Understanding Perspectives and Privileges: Preparing Rural Teachers for Diverse Students in Urban Settings and Everywhere Else

• In Event: 61.049 - From Preschool to High School: Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers to Meet Students' Needs

Abstract

The perspectives of predominantly white, rural college students enrolled in an elementary education teacher certification program are explored in this practitioner research study through coursework and assignments in a foundational course that explores the social contexts of schools. Using data collected over the span of four consecutive semesters and two summer sessions, the researcher/practitioner delves into the curriculum needed to prepare rural, majority-white college students to successfully teach diverse students—especially for those choosing to teach in urban schools. According to Sealey-Ruiz (2011), white preservice teachers often suffer from a lack of cultural responsivity that leads to problems in the classroom for students of different cultural backgrounds. Sealey-Ruiz believes that preservice teachers who do not identify with their students and vice versa need to develop racial literacy—the existing discontinuity negatively impacts student outcomes and student achievement.

It also has a significant impact on the long-term success of preservice teachers entering the field (Sleeter, 2001; Gay, 2010). Ironically, the need for classes that focus on issues of diversity and cultural competence are typically housed in only one course during a multi-semester sequence. These courses may be the only time that students encounter multiple perspectives to education and some may resist the ideas and concepts discussed/introduced in the course because they may go beyond the status quo or predominant-group perspective that students may have become accustomed to in their own educational journey.

At the start of the semester, students are asked to reflect on their own educational journey by writing a series of reflective essays and in-class responses. The most informative of these are students’ racial/ethnic autobiographies. The majority of student respondents discuss being unaware of the impact of racism and white privilege until they encounter readings in the course. While many preservice students report growing up as children and young adults in rural/suburban areas, they often enthusiastically report being able to understand or “put themselves in someone else’s shoes”—what they discover is that they need to spend some serious time reflecting on what it means to be white in this society. Using readings by Ladson-Billings; McIntosh; Howard; and many others, students begin to understand their own positionality and the impact privilege (race; class; or gender) has played in shaping their views and understandings of people of color. By using children’s literature, video, and documentary, students not only learn how to process their feelings as adult learners; they begin to build a toolkit of activities that they can later use with their own elementary aged students.

According to several particpants who want to teach in urban settings they believe that much of their own early education has been negatively skewed by hearing about the world from a predominantly Western/European perspective. Many of these college students are drawn to teaching from a social justice framework. However, they are still working hard reconciling the emotions they feel challenging the stereotypes and ideas that they may have actually been raised with—this can cause conflicts for them with family and friends.

Author

• Darrell C. Hucks, Keene State College