Preparing Teachers to See Themselves as Part of the Village

• In Event: The Answers We Seek Are Within Communities We Research: Reimagining Schooling Through Black Communal Knowledge

Abstract

hooks (2000) reminds us that “communities sustain life. There is no better place to learn the art of loving than in community” (p. 129). Paper 1 explores this notion as it relates to teaching Black children in urban schools. Building from the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child,” this article argues that a less discussed aspect of this precept is how the village has been removed from the process of schooling our children because not all communities are valued as cites of education.
Arranged around an interview with an elder/ renown scholar/leader in the field of teacher education, this paper uses existing literature and the interviewee’s lived experiences to argue that the community is never absent in a child’s learning; more importantly, teacher educators have a responsibility to invite and include a child’s village in the teaching and learning process. Foundational to the arguments of this presentation is the belief that schools should be places where Black children about self-knowledge and express self-love, but this is current missing currently missing from the curriculum and teaching in most public schools. Instead, the authors discuss a generative change model for teacher education that positions teachers first as learners (of their students) then as transformative change agents (alongside their students). In this articulation, the learning that takes place in communities is a catalyst for liberatory practices in schools. The interviewee provides examples of young learners being excited and engaged about schoolwork when they have opportunities to learn math, engineering, and language arts while contributing solutions to problems that impact their communities. The approaches outlined in this work shift the paradigm from the teacher being the center of a student’s learning university to the community begin view as the primary educator and the teachers becoming a community partner; a generative change model can facilitate such a shift.
As a dialogue, Paper 1 does not rely on Western methods and “scholarly” evidence. Instead, this article talks to, about, through, and beyond theory and methods as the interviewer and interviewee allowed the spiritual nature of methodologies to permeate the “research” process, by inviting “my heart talking to yours [because] your heart always hears that” (Dillard as recorded by Guilford Press, 2020). Therefore, our approach more aligns with sitting at the feet of an elder to gain insight about the past and present that can shape the future.
We position this work as a necessary component of dismantling racial injustice in schooling given that Black students in underserved urban schools have and do endure significant inequities (see Blitz et al., 2020; Schaffer et al., 2018). At the same time, communities that are too often view as under-resourced can and should be regarded as a source for solutions to educational injustices alongside researchers, teachers, and policymakers. We argue that teachers and teacher educators must move beyond an asset-based understanding of students to asset-based engagement and reciprocity with families in urban communities.

Authors

• Arnetha F. Ball, Stanford University

• Iesha Jackson, University of Nevada - Las Vegas