Post-it Note Censorship: A Black Preservice Teacher Languages Race/Literacy in a White Teacher's Classroom

• In Event: 28.090 - MTCC Roundtable Session Nine
  In Roundtable Session: 28.090-10 - Learning to Language: Preservice Teachers' Examination of Their Own Language During Literacy Instructional Interactions

Abstract

Propose(s) and Perspective
The purpose of this study is to examine how classroom relationships and literacy instruction are languaged and practiced in elementary classroom literacy events when literacy is intertwined with race and the idea of novice (i.e., a novice teacher who is still learning from a "master" teacher). Noticing an event where a white cooperating teacher censored her black preservice teacher's read aloud lesson of White Socks Only (a book set in the Jim Crow era US south), we wondered:
• how the preservice teacher languaged her understanding of her hierarchical relationship with the cooperating teacher;
• how she took up, practiced and disrupted certain ideologies behind the cooperating teacher’s censorship
• How she reflected on this literacy event both before and after it occurred.
Methods & data sources
In order to examine how classroom relationships and literacy instruction are languaged when the instructional context is linked with race and the idea of the pre-service teacher as a novice, we draw on experiences of one preservice teacher of color during the Read Aloud Lesson Study project. Data sources include video recordings of the preservice teacher during her planned read aloud lesson of the book White Socks Only (Coleman, 1996); the university course instructor's note of the Read Aloud Lesson Study group debriefing meeting; a transcript; and an interview with the preservice teacher.
Results (or maybe plan for “activity” with small group)
Analysis shows that the preservice teacher languaged her way of being a teacher as she talked back to how her cooperating teacher positioned her and the students in the classroom as humans and as being literate. Specifically, the cooperating teacher seemed to call up the particular trope of children being too innocent to engage with difficult and complex topics. The preservice teacher pushed back against this teacher trope as she spoke about her own lived experiences as a person of color in relation to the book and her understanding of her student’s experiences; further, during the read aloud lesson, she made moves to resist the cooperating teacher's positioning of herself and the students as certain kinds of literate human beings through the use of this trope.
Within this alternative format session, attendees will be invited to examine a short segment of video and the accompanying transcript to consider how this preservice teacher languages her relationships with her cooperating teacher and with her students in relationship to race and the novice position she holds.
Significance
Analyzing this interaction allows us to see how the preservice teacher constructs her understanding of what it means to be a teacher in relationship both to the cooperating teacher's literacy practices and to her students. This study draws on and adds to extant literature in the field of early childhood preservice teacher education which illuminates the experiences and perspectives of preservice teachers of color whose voices are often marginalized (Cheruvu, Souto-Manning, Lencl, Chin-Calubaquib, 2014).

Authors

• Melissa I. Wilson, The Ohio State University

• Jungmin Lee, The Ohio State University - Columbus