Black Teacher Educator, White Teacher Interns: Bringing My Whole Self to My Work

• In Event: 30.080 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 30.080-4 - Confronting Racism in Teacher Education: Building for Transformation

Abstract

Objective
“If a huge bear was coming at me, I would try to protect myself too!” An angry heat filled my body as I listened to my student, a future urban teacher, compare a Black adolescent to an animal. My students and I were discussing the events surrounding Michael Brown, a heavy-set Black teenager that died that summer at the hands of a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Jeremy believed Michael’s size and his reported aggressive behavior were the motivating factors in the officer’s actions. As a Black woman living in America, I saw the officer’s actions as racially motivated. I thought that as a White man in his early twenties, Jeremy likely lived so positively affected by racism and classism that he was oblivious to the experiences of poor people of Color. I grew concerned about Jeremy’s colorblind ideologies and wondered how they would affect his ability to offer equitable learning opportunities for all of his students. Further, would he trust me, his Black teacher educator, to help him explore his biases?
It is imperative that preservice teachers confront their biases and colorblind perspectives in their learning-to-teach process. Flores (2007) laments,
The majority of new teachers will begin practice in increasingly diverse schools; even with the best of intentions, many may inadvertently contribute to persistent disparities in achievement, literacy and dropout rates, and life opportunities between culturally and linguistically diverse students and their White middle-class peers. (p. 381)

Theoretical Framework
A great deal of literature details the importance of teachers developing their culturally and linguistically responsive practice. Teacher educators often bear the responsibility of supporting new teachers’ process toward a developing a pedagogy focused on equity and social justice, but there is little research looking at the preparation of the culturally responsive teacher educator. There is even less literature documenting the emotional toll teacher educators of Color endure as they guide preservice teacher candidates toward an antiracist practice. In this paper, I describe how I came to acknowledge my important role as a Black teacher educator in the overwhelmingly White field of education.

Methods, Data
I take a critical, systematic look of my own practices with candidates in an urban teacher preparation program. I describe a thematic analysis of a series of my reflective fieldnotes (Bogdan and Biklen, 2006) as well as student work including teacher portfolio entries, unit and lesson planning assignments, and weekly critical incident reports.

Conclusions, Significance
I found that as my students shared their ideas about race and racism, I avoided stating my own ideas, as I was unsure of where my students would draw the line between effective teacher educator and “angry Black woman.” Other times, my silence allowed me to exercise self-care in moments that confronting my students felt too exhausting. I conclude that I must consistently highlight my students’ colorblind discourse, while also building their trust in me as their Black teacher educator by bringing my whole self to this work.

Author

• Tanya Maloney, Montclair State University