Transitioning From K–12 to University Teaching: It's Safer Here, Right?

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Seven
  In Roundtable Session: Educators and Graduate Students: Simultaneous Education and Academic Work in Whiteness Environments (Table 11)

Abstract

Context & Purpose
Near the end of a tumultuous year of piloting a critical consciousness class offering for 6th-8th grade students inspired by my EdD coursework, the state of Iowa passed H.F. 802 (2021), a “divisive concepts” bill that effectively targeted many of the core concepts for the course. A concentrated effort by local parents led to an ethical complaint against my teaching license accusing me of “indoctrination” and “inciting revolt” among my students. During this same time period, as an ABD EdD candidate, I was offered a term faculty position at my institution that would align with my experience and research: teaching social justice foundations courses for educator prep students. This was a natural transition from my 15 years of teaching in K-12, with the added benefit of safety against licensure complaints and parent pushback from the growing CRT panic (“Educational Gag Orders,” 2022). However, after reading Tatum’s (2021) work on racial identity development, a familiar scene arose: an educator prep student and their parent showed up on campus to accuse me of violating H.F. 802 for “making kids feel bad about being white.” While academic freedom protected me, how does current legislation threaten our work with preservice teachers? How do I, morally and ethically, as an educator who made the decision to transition out of K-12 teaching due to such attacks, approach my work in empowering educator prep students as activist-allies, knowing that they will face similar threats to their careers?

Theoretical Framing and Analysis
I use intersectionality as a framework for evaluating my practices and others’ within educational institutions, both in my dissertation and in my working context as an educator. Hill Collins & Bilge’s (2016) Domains of Power serves as a lens through which I examine myself, my institution, and the current reality of being an educator in my state through interpersonal, disciplinary, cultural, and structural domains, and how these domains intersect with a multiple identities (Sibbet, 2020) approach to analyze how power, oppression, and marginalization operate within my current and former teaching contexts.

Scholarly Significance
I am someone who now finds herself at unfamiliar axes of power–such as being a faculty member while many of my friends and cohorts are still graduate students, or being a term faculty member with no desire to pursue a tenure-track (TT) position, where my wealth of experience and knowledge as a K-12 teacher is often dismissed or ignored by TT colleagues. In this presentation, I consider the intersections where I can best wield power to support my students, grad school cohorts, and further social justice and equity work in K-12 schools, while also wrestling with my own decisions to leave for an “easier” job. I seek engagement in how to build community between K-12, term faculty, and TT scholars who are committed to social justice and anti-oppressive practices in education, and how we can prepare future educators to face the increasing challenges while also sustaining ourselves.

Author

• Missy Springsteen-Haupt, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author