachers to work with children in urban settings requires the ability to critically examine our own biases about children, curriculum, and learning processes, and recognize teaching as requiring serious, analytic work.

Core features of our teacher preparation programs include: (1) preparation for teaching in urban settings with young children from diverse family backgrounds and with a diverse range of abilities and strengths; (2) research-practice integration (RPI), focusing on teacher research based on gathering evidence of children’s learning and one’s own teaching; and (3) community partnerships with urban programs (e.g., public schools, community preschool programs). Our two-year model is cohort-based and our curriculum sequential, with students taking courses in theory and methods simultaneously, alongside field-based experiences. Students in our programs are eligible for multiple certifications (mild-moderate disabilities; ESL) in addition to the Massachusetts PreK-2 teaching license.

Sociologist Elijah Anderson argues that the term “achievement gap” is problematic, because it locates the problem within the individual, while the true location is societal and structural. In increasingly pluralistic urban centers in the U.S., divisions over issues of race, ethnicity, and social class persist and “are insinuated into almost every area of urban life,” particularly the urban school setting (Anderson, 2012). We believe that these are critical issues with which upcoming teachers need to grapple and we are committed to helping them recognize the strengths of children as learners while getting past their own biases about the capabilities of children from diverse backgrounds. To examine the extent to which our teacher preparation program is successfully implementing our approach, we will present case studies of students from the first cohort to graduate from the program.

We will also highlight unique initiatives within a dynamic community-university partnership including: utilizing the overlapping roles of our Evelyn G. Pitcher Curriculum Lab, the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School, and the STELLAR program with the Somerville Public Schools to enhance students’ learning; a model for integrating pre-service teacher preparation with in-service professional development designed to create a community of learners, where practice and research inform one another and where students can observe, interrogate, and contribute to high quality educational practice; NSF-funded STEM curriculum research projects led by ECE faculty; and the “MAT + 3” program developed to provide post-graduation support for the first three years of teaching.

Finally, we will discuss challenges in our teacher preparation program including: how to get students familiar with neighborhoods they will be working in and recognize these as ideal places for teachers to learn about their students’ lives in the service of making curriculum more relevant (Buck & Sylvester, 2005); being nimble in the face of an ever-changing policy landscape, while also adhering to core values; dealing with false dichotomies that pervade the early childhood education field (e.g., academics vs. play-based curriculum); and recruiting and funding for diverse students.

Authors

• Christine M McWayne, Tufts University

• Jayanthi Mistry, Tufts University

• Cindy Ballenger, Tufts University

• Marina U. Bers, Tufts University

• Bruce Johnson, Tufts University

• Hanna Gebretensae, Tufts University