“I Can’t Return to the Scene of the Crime”: Resisting Individualist Narratives of Teacher of Color Attrition

• In Event: Writing Against Racism: BIPOC Faculty and Graduate Students in Teacher Education Imagining New Pathways for Collective Justice

Abstract

Introduction
In June 2022, Qorhso Hassan, the first Somali-American teacher of the year in the United States, as well as the 2020 Minnesota teacher of the year, publicly announced she was leaving the classroom. After her announcement, which surprised and saddened many in the Minneapolis area, she was interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio to discuss the considerations that contributed to her decision to leave the teaching profession.
In a close reading of this interview, I open a new space for theorizing about the linguistic and discursive practices Hassan employs to reframe discussions about teacher of color attrition. Dominant discourses say that teacher of color attrition is situational. Drawing on black feminist epistemologies, this paper argues that Hassan’s interview disrupts neoliberal individualist narratives about why teachers of color are leaving the field (Dotson, 2015). Utilizing scalar analysis, I examine how Hassan's interview highlights the systemic and structural issues that contribute to teacher of color attrition and the possibilities of collectivity across intersecting scales.
Context/Significance
For BIPOC people, especially Black women, the necessity or responsibility of becoming a teacher has always placed an unequal and uneven burdens on to be exceptional. The intensifying of teacher attrition, while exposing the fault lines of suffering across school sites, has also been used to reproduce neoliberal logics of individualism and responsibility. A black feminist epistemology framework helps us to think about and address these inequities in ways that disrupt the neoliberal drive to make teachers the problem (Nadar, 2014). In this study, disrupting individualist narratives and logics is about paying attention to how neoliberalism impacts people differently, unevenly, and disproportionately (Morrisey, 2019). It’s also about addressing the misconceptions about teacher attrition in fair and accurate ways. An analysis of teacher attrition, especially involving teachers of color, benefits from greater engagement with intersectional and black feminist scholarship (Collins, 2015). Findings from this study show teacher attrition requires more nuanced inquiry. Specifically, systemic issues such as racialization and dehumanization play a significant role in the attrition of Black female teachers. The findings suggest the need for school officials to consider examining how everyday policies affect teacher attrition and retention. The study also highlights the importance of addressing all forms of racialized aggression in the teaching profession while also expanding the way we frame the debates around teacher attrition.

Author

• Angelina Momanyi, University of Minnesota