Self as the Map and Racial Literacy as the Lifeboat, Navigating Necessary Change in Teacher Education

• In Event: Transforming Teacher Education: Policy Life Rafts as Consequential Intervention During a Time of Global Chaos

Abstract

Conversations about race in teacher education happen infrequently and with great trepidation. Racial literacy provides one way of understanding and navigating the effects race has on the daily lives of teachers and students. Racial literacy is a skill and practice in which individuals are able to probe the existence of racism and examine the effects of race and institutionalized systems on their experiences and representation in U.S. society (Rogers & Mosley, 2006; Author; Skerrett, 2011). Students who have this skill are able to discuss the constructions and implications of race and American racism in constructive ways. A desired outcome of racial literacy in an outwardly racist society like America is for members of the dominant racial category to adopt an antiracist stance and for persons of color to resist a victim stance. Racial literacy is the ability to read, discuss, and write about situations that involve race or racism.

Teacher Education programs continue to graduate students who are not deeply reflective of how their backgrounds impact teaching and learning. The teacher force continues to reflect a majority of white teachers, and present shrinking numbers of BIPOC teachers. Even BIPOC teachers have not had an opportunity to self-reflect so that they can be most effective in classrooms.

A required course in teacher education programs, one that is connected to a state-level teacher candidate assessment should be a central component to teacher education programs. An assessment which involves self-exploration, probing, and understanding of where issues of race and racism live within would require pre-service teachers the necessary time and space to personalize race and recognize how it impacts their pedagogy. A course centered on developing the racial literacy of pre-service teachers and helping them understand their beliefs about students and their community dictates how much or little they will invest in them. This scholar recommends a state-wide policy change for teacher education that will require all teacher education candidates to complete a racial literacy course, and an in-depth self assessment before the completion of their program and the granting of their teaching license. The presenter discusses steps taken to move this policy change closer to reality in their state and other potential states.

Author

• Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author