In the Attempt: Enacting Humanizing Pedagogies and Relationalities Within Teaching

• In Event: Critical Commentaries on Teaching for Social Justice

Abstract

English teacher education has emphasized the need for pre-service teachers to curricularly center the experiences, loves, and knowledges of youth in English classrooms in ways that emphasize the relationalities and humanity of teachers and youth. Still, centering youth interests and knowledge is complicated, as this act of the "schoolification" of their desires/loves can often feel invasive and even harmful. Using qualitative research methodologies, then, we offer our conceptualization of "the attempt" within teacher education curricula, noting how a group of pre-service English teachers enacted the attempt of learning to teach in humanizing and relational ways in the midst of what is often a dehumanizing schooling environment.

Authors

• Mary Neville, New Mexico State University

• Alecia D. Beymer, Michigan State University

• Vaughn W.M. Watson, Michigan State University