Liminal Spaces and Haunting Memories: Re/membering as a Process of Decolonizing Teacher Education

• In Event: Critical Teachers and Teacher Educators: Lessons From the Resisters

Abstract

In this paper, three teacher educators revisit memories from their own experiences as students in public education in Detroit, New York, and Boston, respectively. Working through the role of memory as a necessary process of decolonization, the authors use critical autoethnography to explore engagement with “haunting” memories through analysis of tangible artifacts as a critical practice in teacher education. These memories, we argue, contain valuable tensions that highlight the influences of teachers’ liminal schooling experiences on their sociocultural identities-- experiences that need revisiting in order for teacher educators to engage in a process of decolonizing the dominant, disempowering structures that continue to shape public education.

Authors

• Lauren Kelly, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education

• Maya R. Pindyck, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Danielle R. Filipiak, Teachers College, Columbia University