"Out of My Comfort Zone": Interrupting Whiteness in Teacher Preparation Through Multimodal Critical Self-Reflection Coursework

• In Event: Decentering Whiteness in Teacher Education

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the experiences that six preservice teachers in a liberal arts college in the Mid-Atlantic have with a multimodal critical self-reflection assignment in order to explore the affordances and limitations of multimodality as an interrupter of white supremacy culture in teacher education, specifically its worship of the written word and prioritization of perfectionism. Findings reveal how integrating multimodal opportunities for critical self-reflection into preservice teacher education has the potential to help liberate preservice teachers from self-surveillance of “academic” language, render visible the unconscious, and catalyze joy and wonder in ways that support their development as educators who resist the reproduction of whiteness in their pedagogy and honor the multiple forms of expression and meaning-making in their classrooms.

Author

• Kelly Gavin Zuckerman, Bryn Mawr College
  Presenting Author